He joined the British Army after finishing school, and attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for officer training.

[1] Stanford was commissioned into the Welsh Guards in 1987,[2] and saw active service during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, for which he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in October 1993.

[3] He went on to become commanding officer of the 1st Battalion the Welsh Guards, in which capacity he was deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina on peace keeping duties in 2006.

Stanford saw active service during the Iraq War, where he served as an advisor to the Head of the Iraqi Army in 2009.

[1] Fiona wrote the book Don't Say Goodbye: Our Heroes and the Families They Leave Behind, which is a compilation of her experience as a military wife and stories of wives, girlfriends and children of other Welsh Guards deployed to Afghanistan.