Boosting soldier numbers a priority for new CO of Royal Gibraltar Regiment
The Royal Gibraltar Regiment has a new Commanding Officer – who says his priority will be to help boost recruitment.
Lieutenant Colonel John Pitto takes over from Lieutenant Colonel Matt Moore, who had been in the role for the past two-and-a-half years.
Lt Col Pitto has been a dedicated member of the RGR since September 2005, transitioning from reservist to regular commissioned officer after graduating from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in December 2008.
He told BFBS Force News: "I'm extremely humbled to have been selected to take over command of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment.
"For me, it's my family regiment. I'm third-generation, so being able to say that I've managed to reach and become its Commanding Officer it's a great honour for both myself and my family.
"I've been very blessed that I've actually served the regiment for the last two-and-a-half years as its battalion second-in-command, so working very closely with my predecessor Colonel Matt Moore, who's been absolutely outstanding.
"Our vision is very much aligned so I think going forward what you'll see is a lot of the same.
"We'll continue to put in a lot of effort in trying to be expeditionary and continue to support wider defence outputs outside of Gibraltar, while at the same time also aiming to continue to support the outputs en bloc that we have to deliver.
"But the main effort for me will be to look at how to support recruiting efforts to grow the numbers of the regiment."
Soldiers of experience
Lt Col Pitto is a hugely experienced soldier, having deployed on Operation Herrick 15, where he played a pivotal role as a Ground Commander, supporting the training and operations of the Afghanistan Civil Order Police in Helmand Province.
His predecessor, Lt Col Moore, is a similarly experienced infanteer.
His early service was spent in Germany with deployments with both 1 Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment and the United States Marine Corps to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
He also commanded an armoured infantry platoon in Iraq, 1PWRR Mortar Platoon in the Falklands and later integrated this into a Fire Support Group for Afghanistan.
Lt Col Moore was CO of the RGR for two-and-a-half-years, a period during which the regiment was kept extremely busy.
"Over my time we've managed to deploy on operations, training or exercises to 25 different countries, including Estonia, Nigeria, the Gambia, and that's been fantastic," he told BFBS Forces News.
"I've not managed to get on many of those, but the soldiers have.
"Here, I've been mainly doing a lot of parades and in my time we've done 28 different parades with either His Excellency the Governor or the Chief Minister or Commander British Forces and in that time we've fired 419 ceremonial guns
"I'm going back to the UK and I'm going to be in the appointment of SO1 Warfare in the Land Warfare Centre at Warminster."
The Royal Gibraltar Regiment, nicknamed the Barbarians, is a light infantry regiment that's been active since 1939.
The Barbarians have a history of working in partnership with other nations' forces and also provide the UK with a Forward Mounting base in the Mediterranean.
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