Farewell to regiment (From Witney Gazette)

Farewell to regiment

2:19pm Monday 5th February 2007 in Witney By Nione Meakin

SOLDIERS and officers said farewell to Oxfordshire's Royal Green Jackets at a ceremony on Saturday.

The Green Jackets has been renamed and rebadged, as they become part of The Rifles, now the British army's largest infantry regiment.

It is all part of a Ministry of Defence reorganisation of our Armed Forces, and the regiment is one of four to merge.

The Rifles has also swallowed up the Devonshire and Dorset Light Infantry, the Light Infantry and the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Light Infantry.

In Oxford, the Green Jackets' Territorial Army (TA) Infantry battalion, the Royal Rifle Volunteers, rung the changes with a ceremony at its headquarters at Slade Park Barracks.

Officers and soldiers on parade were presented with new cap badges, belts, and rank slides. They are one of two TA battalions included in The Rifles, along with the Rifle Volunteers.

It is hoped the merger will bring part-time TA battalions more closely in line with the regular army.

The ceremony was led by Brigadier Nigel Mogg, honorary colonel of A-Company, and attended by Oxford Lord Mayor, Jim Campbell, former city councillor Bill Buckingham and Private Davey Craig.

Private Craig was a member of the fourth battalion of the Oxfordshire and Bucks Light Infantry, and was captured in France during retreat to Dunkirk.

Brigadier Nigel Mogg said: "Those of us who have served for very many years in the Royal Green Jackets can tonight be excused for a brief moment of sadness and regret. The Royal Green Jackets becomes history.

"For 41 years, the Royal Green Jackets has been at the forefront as a rifle regiment, always in the thick of operations, be it Northern Ireland, Borneo, the Cold War, United Nations peacekeeping, Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan.

"The Green Jackets, in true rifle fashion, always look forwards, not back. In 1966, we set the pace for large regiments in the Army with the formation of the Green Jackets. Now, we set the pace in the formation of The Rifles."

The Royal Green Jackets was formed in 1966 in the guise of the Green Jacket Brigade, a collection of regiments, put together after the Second World War. In 1968, it became the Royal Green Jackets.

The new Rifles cap badge incorporates the bugle horn from the centre of the Royal Green Jackets badge, and the crown has also been taken from the same badge.

Major John Skilros, the officer commanding A company, said: "It's a mixed day. Certainly, there are members of the regiment who have served for a long time in the Royal Green Jackets, and who have put in virtually all of their military lives under this cap badge.

"As a family, the Royal Green Jackets is known to look after its people and as a family, we do feel a tinge of sadness.

"However, the Royal Green Jackets come from a long line of British Army regiments that are quite capable of coping with change and turning it to their advantage."