Cigars and anecdotes for Black Watch

Scottish fudge was offered around in return for the cigars

Cigars and anecdotes were circulated as the Black Watch end their controversial stint at Camp Dogwood.

The unit's deployment to the base near Baghdad generated a political storm amid reports that the request from the Americans had more to do with the presidential election than operational need.

And there has been further controversy over newspaper claims that the regiment they belong to could disappear because of government cost-cutting.

But all that was forgotten as the troops began their journey back to the UK by packing up and heading south to Basra.

The American officer most in contact with the Black Watch, Colonel Ron Johnson, went to Camp Dogwood to thank the mainly Scottish soldiers for their support.

Handing out cigars and US Marine lighters, he listened as a piper played the US Marine hymn on the bagpipes.

He told the troops: "What the Black Watch did covering wide swathes of land and blocking and holding the insurgents flowing out of Falluja and trying to move back into Baghdad was immense.

"How quickly they moved up here, assimilated and moved out into combat speaks for itself. There was a good reason for doing this and we have had some great results."

Scottish accents

The thick Fife accents of many of the Black Watch had flummoxed some of their American counterparts.

Col Johnson said: "I'm from an Irish background so I had a better understanding of some of the language but for some of my American radio operators trying to get the Scottish accent was definitely not so easy."

Mostly the British soldiers were just relieved to be finishing an assignment that had seen three of their comrades die in a suicide bomb attack, another killed by a roadside bomb, and a fifth die in an accident.

One soldier, Corporal Ally McNaughton, 30, from Perth, said: "What we faced was totally different to Basra. I think we were a wee bit naive at the start and then we changed our tactics and we got the upper hand.

"Morale did plummet after we lost people but we had to continue the mission for their sake.

"We weren't here just for the hell of it, we were here to make a difference and make sure their lives were not wasted and they didn't die in vain."