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“The Troubles: The Secret War – 50 Years On” is a presentation given by one of the Marine Memorial Club’s favorite presenters, Brigadier (British Army Retired) Roderick Macdonald MBE. This is a “not to miss” presentation for anyone interested in intelligence, counter-insurgency and the long history of Ireland and United Kingdom—a “Secret War” which lasted over 30 years, the longest continuous deployment in British Military history. Brigadier Macdonald served two tours in Northern Island during “The Troubles.” With information obtained from covert sources and his own experiences, Brigadier Macdonald will describe an internecine campaign surrounded in secrecy and myth. Brigadier Macdonald will tell the story of how politicians and British security services in the 1970s initially blundered, but eventually came up with a methodology to neutralize the IRA leading to the “Good Friday Accord” between the British and Irish Governments brokered by the US.

Brigadier (British Army Retired)
Roderick Macdonald MBE

Roderick (Rod) Macdonald is a consultant with CORE Corporate Consulting who serves as a Board
Member of Pakistan Cables in Karachi Pakistan. He lectures for the Marine Corps Logistics Operations Group,
Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command Twenty-nine Palms, the Marines Memorial Association, the US
Army Corps of Engineers and the Canadian Military.

He began his full-time civilian business career in 1994 with Commonwealth Aluminum Corporation. In
1997, he assumed the role of President of Alflex Corporation prior to moving to General Cable Corporation (NYSE:
BGC) in 1999 as head of their building wire business unit. From 2001 to 2013 he was Executive Vice President for
Global Sales & Business Development operating commercially in over 120 countries.

Macdonald began his career in military and government service. He served for 25 years as a Royal
Engineer officer in the British Armed Forces in armored, parachute and commando forces with 3 Commando
Brigade Royal Marines. He served as an infantry commander and operations officer in Northern Ireland in during
the 1970s and led 59 Independent Commando Squadron Royal Engineers in combat in 1982 in the Falklands War
where he was mentioned in dispatches. Other military appointments included tactics instructor at the British Army
Staff College, commanding an engineer regiment responsible for military engineering operations worldwide and
later an engineer brigade followed by the Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS). He ended his military career in
1993 in the rank of Brigadier when he immigrated to the United States.

Macdonald is a graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, holds a Bachelor of Science degree
(honors) in Auto-Mechanical Engineering from the Royal Military College of Science and completed the Advanced
Management Program at Harvard Business School. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in the
UK, a registered (Chartered) engineer in the UK and was a licensed Engineer (EurIng) in Europe. He was made a
Member of the Order of the British Empire, Military Division, (MBE) in the UK in 1983.

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