‘As a soldier, he’s beyond compare’: The ex-SAS war hero intent on change for the British Army

Lt Gen Sir Roland Walker, who has been selected to be the next Chief of the General Staff – the head of the British Army – has experienced more combat than probably any other officer elevated to the role in the last 40 years.

After cutting his teeth as a young Irish Guards officer in the IRA heartland of East Tyrone in 1994, Lt Gen Walker – universally known as Roly – joined the SAS and later led dozens of raids on terrorist targets while commanding the regiment’s G Squadron in Iraq from 2003.

He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 2010 for “indomitable leadership” in Afghanistan during a bloody six-month tour. Lt Gen Walker miraculously escaped injury when a Taliban IED ripped the front wheels off his 15-ton Ridgeback armoured vehicle, tossing it six feet into the air.

But perhaps the most profound lesson that Lt Gen Walker, 53, has learned in his 32-year military career took place during a gale on a desolate Otterburn training area at 2am after a training exercise in 2009.

Lt Gen Walker had just taken command of the Grenadier Guards, founded in 1656 and fiercely proud of its heritage. RSM Daz Chant, the senior enlisted man in the Grenadiers, stood smartly to attention, saluted and asked Lt Gen Walker for “leave to carry on”.

No one else was in sight. Lt Gen Walker, who had become used to the more relaxed traditions of Special Forces, said: “Sarn’t Major, if it’s just us, please don’t feel you need to go through these formalities.” RSM Chant, a huge man who towered over Lt Gen Walker, responded: “Sir, if I don’t do it, how can I expect anyone else to do it?”

The takeaway was not just that this was the Grenadier way or even about the value of doing the right thing when no one else was watching: it was the imperative to lead by example.

As Lt Gen Walker, currently Deputy Chief of Defence Staff with responsibility for military strategy and operations, waits to take up his new post next year, that exchange in Northumberland takes on a new significance.

I spent almost two weeks in Helmand with Lt Gen Walker and RSM Chant as the Grenadiers took over from the Welsh Guards in the Taliban bastion of Nad-e Ali in Helmand during the autumn of 2009.

RSM Chant had a wicked, biting sense of humour, with profanity-laced quips delivered in a Luton accent. A beloved figure in his regiment, he was a stickler for Guards standards and even dressed down Lt Gen Walker for his spiky “Dolph Lundgren” hairstyle.

Tragically, it was leading by example that resulted in RSM Chant’s death. The sergeant major lobbied Lt Gen Walker to be given command of a small patrol base called Blue 25, where the Grenadiers were mentoring Afghan police. “I want to look the guardsmen in the eye and say, ‘I’ve done what you’ve done and now I can insist on the highest possible battlefield standards’,” RSM Chant said. 

On Nov 3, 2009, RSM Chant, 40, and four other troops were shot dead by a renegade Afghan policeman at Blue 25. It was a shattering blow to the Grenadiers and to Lt Gen Walker personally, who had come to rely on RSM Chant instinctively.

“I am still reeling, and I keep turning to seek his advice,” Lt Gen Walker emailed me from Helmand after I’d flown out a few days earlier. “Funny how you miss people. Life goes on, and this place consumes every fibre of my energy. Boys doing a great job.”

RSM Chant’s death did not cause Lt Gen Walker to flinch. He led battle group operations from the front, at one point engaging in a firefight with a Taliban force attacking from the flank while a US jet swooped in and bombed an enemy compound some 100m away. It was what RSM Chant would have expected from his commanding officer.

Lt Gen Walker was born in Nairobi, where both sides of his family had settled after the Second World War, and lived there until he was eight. His parents separated and his mother moved to the Isle of Man, leaving Lt Gen Walker and his sister to split their time between the two homes until his mother died when he was 16. His father remained in Kenya until his death two years ago.

He was educated at Harrow and was sponsored by the Army to take a Reading University degree in rural land management at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester.

Once in uniform full-time, Lt Gen Walker shone immediately, winning the Sword of Honour at Sandhurst. He was the most junior of a trio of Irish Guards officers—the others were Harry Holt and Mark Carleton-Smith—who went on to excel in the SAS.

Lt Gen Walker’s first experience of operations was in Northern Ireland in 1994, when he was attached to a Scots Guards company whose intelligence officer was Ben Wallace, now the Defence Secretary. The pair shared dilapidated Portakabin-style accommodation in a fortified base in the republican stronghold of Cookstown, County Tyrone.

Their relationship was rekindled when Lt Gen Walker became Director of Special Forces in 2018, focusing on killing off the remnants of the Islamic State and countering the growing Russia threat, and Wallace was the Government’s Security Minister. 

It deepened when Lt Gen Walker, who is one day older than Wallace, was elevated to the Defence Staff, by which time Wallace was Defence Secretary. A shared history of service in Northern Ireland and the Foot Guards had led to an easy rapport between them.

Shortly after Lt Gen Walker passed selection for the SAS in 1997, he was house hunting in Pimlico. He couldn’t afford a property but he met Kate White-Thomson, an estate agent with Winkworth, and they married within a year. 

The couple have three daughters: the eldest, 24, is a chef in London and the younger two, 21 and 20, are at university. The family has had enough house moves over the past 25 years to have been given the present of their own Monopoly board depicting the 14 or so places they’ve lived. 

By all accounts, his marriage is a bedrock of Lt Gen Walker’s life, giving him the stability his childhood lacked. “They’re very, very solid and supportive of each other,” said a former Special Forces officer.

Lt Gen Walker is remarkably egoless for a senior officer but carries a reassuring aura of being in control. He explained his philosophy in a Centre for Army Leadership podcast last year. “Take it seriously, wear the responsibility lightly,” he said.

“I’m still that young Roly Walker who walked into Sandhurst on day one, I’m still exactly the same person. I’ve just had a few more life experiences. And in each job there is that risk of the imposter syndrome coming in because it’s the first time you’ve done it. But everyone wants to know that you can do it.”

Giles Taylor, a former Scots Guards lieutenant colonel and Army contemporary of Lt Gen Walker, said: “Roly’s charming, he’s professional to the nth degree and he has a full understanding of his trade. Technically, as a soldier, he’s beyond compare. So, luckily, the best guy in the Army will be leading the Army.”

Lt Gen Walker’s tenure as the Army’s head will come at one of the most challenging times in its history, as defence cuts bite, resulting in what Wallace has described as “hollowed out” armed forces.

He is expected to focus on rebalancing the Army as a medium-sized force that can integrate with the other services and Britain’s allies. He is said to believe that resisting change, and clinging to the notion that the Army can be the large force it once was, undermines military effectiveness.

Doug Chalmers, formerly a lieutenant general and now master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, said that the former SAS man should not be caricatured as a one-note Special Forces operator.

“Being CGS [Chief of the General Staff] is a tough gig right now but Roly’s got a huge swathe of joint and operational experience, and he understands from his current job how MoD and Whitehall work. So in terms of making sure the Army is fit to play its part in a future world, I don’t think there’s a better person. He listens and he takes opinion over time.”

Christopher Ghika, who retired as a major general last month and is now under treasurer of the Middle Temple, joined the Army on the same day as Lt Gen Walker. He said the Special Forces background was a major plus.

“He has a window on the world and a strategic sight which few conventional officers have. So he can make judgements on everything from UK operations right through to our response to Ukraine and capacity building in Africa.

“Roly has a very good sense of how to work the very senior echelons of government. He acquired that as Director of Special Forces, briefing Cobra and the Prime Minister. So if anybody can pitch the Army’s case at the very highest level, it’s him”