Patrick Sanders (British Army officer)

Patrick Sanders
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1984 – present
Rank	Major-General
Commands held	4th Bn The Rifles 20th Armoured Brigade
Battles/wars	The Troubles Kosovo War Iraq War War in Afghanistan
Awards	Commander of the Order of the British Empire Distinguished Service Order

Major-General Patrick Nicholas Yardley Monrad Sanders CBE, DSO (born 6 April 1966) is a British Army officer. He is currently General Officer Commanding the 3rd (UK) Mechanised Division.

Military career

Educated at Worth School, the University of Exeter,^[1] and Cranfield University,^[2] Sanders was commissioned into the Royal Green Jackets on 23 September 1984.^[3] He served as a junior officer in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and then undertook tours in Kosovo in 1999 and in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2001.^[1] He became Chief of Staff of 1st Mechanised Brigade in 2002 and then became commanding officer of 2nd Battalion the Royal Green Jackets in 2005.^[1] In the latter role he managed the transition of his battalion to become 4th Battalion The Rifles and then saw action with his battalion at the siege of UK bases in Basra in 2007 during the Iraq War.^[4]

Sanders became commander of 20th Armoured Brigade in August 2009,^[5] in which role he was deployed to command Task Force Helmand in Afghanistan in late 2011,^[4] Chief of the Liaison Officer to the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee in 2012 and Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Operations) in March 2013.^[6]

In Spring 2014 Sanders took part in the Prime Minister's Cobra meetings on the floods crisis.^[4] He took over command of the 3rd Division in April 2015.^[7]

He was awarded the DSO for service in Iraq on 25 July 2008.^[8]

References

1. "Major-General Patrick Sanders" (PDF). Retrieved 2 September 2014.
2. ‘SANDERS, Maj. Gen. Patrick Nicholas Yardley Monrad’, Who's Who 2016, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2016
3. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 49939. p. 16021. 26 November 1984. Retrieved 2 September 2014.
4. "UK floods: Iraq war veteran Maj Gen Patrick Sanders leads military flood response". The Telegraph. 12 February 2014. Retrieved 2 September 2014.
5. "Senior Army Commands" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 July 2015. Retrieved 2 September 2014.
6. "Army Commands" (PDF). Retrieved 2 September 2014.
7. "Court & Social". The Times. 30 July 2014. Retrieved 2 September 2014.
8. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 58776. p. 11244. 25 July 2008. Retrieved 2 September 2014.