If when you think of the Army you picture smartly turned out troops marching along with guns or running about in combats in the countryside, you’d be spot on.

“All people in the Army are soldiers first,” says Colonel Paul Farrar of Army Recruiting. But the Army is about much more than basic soldiering. In the next year Farrar and his team hope to recruit 15,245 people into the regular Army and 8,741 people into the Territorial Army.

After completing basic training, Army recruits take up one of seven career streams: combat; engineering; logistics and support; intelligence, IT and communications; HR and finance; medical; and music and ceremonial. These divide into 146 trades and 1,000 jobs. “You can be a bricklayer or carpenter in the Army. You can be a railway engineer, a seaman, a dog trainer, a vet or a chef. People tend to think the Army is all marching around carrying a gun, but there are a plethora of jobs . . . We try to give people as much choice as possible, help individuals to achieve their aspirations and help them develop at a pace that suits them.”

The Army has soldiers in about 80 countries around the world. They are there for a range of reasons, including training exercises, peacekeeping missions, development projects and active duty – there are currently about 5,000 Forces personnel in Iraq and 8,000 in Afghanistan. One person who has seen active service in both of these countries is Captain Ed Perris.

Perris, who has a degree in German and geography, is a Forward Observations Officer with the Royal Artillery. His main duty is to plan and coordinate action on the battlefield using fast jets, attack helicopters, artillery, unmanned aerial vehicles and naval fire. “I am the guy who works and supports the infantry and cavalry wherever they are,” he says. “Sometimes I take a deep breath, think ‘crikey’, then ‘let’s get on with this’. It is about being confident that you can come up with the best plan and go for it.

“But it’s not just the loud, noisy, dangerous stuff – there is a more subtle side to it too.” He received language and cultural awareness training before being sent to Iraq. “We had a few words of Arabic so we could converse with the locals and show a human side to our patrols.”

Captain Stephen Hunt, 33, a civil engineer with the Royal Engineers, has also served in Iraq. Unlike Perris, Hunt didn’t join the Army directly from university. After gaining a degree in civil engineering from Newcastle University he worked for two years on a graduate scheme at an engineering consultancy before signing up.

His experience of Iraq was different too. He was employed clearing munitions and ensured that the old British Embassy in Baghdad was safe for reuse. He also carried out humanitarian duties including restoring water supplies to Basra.

Hunt, who now teaches at the Royal School of Military Engineering, has recently gained chartered engineer status. As part of this process he spent 18 months in industry. “It was good to go back into Civvy Street. There was a bit of give and take. Yes, they are better at some things but there are things we do better too.” Lance Bombardier Laura Chilvers’s experience of the Army is very different to that of both Perris and Hunt. Chilvers plays the tenor saxophone with the Royal Artillery Band. She followed in her clarinetist father’s footsteps by joining the Army to pursue her love of music. The band plays at a variety of ceremonies including investitures, Changing the Guard and Royal salutes. “The first couple of times I played at the palace I was really excited to see the Queen and Prince Charles,” Chilvers says.

There are also orchestral concerts, marching band gigs, dance band events and charity concerts. And even though only eight of the band’s forty-three members are women, Chilvers says that it isn’t a male atmosphere. “You are accepted on your instrument, not on your sex.”

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