He was conscripted into the army for National Service in September 1953 and was sent for officer cadet training at Eaton Hall, Cheshire before attending the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

[4] He was promoted to lieutenant on 27 July 1958,[5] served with the 1st Battalion the Green Howards in Hong Kong and Germany, and was deployed on operational service to Malaya during the Malayan Emergency.

[6] Appointed aide-de-camp to the General Officer Commanding 4th Division in 1960,[1] he was promoted to captain on 27 July 1962,[7] and made adjutant of the 1st Battalion the Green Howards in 1963.

[1] After working in the Ministry of Defence, and being promoted to major on 31 December 1967,[8] Inge returned to the 1st Battalion as a company commander in 1969 and was deployed to Northern Ireland.

[25] After stepping down as Chief of the Defence Staff, he was created a life peer as Baron Inge, of Richmond in the County of North Yorkshire, in 1997.

[29] In 2004 Inge was made a Privy Counsellor and appointed to serve as a member of the Butler Inquiry team, which examined the use of intelligence during the Iraq War.

[30] He was critical of the British handling of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, reportedly saying in 2006 that he "feared we had lost the ability to think strategically".