Early Life and Career
Van Orden was born in Waterlooville, Hampshire in 1945. He attended the Mons Officer Cadet School and was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps in 1964. He was promoted Lieutenant in 1966, Captain in 1970, Major in 1977, Lieutenant-Colonel in 1983, Colonel in 1988, and Brigadier in 1991. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) aged just 27.
He served worldwide as part of the British Army from 1964 to 1985. In 1985 he became an instructor at the German Armed Forces Staff College in Hamburg (1985–88) and was later the Chief of Staff of the British Army in the British sector of Berlin (1988–90). In 1990 he worked as part of the Assessment Staff for the Joint Intelligence Committee in London. From 1991 to 1994 he served as the Executive Secretary of International Military Staff at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, his final military appointment.
In 1995 he was appointed as a senior official in the European Commission for foreign and security policy issues. He held this post until 1999, when he was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the Conservative Party.
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