Well-earned cuppa as battalion returns to Shropshire
They have spent the past six months in the searing heat of Africa, but now members of a Shropshire-based battalion have come home.
Twenty-one members of the 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment have returned to the barracks in Tern Hill, near Market Drayton, after taking part in an operation to train the armed forces in Mali.
They took part in drills and passed on their skills to Malian soldiers in temperatures well exceeding 40C during the tour.
The regiment was deployed in support of the ongoing EU Training Mission as part of wider efforts to build long-term stability in the Mali. During the tour it trained two full companies of the Malian Army in combat and counter insurgency operations.
For the Shropshire-based soldiers, it proved to be a very different tour from the one they did in Afghanistan three years ago, when they were on the front line and invol-ved in daily operations fighting insurgents.
The homecoming following that tour was also very different and was tinged with sadness because the regiment lost three soldiers – Ranger Aaron McCormick, Ranger David Dalzell and Lance Corporal Stephen McKee.
The soldiers returning home from Mali said their biggest challenges on this tour were the language barrier and climate.
