Officer's thanks to county for support

The new commanding officer of an Army regiment based in Shropshire has thanked the county for all its support ahead of a deployment to Afghanistan in October.

Lieutenant Colonel Colin Weir replaced Lieutenant Colonel Ed Freely in March as commanding officer of 1st Battalion the Royal Irish Regiment, based at Clive Barracks, Tern Hill, near Market Drayton.

In October he will join hundreds of soldiers as they begin a six-month tour of Helmand province supported by artillery, engineers, medics and Royal Military Police.

And he said Shropshire has provided the perfect backdrop as his troops put down roots in the county as they prepare for conflict.

"From the perspective of a commanding officer the welcome we have had in Shropshire has been exceptional," he said

"The part of Shropshire we live in is not unlike rural parts of Ireland. The reasonably gentle pace of life is something we are used to and it's great that people seem to have more time for each other because we like to think of ourselves as people people.

"There can be a fear in some communities when they hear the Army is coming to live there, but not in Shropshire.

"We have become part of the community very quickly because of the nature of Shropshire and the nature of the battalion.

"And walking through Shrewsbury or Market Drayton I've seen people I don't recognise wearing 'support the Royal Irish Regiment' wristbands, which is really encouraging for us. When we last returned from Afghanistan we had homecoming parades in Shrewsbury and Market Drayton and the lads were really moved by all the support they never knew they had."

He added that the ties between the regiment and its new home are beginning to attract local recruits with some from Telford and the West Midlands signing up since its arrival in Shropshire.

Lieutenant Colonel Weir also said his soldiers had undergone "first class" counter-insurgency training at a state-of-the-art MoD facility in Norfolk where there was a mock Afghan village designed to put them through their paces.

He added: "I want to leave the area that we are responsible for a better place than we found it for the Afghan people. That's why we are going there and that's what we must achieve with the minimum number of casualties and minimal amount of fighting."

The regiment is due to return to Tern Hill in April 2011 and, to mark St Patrick's Day while they are on tour, shamrocks will be flown out to Afghanistan as a morale booster, he added.