In 1982, he was mentioned in despatches for his actions during the Falklands War, his part in rescuing sixteen SAS troopers from Fortuna Glacier in South Georgia and for the detection and disabling of the Argentinian submarine Santa Fe.
[8] As a commodore, he was Director Operational Capability in the Ministry of Defence (2000–2003) and then Commander Amphibious Task Group from September 2003.
[10] He was promoted to rear admiral in January 2005 when he became Director General, Development, Concepts and Doctrine, a role he held until 2008.
[14] On 12 June 2010, in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he described the planning for the UK's 2006 deployment of 3,300 troops to Helmand Province in Afghanistan as flawed, relying too much on lessons from Borneo, Malaya and Northern Ireland.
The subsequent BBC News article quotes him as saying that senior commanders had obdurately resisted "ditching the lessons from the past", preferring these to the "radical and progressive ideas" which were needed.