Troops finalising plans to march through Black Country and Staffordshire towns
Local troops from the Mercian Regiment are finalising plans to march through several towns and cities in the West Midlands and Staffordshire early in the New Year.
Among those already selected are Wolverhampton, Dudley, Birmingham, Bromsgrove and Leek.
The marches will take place between Friday January 23 and Friday February 20.
Dates, times and further details will follow in the New Year but all parades will be led by the Regimental Mascot, a ram called Private Derby XXX and a full military band.
Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion the Mercian Regiment have already staged several parades.
Cheering crowds greeted around 100 troops who marched along the streets of Kidderminster to celebrate their freedom of the town at the start of this month.
They had just returned from a multinational combined-arms exercise in Lithuania that involved 2,500 soldiers from Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, US and the UK. It was organised by NATO and aimed at strengthening multinational military cooperation.
It was an emotional homecoming for 23-year-old Private James Powell, who has been in the Regiment for two years and hails from Kidderminster.
He said: "It was an extremely proud moment for me to be back home on parade in front of my friends and family."
Comrades from 2Mercian and the 4th Battalion the Mercian Regiment spent Christmas on a six month peace keeping tour in Cyprus.
