IT is with great sadness that our front page tomorrow will be devoted to the end of 300 years of military history and the loss of three words which symbolise all that is best about our armed forces: The Green Howards.

A regiment with roots going back to 1688 was subsumed into the 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards) in 2006 and now that is to be consigned to history too.

Traditions are a source of great pride and inspiration to soldiers and it is a crying shame that the Green Howards, who have fought so bravely on so many battlefields, must be sacrificed as part of the Government's controversial plans for a slimmed down Army.

It is especially sad for the beautiful North Yorkshire market town of Richmond, which is so proud to be the traditional home of the Green Howards.

Most of all, it is sad for those who have served with the regiment over the years, and the families who have lost members of the Green Howards in action.

What cannot be taken away is a heritage that stretches back more than three hundred years, and in the past 100 years alone encompasses the Somme, Dunkirk, D-Day, Suze, the Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan.

And no one can take away the 18 Victoria Crosses that were so courageously earned in the name of the great Green Howards.