Page 58 - Mercian Eagle 2014

56 THE MERCIAN EAGLE
Foreword
Since the 3rd Battalion The Mercian Regiment was formed on 1st September 2007 in Tamworth Castle, the Battalion, formed initially with from soldiers from
The Staffordshire Regiment and later by those from the wider Mercian region;
has deployed on two Operational Tours
of Afghanistan, conducted an 18 month intensive period as Land Warfare Centre Battle Group, deployed to Canada on exercises and conducted an arms plot
to Germany. As I write the last soldiers
from the Battalion leave Germany to join
the 1st and 2nd Battalions, who will both now have ‘Staffords’ in their title. The 3rd Battalion Colours have been handed over to Regimental Headquarters for safe keeping until they are laid up in May next year.
The 3rd Battalion has been a pivotal element to the Army in this period of protracted conflict and the officers and
men who have served with it have done their county, the county and their region proud. Our articles include the last tour
of Afghanistan completed by a Mercian Battalion. The excellent work performed
by A Coy, C Coy and the Kandak Liaison Team are all summarised and I am grateful to those who wrote these important articles. Their comments about the work performed by our Afghan allies are particularly pertinent. Everyone person who deployed did the Battalion proud and my advice to very section and every platoon is stay in touch with each other for the rest of your lives and let people know what you did and what you achieved.
In the Battalion’s final week in existence, we moved back to Swynnerton Camp and paraded through nine cities and towns that we have strong links with. These are also shown in the journal and whilst nine parades in six days was hard work and involved some nifty planning, it was a superb week for our young soldiers to be cheered by so many members of the public. It was a great honour to hold medals parades in all nine town halls. It was a tremendous honour for
the 3rd Battalion to accept the Freedom of Cannock Chase on behalf of The Mercian Regiment. The final parade in Lichfield on Sunday 28th June in the City of Lichfield and the Welcome Home service in Lichfield Cathedral was about as historic occasion that any service man or woman will ever experience. We completed the run home and then ended up back where it started, the King’s Head public house, where Colonel Luke Lillingston raised his Regiment way back in 1705.
The change of the Regimental title to ‘Cheshire, Worcesters and Foresters
and Staffords’ and the equal movement
of soldiers will ensure that the history, traditions and heritage of the battalion are carried forward and continued in to the future. The soldiers from Staffordshire will continue to fight for their country and we must ensure that the same public support that was given to the 3rd Battalion by the people of Staffordshire is now given to the remainder of the Regiment. So we all draw a new line and move forward and take
our great history into the new 1 MERCIAN and 2 MERCIAN. Linking the past with the present, here are some the nicknames of our forebears:-
• The North Staffords were once described as ‘indomitable fighters’.
• The Sherwood Foresters were ‘the Old Stubborns’,
• The Cheshires were the ‘Lightening conductors’,
• The Worcesters were the ‘Ever Sworded’. • Finally the South Staffords were once
described as ‘a fine old midland county regiment with few frills, but plenty of guts’.
All these descriptions are a variation of or
part of ‘Stand firm and strike hard’. Finally we must remember those who
were wounded in action, whose spirit even now struggles to recover. The fallen and the families who are left behind.
God bless those we dine with
and all our brothers in arms, wherever they may be, So in sharing together,
firm we will stand,
hard we will strike,
and by this, be all we can be.
3MERCIAN