‘Question time’ day introduced by Army

Sep 24 2007 by Vicky Anderson, Liverpool Daily Post

FAMILIES of the next group of Merseyside soldiers to be deployed to Iraq met with Army officials yesterday to learn more about where their sons and daughters will be stationed and the importance of support from home.

Some 700 troops from the 1st Battalion Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment – with the vast majority of the soldiers coming from the North West – will be sent to Iraq in November for a six-month tour of duty.

Army officers are visiting a number of locations throughout the region this week with the aim of meeting as many families as possible to build up a strong support network for their loved ones while serving in Iraq.

Lieutenant Colonel Gary Deacon, commanding officer of the First Battalion, based in Osnabruck, Germany, was on hand to talk to concerned parents and answer questions.

He said: “We want to brief all family members, mums and dads, girlfriends and wives, tell them what we are going to do and where we are going to live, so they understand where we are going.

“It is the first time we have done this and we are hoping to speak to as many families as pos- sible, regiment-wide. The most important thing is having well-motivated soldiers that are train- ed well, equipped well, and who have a really good support base of family and friends back home.”

He said that the brief for the tour of duty would be markedly different to that of the Duke of Lancaster’s 2nd Battalion, which returned from Basra in June in what was described by its com- manding officer as “one of the toughest deployments since the war”, having suffered casualties including three Merseyside sold- iers, Kingsman Adam Smith, Kingsman Alan Jones, and Sgt Graham Hesketh.

He added: “Our brief will be very different of that of the 2nd Battalion. We have withdrawn from Basra Palace and city and we are really very much going to be providing support to the Iraqi security forces, doing what we can to get them set up for success.

“We have had high intensity training, but we have been training for much worse than what we are going to face.”

Yesterday, families from as far afield as Burton-upon-Trent and Darwen, Lancs, attended the briefing at the TA centre in Townsend Avenue, Norris Green.

Cathy Simcock, mother of 18-year-old Private Dean Simcock, from Huyton, said the meeting had been a worthwhile idea.

She said: “I think it has been very constructive, because a lot of families can go running blind into this. Although Dean’s been given all this information, he’s got enough going on in his head with going to Iraq that sometimes he can forget to tell me. His friends and his auntie have also come today, just to support him.

“I’m quite a positive person so I don’t think about anything bad happening to him out there, but my main concern is how he’s going to be when he comes back.”

Representatives of the battalion promised families they would return after the tour to address any concerns in the wake of the soldiers’ homecoming.

vickyanderson