Brave young men and women of The Black Watch will be honoured this week.
Campaign medals will be awarded to The 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland (3 SCOTS) at their base at Fort George on Friday.
The soldiers The Jocks as they are affectionately known returned from a gruelling 6-month tour of duty in Afghanistan in April having risked their lives on a daily basis.
Time and again they came under fire from a stubborn Taliban resistance in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand Province.
Now, having enjoyed a heroes’ welcome from communities in their traditional recruiting grounds of Tayside and Fife as they undertook a series of homecoming parades, there comes official recognition of their service.
Medal recipients will be presented to a party of dignitaries including Lord Lieutenant of Moray Grenville Johnston and their commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Edward Fenton.
Around 450 soldiers were deployed to Afghanistan last September as part of 20 Armoured Brigade. They were given the task of sweeping insurgents from a 4,440 square kilometre area of central Helmand.
The battalion joined Afghan security forces on a series of dangerous operations that saw them come into contact with the enemy and cross areas mined with improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Their number sustained a number of injuries, some of them serious.
Following their return to Scotland, the battalion’s men and women were described as ”Scotland’s finest” by Lt Col Fenton.
He said the soldiers had ”performed superbly under intense pressure”.
The presentation at Fort George will precede by a day the ”laying-up” of the old regimental colours at a service of de-consecration at the 51st Highland Division monument on the North Inch in Perth.
The colours were presented to the regiment by the Queen Mother at Birkhall in 1995.
In 2011 the Royal Regiment of Scotland of which The Black Watch is now a battalion received new colours from the Queen at Holyrood Park in Edinburgh.
The colours of the 1st Battalion, 51st Highland Volunteers, will also be laid-up during the ceremony, with both sets of colours set to find a new home in Balhousie Castle, spiritual home of The Black Watch.