Black Watch soldiers sent to Iraq for a third frontline tour in four years have returned safely to a heroes' welcome at their home base at Palace Barracks on the outskirts of Belfast.
A 116-strong rifle company from the unit, now 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland, spent almost seven months supporting a Danish battlegroup in Maysan province along the Iranian border in the area to which Prince Harry is about to be deployed.
The entire battalion has already completed two tours of duty in Iraq, including spearheading the attack on Basra in 2003 and a second stint in support of US Marines south of Falluja in 2004.
Eight of its soldiers were killed, seven during the second tour from bombs and suicide attacks in the Sunni Triangle north of the usual British sector.
Major Ben Wrench, the company commander, said yesterday he was relieved to have brought all of his men back in one piece, although he said the tour had "not been without its hairy moments".
Major Wrench said his men had been ambushed and had taken part in close-quarters action during the tour, but had responded to insurgent attacks "robustly and successfully".
The Scots also helped refurbish schools, hospitals, roads and water purification plants.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article