Five years ago Camberley was closed down as the site of the Army Staff College, and horror of horrors, the course was joined with the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force courses in the port-a-cabins of Bracknell. The Advance Command and Staff Course was born. Bracknell was always to be a temporary site, but where was the course to go? Bracknell was too, well RAF!!, Camberley too small and Greenwich on land which was too expensive. Watchfield was selected and a new building commissioned through a Private Finance Initiative (PFI). The grounds of the Royal Military College of Science (RMCS) were extensive and a new Joint Staff College was eased into the estate, with the accompanying 130 quarters, 2 cricket pitches, 8 tennis courts and 4 car parks.

The new Staff College or as it is more correctly known 'The Joint Command and Staff College' (JSCSC) has been up and running at Watchfield for a full year. The college runs all the staff and command courses for the three services. The Higher Command and Staff Course for one stars, The Advance Course for Majors and Lt Col equivalents through to the single service junior staff courses such as the Army Junior Division (AJD). The college has been built under a PFI; this means that the college is owned by a private company, (Defence Management), and run by a management agency. The MOD has signed a 30-year for the delivery of the college to enable the staff training to take place. The MOD therefore are tenants, the books in the library, computers in the syndicate rooms, furnisher in the messes are all owned by Defence Management; this caused a 'slight' commotion when the first Army Junior Course used the mess as a riding school and motor bike scramble track after a mess dinner. Rumour control has it that the annual cost of the college to the MOD is £25 million, and that the owners will break even after 8 years, good value for money???

The Advance Course is a 10-month residential course, attended by officers from 50 nations of all three services and civil servants. The course is designed to prepare officers for working in Joint HQs at the operational level of command. The course starts with a 12-week introductory joint phase, where each service is introduced to the other. The subjects covered are broad and wide-ranging - the concepts of globalisation, the military and civil authorities, government systems, workings of international organisations and the media. The strength of joint syndicates is that each member brings a totally different perspective; my first syndicate included an USAF F-16 pilot, a Nigerian Tank Officer, a Naval Surgeon and RAF Supply officer. The highlight of the first term were the single service visits, the RN sent us all to sea for a day in a Frigate Task Group whereas the RAF flew us round 4 of their operational stations with a number of very impressive displays (staying in hotels of course to get the full RAF feel).

Term 2 is the single component phase, all the army students are gather together to cram the Camberley course into 16 weeks. This is the estimate rich phase, estimates for breakfast, lunch and tea. The army depart in mid December to Fort Benning, Georgia, USA for a 2-week TEWT package returning on 23rd December. Why there and why then? Because it is warm, dry and cheap so we were told. December 2000 the temperature dropped to -12C with driving snow in Georgia for the first time in a generation, just our luck. The New Year starts with yet more estimates but this time at the Corps level of command, before with a great sigh of relief the single component phase ends and we go joint again for the third and final term.

The third term is split in 3 parts; the first is the Regional Study phase. The 2 trips abroad are the highlights of the course. The Eoro-tour for my course involved a 3-day visit to the Baltic States, my syndicate visited Tallin in Estonia which was fascinating. Then down to Brussels to visit NATO, SHAPE and the EU before ending in Normandy for a short battlefield tour. The US tour concentrates on Washington and Norfolk, both very enjoyable with some very good quality speakers and a ship tour of the USS Harry S Truman (a Nimitz class carrier) one of the 7 in the US Atlantic Fleet!!. I had an opportunity to meet up with Lt Col Phil Jones, who has settled into the US way of life with consummate ease, he is driving the largest car in their neighbourhood, playing golf and enjoying winding up the yanks.

The second phase is campaign planning, more estimates, campaign schematics and Centres of Gravity analysis which culminates in a free play general war game run over a two week period. The last phase is the Higher Management of Defence where we studied the workings of the MOD, budgets and decision-making. The course on the whole is excellent, the subjects covered are interesting and relevant; but the main strength of the course is the other students that you meet and get to know. In my opinion the joint nature of the course is its main strength and now that the college has settled in its new home, I am confident the college will become the envy of other nations.