Captain Mike Dyos, 33, had always wanted to serve his country but after he joined the regular Army in 1999 an injury during his officer training at Sandhurst saw him moved into an administrative role.

Fully recovered in 2001, he opted to leave the Army and return to civvy street. For most people that would have been the end of a chapter but for Dyos, pictured, it was the beginning of a new military career because the very next day he was at his local army recruitment centre signing up for the Territorial Army.

“I was fit enough to serve and the TA gave me another opportunity to realise an ambition,” says Dyos, who combines his TA commitments with his work as a global operations director for a health risk assessment company.

Dyos joined the 165 Port Regiment based at Marchwood military port, Southampton. He was credited with the officer courses he had completed during his Regular Army service and was promoted to the rank of captain in less than the usual two years. Training for all TA ranks generally comprises one three-hour evening session a week, one weekend a month and an annual two-week training camp in the UK or abroad, which, for Dyos, has meant trips to Germany and America.

The basic training encompasses traditional military skills, ranging from marching drill to physical fitness, weapons handling, first aid, field craft and map reading. Once completed, volunteers move on to specialist trade training based on the their prospective role within a regiment.

Dyos’s regiment, which is a part of the Royal Logistic Corps (Volunteers), provides the Army with a reserve capability in the form of port, maritime and railway expertise, but is specially skilled in loading and unloading naval vessels because it draws a good proportion of its number from workers at Southampton and Portsmouth docks.

The commercial skills and best practices the volunteers bring with them are highly beneficial to the Army.

At the beginning of the second Gulf War the 165 Regiment was able to take on the role of the regular soldiers at Marchwood, allowing them to deploy to Kuwait to set up military port services, Dyos recalls with some pride. When the bridgehead was established the TA regiment, which numbers almost 300 personnel, also provided relief for their Regular Army counterparts in Kuwait itself.

However, Dyos, who is second in command of the 266 Port Squadron within his regiment, sees this transfer as a two-way exchange, with skills acquired in the military equally applicable in the workplace. “Officer training taught me to make decisions as early as possible and that confidence to make a decision without knowing all the variables means that if I do get it wrong there is sufficient time to correct the situation,” he says.

The military’s logistical expertise, gleaned from a history of co-ordinating the movement and supply of large numbers of personnel and equipment, has also provided Dyos with skills and insights that are easily applicable to his civilian global operations role. Staff, IT, goods and services have to be organised across borders and time zones.

TA personnel enjoy the benefits of learning new skills and overseas travel while receiving expenses and a daily allowance when on duty, but for Dyos the TA means much more. “It makes me happy to know that I’m serving, that I’m giving something back.”

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