Good Morning,

If you join as an Officer and are successful at joining as a Royal Engineers (RE) Officer, you will be posted to a Royal Engineer posting once you're fully trained to be a Troop Commander. At Sandhurst, and will every person that joins the Army you will carry out 'basic' training which will include combat. However, this does not mean you can go to an infantry unit to command infanteer's. There is a few other combat related options open to you though. When I joined the RE it was 2009 and my aspiration was to serve in Afghanistan, but I wanted to be doing a more combat related role as opposed to the job I was looking at which was a Fabricator / Welder. I then found out by my recruitment centre that the Royal Engineers has 24 Commando Engineer Regiment, and 23 Parachute Engineer Regiment. This means you get the opportunity to be a Combat Engineer, as well as a Para or Commando. I found this the best way to 'get the best of both' worlds in terms of getting more combat related opportunities as well as getting a trade for life and a broad understanding of Engineering Operations.

Hope this helps.

Please let me know if you have any more questions.

SSgt Rob Needham

12 April, 2024 09:25