Guys and Girls, a widow needs your help
 

Please sign, I have.

Rank and Pension of Soldiers Killed on Active Service | Petition of Soldiers Pensions

Just A Legal Query
 

I apologise without reservation if my comments appear offensive: they are not intended to be but are to clarify the position.

In some regiments, there is the rank of: Lance Sergeant. This rank is somewhere between a corporal and a 'real' sgt (an expert will explain better than I). The Guards have this rank and soldiers who are full sgts are called 'gold sgts' when on parade because their three stripes are in gold and a lance sgts are in white (I think).

If Sgt Telford was a lance sgt, was his paid rank corporal or sergeant? This fine point might have some bearing on what his widow is paid by way of pension. I realise that there may be an 'injustice' if he was doing the job of a full sgt (as these jobs in the front line don't necessarily rely on some 'establishment') but it might have influenced the decision on widows pension.

How many MPs have taken up/been asked to take up this matter with Liam Fox. Pressure on the MOD after a soldier was killed in Sierra Lione, got pensins paid for longterm partners iirc.

I'm 'signing' by the way.

O-D

I believe that this has already been resolved.

Matthew Telford's family to receive full sergeant's pension

I never sign a petition no matter how worthy the cause because once signed I have then no control over what it is used for.

When I was in they were just corporals, Lance Sergeant was nothing special just name and a thing the guards division did.

The guards have lance sergeants because they don't have lance corporals, therefore the first promotion to JNCO rank is to corporal. Some long serving guardsmen held the appointment of 'trained soldier', and wore a sleeve badge to indicate this, but I am not sure if this was a substantive rank, although the trained soldier expected the same respect due to an NCO. My father was a lance sergeant in the Scots Guards, but I have official photographs of him at the depot which describe him as sergeant, not lance sergeant. He certainly wouldnt have been impressed that his rank was "nothing special" gsa!

Glad this widow is getting the higher pension, natural justice being applied rather than the letter of the law.

You are incorrect there are LCpls in HCav and the Guards, however they wear two stripes and look like Cpls. So the rank strcture goes:

HCR Ft Gds

LCpl Two Stripes & Crown LCpl Two Stripes
LCOH Three Stripes & Crown LSgt Three Stripes
COH Three Stripes & Crown Sgt Three Stripes
SCpl Four reversed Stripes & Crown CSgt Three Stripes
SCM (WO2) Small Crown CSM Small Crown
RCM (WO1) Royal Arms RSM (WO1) Royal Arms

This Could Get me ...........
 

............ severely slapped down - BUT -

I thought a colour sergeant wore three stripes and a crown on normal kit and on the crimson tunic, three gold stripes with a colour cypher (not a good description) superimposed on it. On their peaked caps there are all sorts of stripes around the brim which mean something to those 'in the know'.

BROWNJOB - please clarify!!

Brown Job - let's leave aside the cavalry in which confusingly just about everybody is a corporal of sorts! My point was that although you are correct in that these are the substantive ranks, the terminology in the foot guards does not (or did not) include the term lance corporal, and lance sergeants are/were normally referred to as sergeants. All my father's paperwork which survives (duty rosters, etc) refer to him as "Serjeant (sic) *****", although no doubt on his paybook he was listed as Lance Serjeant *****, and paid as a corporal.

By the way, as a matter of interest, does the appointment of Trained Soldier still exist?