<\/p>\n
Soldiers from 1st Battalion The Rifles have paraded through the streets of Chepstow in celebration of their return home to Beachley Barracks after two years away in Cyprus.<\/p>\n
There was a real sense of attachment between the local community and the battalion as wellwishers of all ages lined the streets to welcome the Riflemen home.<\/p>\n
The event was attended by Brigadier Robert Aitken, the Lord Lieutenant of Gwent, who thanked everyone who turned out to welcome the infanteers home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
“Thank you for the way you have come out today to pay your respects,” he said.<\/p>\n
“And not just today, but two years ago as well, when you stood here to say goodbye to the battalion in equally impressive fashion.”<\/p>\n
Lieutenant Colonel Simon Burkill, the CO of 1 Rifles, also expressed his gratitude to the community on behalf of the battalion\u00a0\u2013\u00a0before ending with a tongue-in-cheek apology that the unit’s new vehicles were likely to add to the traffic around town.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
1 Rifles was deployed to Cyprus between 2023 and 2025, a period framed by what continues to be a particularly challenging time for the region, with affairs being shaped by the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.<\/p>\n
The battalion deployed in a variety of non-combat roles across the Middle East in response to the conflict.<\/p>\n
During their time in Cyprus, the infanteers continued to protect vital UK strategic infrastructure installations\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and also helped deal with local wildfires.<\/p>\n
In their downtime, Riflemen of all ranks were able to engage in a variety of water sports, adventure training and cultural engagement.<\/p>\n
1 Rifles will now re-role from Light Infantry to Light Mechanised Infantry, which\u00a0will see the soldiers use vehicles such as Foxhounds and Jackals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Soldiers from 1st Battalion The Rifles have paraded through the streets of Chepstow in celebration of their return home to Beachley Barracks after two years away in Cyprus. There was a real sense of attachment between the local community and the battalion as wellwishers of all ages lined the streets to welcome the Riflemen home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[53,1576,206,1574,1573,1575,1577],"class_list":["post-4959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cyprus-news","tag-cyprus","tag-heat","tag-home","tag-infanteers","tag-rifles","tag-swap","tag-warmth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}