TA soldiers will lose Back Badge

TERRITORIAL Army soldiers in Gloucester will no longer be able to wear the famous Back Badge on their every-day uniforms.

The reservists will now wear the badge on their ceremonial dressonly.

The badge was awarded to the predecessors of The Gloucestershire Regiment for fighting back to back against the French at Alexandria, Egypt, in 1801.

The famous badge has been worn, on the back of their caps, as a symbol of pride by Glosters soldiers ever since.

The badge was nearly lost when the Glosters merged into the new 1 Rifles Battalion in 2004, but a campaign led by The Citizen and backed by thousands of readers managed to save it.

Under a compromise, the cap badge is now worn by soldiers in barracks on their side caps, by TA soldiers and cadets as well as on ceremonial dress for the whole of the Rifles regiment.

However, TA soldiers will now wear the same uniform as their full-time colleagues, meaning the badge will only appear on ceremonial uniforms.

Lt Col John Poole-Warren, Regimental Secretary of The Rifles, explained: "Apart from the cadets , we keep our combat uniforms as plain as possible, and it has been decided that everyone will now wear the same uniform. This has been driven as much as anything by TA members themselves.

"We very much honour the privilege of wearing the Back Badge on our ceremonial uniforms, alongside all of the other honours that were bought across when we created the regiment."

A TA soldier, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: "We were always proud to wear the Back Badge and it's sad to see it disappear from the uniform. We only knew it was going when we were told to remove it from our hats."