Outgoing 2 Mercian CO praises his soldiers' COVID-19 response

The outgoing commanding officer of 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment in Cyprus has praised the way his soldiers have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

2 Mercian arrived in Cyprus two years ago as part of the Regional Standby Battalion and was expected to leave in June.

However, due to the pandemic, their time in the country was extended to November.

Lieutenant Colonel Mark Davis, Commanding Officer of 2 Mercian, said his soldiers "have been phenomenal" during his time in charge.

He said the six month delay was especially difficult for some of the single soldiers "who have not been home very much the last two years".

"That hit them pretty hard, but the way they've approached it, their professionalism, their stoicism has been truly humbling - they've been fantastic," he said.

Last year, the battalion travelled to Canada for Exercise Maple Resolve - the Canadian army's largest training exercise.

Lt Col Davis said the battalion has also sent two companies to Afghanistan, teams to Iraq and, most recently, soldiers to the Lebanese capital Beirut following the explosion there earlier this month.

"We're pretty proud of what we've done here," he said.

"The regional standby battalion hadn't really deployed for three years before we turned up and we’ve had three deployments since."

As a result, the battalion had built a "really strong relationship" with Standing Joint Forces Headquarters, he said.

"On top of that - and the bit we all sort of forget about - is just the hard yards our young soldiers have done on all the strategic sites they've been guarding," he said.

"It's not exciting but it's so important for our national security."

Lt Col Davis will soon begin his next posting as Commander of British Land Forces in Iraq.