The Coldstream Guards have a new Colonel of the Regiment.
General Sir Michael Rose, whom many of you will remember since his
days as Lt. Col. Mike Rose, Commanding Officer of 22 Special
Air Service Regiment, (particularly during the Falkland Islands Campaign)
has been appointed as the
28th Colonel of the Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards.
To commemorate his appointment, he has resurrected the following
words of the first Colonel of the Regiment from three-and-a-half centuries
ago, which still ring as true now as then:
SOME OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING A SOLDIER'S PROFESSION AND HIS DUTY.
By George Monck. First Colonel of the Coldstream Regiment
of Foot Guards
1645 The profession of a soldier is allowed to be lawful by the
word of God, and so famous and honourable amongst men, that Emperors and
Kings do account it a great honour to be of the profession, and to have
experience in it. And next to God, the profession of a soldier doth
rule or over-rule the greatest part of the world. He that chooseth
the profession of a soldier out to know withal, honour must be his greatest
wages, and his enemy his surest paymaster.
There are two things that cause men to be desirous of the profession;
the first is emulation of honour, the next is the hopes they have by licence
to do evil. As the aims of the first are virtuous, so will they do
good service.
The other by strict discipline, may be brought to do good service
and to be obedient soldiers. But if that discipline be neglected,
then they prove the ruin of an Army.
Let soldiers' resolution be never so great, and his courage invincible
in the day of battle. Yet if he fainteth under the burden of such
tediousness as usually attendeth upon warlike designments, he is no way
fit for enterprise:
because the two chief parts of a soldier are Valour and Sufferance.
And there is much honour gained by suffering wants patiently in war as
by fighting valiantly, and as great achievements effected by the one, as
by the other.
It is no virtue but a weakness of the mind not to be able to endure
want a little while, and yet it is an easier matter to find men that will
offer themselves willingly to death as will endure labour with patience.
The greatest virtue which is required in a soldier is obedience,
as a thing wherein the force of all discipline consisteth.
A soldier must always be ready to confront extremity of danger, with
extremity of valour, and over-top fury with higher resolution.
A soldier should always respect courses of honour and the public
good above his own safety., and ought to fear nothing but God and dishonour.
Let every soldier arm his mind with hopes and put on courage. Whatsoever
disaster falleth, let not his heart sink. The passage of Providence
lieth through many crooked ways. A despairing heart, is the true
prophet of approaching evil.
Reproduced by the 28th Colonel of the Coldstream Regiment of Foot
Guards, General Sir Michael Rose.