Page 5 - Bugle No. 17 Spring 2021

FOREWORD
FOREWORD
By The Colonel Commandant General
Sir Patrick Sanders KCB CBE DSO ADC Gen
As I write, during another grey day in January Lockdown, it may appear that little has progressed since my last missive in our inaugural new-look Bugle magazine. This, however, belies the breadth of activity that has been on going across the Five Pillars
of The Rifles in the last six months. I have been hugely impressed by the tenacity, dedication and diligence of Riflemen across the country during a most unprecedented period.
Our strength as a large national Regiment with strong regional roots has been borne out this year with our regular and reserve Battal- ions garnering praise for their contributions
to Op RESCRIPT, Defence’s contribution to the Government’s pandemic response. To all of you who have deployed to test centres, or to drive ambulances, to assist Local Resilience Fora,
or in any other capacity, I am deeply proud of your contribution in this time of national crisis. Op RESCRIPT may not be the sort of operation we had in mind when we joined the Army, but assistance to the civil authorities is a key part of our duty to our country.
Nor has time stood still for those deploying on operations overseas; with recovery from and deployment to; Estonia, Kabul, Mazar e-Sharif and an historic handover of opera- tions in Cyprus between two of our Reserve battalions. I have also seen great ingenuity and innovation across the Regiment as we find new ways of achieving our goals in spite of restrictions imposed by the pandemic.
In that same spirit, we have re-examined and refreshed The Characteristics and Foundations of The Rifles, to ensure they are fit and relevant for The Rifles in 2021. As ever, we have not lost sight of our roots and how or why we were created, but we must ensure that our character and ethos is appropriate for the society we serve. I would ask you all to seek out the Characteristics and Foundations of The Rifles on Swift, to read and understand it, and to engage on it with those in your chain of command, both up and down, and your peers.
By the time this edition goes to press,
we may well have seen the outcome of the Government’s long awaited Integrated Defence and Security Review. Have no doubt that, whatever the outcome, we will be entering
a new era for Defence, the British Army and
for The Rifles. We must not shy away from
the hard realities that a shift in the national security challenge, and the resources we
have to face it, will bring. Our founding fathers created The Rifles in 2007 to be a regiment that would adapt to serve the nation’s needs as best it could. We must be true to our ethos as a regiment at the forefront of innovation, and make the case strongly for the benefits and obvious strengths of our regimental model and its county and regional links.
So 2021 lies ahead of us. It will bring with it many of the challenges that we faced in 2020, with the growing light at the end of the tunnel as the vaccination rollout gathers momentum. As we surmount these trials, I would ask you to remain engaged with the Regiment on Swift, our digital platform that has grown and delivered so much benefit in the last year.
To those deployed on operations, or preparing for deployment, and to your families at home, thank you for your continued dedica- tion and hard work, and good luck. And to all...
Swift and Bold
RIFLES The Bugle 5