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Major General ARD Sharpe CBE
Major General Andrew Sharpe was commissioned in to the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment in December 1979. At RMA Sandhurst he represented the Academy at boxing, rugby, water polo and golf and won the Director of Studies Academic Prize. He attended the Platoon Commanders’ Battle Course in 1980, passing with a Distinction. He assumed his initial appointment in
1980 as a rifle platoon commander, first on
operations in Belize in Central America and
then, again on operations, in Northern Ireland. Before attending the Army Staff College at Camberley in 1992 he served in 1 CHESHIRE in a variety of command and staff appointments in Hong Kong, in Brunei, and again in Belize, and was Adjutant both on public duties in London and during the Regiment’s Tercentenary based in Chester. He served twice at the Prince of Wales’s Division Depot at Lichfield, as a training platoon commander and latterly as a company commander.
After Staff College he became the Chief of Staff of the
7th Armoured Brigade (The Desert Rats), which included a
tour during the war in Bosnia in 1994 with UNPROFOR. He deployed from Bosnia to assume command of C Company
1 CHESHIRE, which included two tours in Northern Ireland. After a year as Chief Instructor at RMA Sandhurst in 1997, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and was appointed MA to DSACEUR, based at SHAPE. This tour included further involvement in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia and world-wide travel and engagement at governmental/strategic level. He commanded the 1st Battalion the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment from 1999 to 2001, based in Chepstow (which included a further tour in Northern Ireland) and then in Cyprus.
After Battalion command he was posted to the Joint doctrine and Concepts Centre as the SO1 SF; this was a brief tour which included re-writing UK SF Doctrine and then secondment to
the MoD in a small team conducting the strategic estimate and the review of UK Defence Strategy post-September 11 2001. Promoted to Colonel in December 2001 he was appointed Chief of Staff at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, during which time he negotiated the re-financing of the Public/Private Partnership. In 2003 he was posted to the MoD as Assistant Director Joint Warfare where his wide range of responsibilities included being the UK national representative on the Multi-National Interoperability Council. In 2004 he was posted to Baghdad as a strategic planner, embedded in the mainly US staff of the Coalition HQ and working directly to the 4* operation commander. In this post he wrote the Coalition Campaign Plan for Iraq: a tour for which he was subsequently awarded the OBE (and the Bronze Star by the Americans). In 2005 he attended the Royal College of Defence Studies, obtaining an MA (with Distinction) in International Studies. In 2006, on promotion to Brigadier, he returned to the Balkans as Commander Multi-National Task Force (North West) and COMBRITFOR (Bosnia) based in Banja Luka. As the Colonel of The Mercian Regiment he saw the transition of the antecedent Regiments to the new four battalion Mercian Regiment In 2008 he was appointed the Director of the Higher Command and Staff Course, and Assistant Commandant (Land), at the Joint Services Command and Staff College.
Major General Sharpe retired from the Army in 2013 having served for 34 years commanding soldiers from platoon to brigade level. His last day in uniform and as Colonel of the Regiment was the Presentation of New Colours. He is married to Lisa, an art dealer, and they have two sons, Harry and Milo. He continues to enjoy most sport (particularly rugby and golf) and also enjoys skiing, shooting, fly-fishing (and fly-tying), painting and illustrating, history and writing. As a Regiment we wish him all the best in his retirement and offer him our sincere and grateful thanks for all his service.
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