“It has given me everything”
Sergeant Major Shaun Coates credits the British Army with having made him the rounded person he is today.
Having served in the UK Armed Forces for 20 years, rising to the rank of Warrant Officer, Class 2 with 1 Mercian, Sergeant Major Coates has completed six operational tours including Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
Exercise Aurora 23 was Sgt. Maj. Coates fifth Joint Expeditionary Force exercise. The largest exercise in Sweden for 30 years, involving 26,000 service personnel from 14 nations, Aurora 23 put Sgt. Maj. Coates through his paces- testing his ability to mobilise and transport an armoured infantry company and its vehicles across a continent, as well as testing his CASEVAC plan for casualties through a series of combat scenarios.
Here Sgt. Maj. Coates reflects on his career, what his life in the Army has given him and the importance of working with allies:
What made you join the Army?
It’s very much that young boy story of always wanting to be a soldier and then eventually realising that I didn’t want to do the same nine to five all day every day. I wanted to get outside and, and enjoy getting out and doing different things all the time, and that is exactly what the Army give me. It was more the physical side of thing that attracts me to the Army. I’m still here today.
What has the Army given you?
God, what hasn’t it given me? It has given me everything: confidence, reassurance. It’s built me to who I am now, it rounds you off perfectly, but it [the Army] doesn’t do it itself, you have to go and get it. You’ve got to go and do the courses, actually put yourself above everyone else and say, I want to do this now. So yeah it’s definitely rounds you off perfectly for civvy street.
20 years in you can’t imagine yourself doing anything else, but you kind of realise you have to, you can’t stay in forever. I’m 43 this year and the bones are starting to feeling it at the minute.
How many Joint Expedition Force exercises have you done?
I’ve done four — Poland and then a couple of other NATO exercises. Probably the one I remember the most, is Poland as a platoon commander, colour sergeant, and that was the first time I looked at understanding how the other nations operated and saw we were actually very much the same. So that was the first time I really understood it and that was 2015.
And how important do you think joint exercises are?
Massive. It shows that as an Army, we don’t need to have these hundreds of thousands; we’ve got the support from the other allies and that’s key. Joint exercises show that we can work together, we can operate together, we can move in a limited time anywhere in the world and that’s key. So yeah, it’s really important.
And how have you found Exercise Aurora 23?
Aurora has had its different challenges. At first, it was the not knowing; no-ones ever really come and trained in Sweden. And Sweden, has not really done much military action, really in the last 8–9 years and this is the biggest exercise they’ve done for the last 25 years. The terrain is totally different. The way they do businesses is different, it’s had its own challenges, but I really enjoyed it.
What has been your specific role on Exercise Aurora 23?
So as Company Sergeant Major we are always in charge of discipline and that that goes without saying, making sure that everyone’s got the correct battlefield discipline on different operations and making sure the company has enough ammunition for the operation. But mainly my role is making sure that my soldiers can rely on my CASEVAC plan; to know if they’re injured I can get them from the point of wounding to a Role One and then into a Role Two within that golden hour.
So it’s putting that confidence in my soldiers, to let them know that no matter what happens, what’s in front of them, I’ve got a decent, strong enough plan in place to get them out of the battlefield and then save the lives.
And did you have to execute your CASEVAC plan on Exercise Aurora 23?
Yeah. Yeah, we did (in a scenario sense). And quite a lot to be honest, we took quite heavy casualties (in the scenarios) there was a lot of armoured vehicles about especially on the last day and I think the company took all and all about 27 dead and we had about 16 casualties at one point. But we managed to do it. From point of wounding we managed to get them into a Role One in about 14 minutes and we really got to test that channel, so that was really good.
And then to hand casualties over to a Finnish battle group, with one of our own doctors sitting at a Role One, within the golden hour as well shows that we can all work together and talk together and actually communicate to get that casualty off the front line within that golden hour.
What did you most enjoy?
I think for me there were a couple things.
The thing for me, to be honest, is over here we’ve not exercised through a training area, we’ve exercised through towns and through little cities. We’ve driven through civilian little villages in Warriors, and that was really surreal. It’s like going back to Kosovo Macedonia kind of days. Even my driver turned around, to me said, ‘this actually feels like we are really at a war’ which is quite surreal, you know what I mean? Because back in the UK and a lot of the NATO exercises we have been on it’s pretty much you are locked in the zone in the training area, and but actually to see people out the windows waving as you are going past villages in a Warrior it’s pretty surreal to be honest.
And then also the the quickness of the operation. So from arrriving in country and a HET move of some three, four hours to then be driving into a middle of a training area, meeting up with battlegroup main to be given a set of orders, and then throwing the Company straight onto the front line within about an hour and a half and goes to show what we can do in quick time.
It goes to show that all the training done previously pays off. So, yeah, that was, that was really good.
What, how did you find working with the Fins and also the Swedes?
To be honest we started this, the planning for Aurora, six months ago. During the planning there’s a lot of things we had to tie down. Little things, were popping out like sorting out accommodation and all the G4 kind of life had to be done over here in Sweden by the Swedes. We had a Swedish Liaison Officer who literally asked me what I wanted and we put a plan in place and then he pretty much acted as my CQMS and put all that in place for us over here.
So really efficient, really reliable and got the job done. They take the job, really seriously the Swedes do and which is really good.
The Fins are great they are a lot like us, they operate a lot like us; very professional, very proud of themselves. And we’re really similar when it comes to our tactics and stuff with the Fins. So I really enjoyed it.
Finland have hit the money on the head straight away coming into NATO and pretty much securing themselves that way. Sweden have taken quite a long time to wake up, I feel. They changed a lot, their army changed a lot. It’s taking them the last five, six years to realise there is a direct threat out there.
Aurora shows that Sweden, all though not doing anything for 25 years [on this scale], can actually operate with other nations to host an exercise, this size 26,000 soldiers, and loads of different nations it is a big fish to fry. And to be honest, they’ve pulled it off really well.
It’s also really important to show actually we can come from the UK within a couple of weeks. We can mobilise and get here, we can bring our armour over here. We can operate within minutes of being on the ground, with other nations we’ve never worked with. We can communicate. We can follow orders. And we can kill the enemy. And that can all be done in a matter of hours, so it’s a massive sign to the world, to NATO and more importantly to Russia.
You were presented with a pukka- a Finnish knife by the Finnish battlegroup commander Col Risto?
My knife- yeah. They have so much pride in their own little things. And every soldier in the Finnish Army carries a knife and the CO said when he presented it to us that every soldier needs a knife. And it is actually really true but it also goes to show the pride they have in working with us: they are proud of having a professional army sitting working next to them, seeing how we operate. So yeah it was a really nice touch from the CO, and it is something I will keep with me.
It will go up on a shelf, because he mentioned quite a few things we could use it for, a few I probably wouldn’t. I am going to keep it and it will be a memory to look back on in years to come.
What are you most looking forward to doing now that endex is here?
While I would say some a decent meal and a beer. And a little bit of time off because it has been really busy this past year.
We’ve done Iron Fire over in Germany, then we’ve come over here for a couple of weeks, got a couple more company exercises coming home and then we’re back over in Germany for another six weeks. So trying to get some decent leave in, we could only give the lads a week’s leave over at Easter because we actually deployed straight over here. So a nice holiday a bit sun, I think.
