ELEMENTS of 1st and 2nd Battalion The Rifles were presented with operational medals by HRH The Duke of Kent last week for playing their part in an overseas operation.

They were deployed in Iraq as part of Operation Shader in a force protection role to Royal Engineer units who were tasked to train the Iraqi forces against the Islamic State of Iraq. Elements of the British army were split between training the Peshmurga in the north and the Iraqi army in the south in infantry tactics, bomb disposal, field engineering and first aid.

Adjutant, Captain Simon Reed, explained that 1 Rifles were tasked with force protection split between three areas; Besmaya and Taji in the south, allowing the engineers to teach counter-improvised explosive device (IED) work to the Iraqi army without fear of attack, and Erbil in northern Iraq to train the Peshmurga to fight Da’esh.

The operation began in Iraq on 26th September 2014, following a formal request for assistance by the Iraqi government and 1 Rifles were there between July 2015 and January 2017.

A Corporal who lives in the Monmouth area said that he felt lucky to get out there, “it’s an experience seeing a different way of life.”

He explained the Rifles formed an armed force protection unit working with Foxhound vehicles and providing “a protective bubble so the engineers could relax and provide the best training they could to the Iraqi forces. We were teaching them how to protect themselves from the enemy and how to use some of the more advanced equipment they have been given.”

Corporal Tony Honey spent six months training Peshmurga and running communications. He said: “It was good, I enjoyed it, I got to go out a few times but mostly the day was ‘train, gym and repeat”.

Corporal Goodman, lives on Beachley Barracks and was deployed in January 2016 at Besmaya, a forward operating base (FOB) outside Baghdad. There the British army was training the Iraqi army in counter IED drills who then went north to retake mosul. Corporal Goodman was in control of all the communications between the FOB, other locations in Iraq and the link back to the UK. He is being deployed with the battalion on Operation Torel next March.