{"id":80,"date":"2010-01-21T18:15:42","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T18:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forcespenpals.net\/p=?80"},"modified":"2010-01-21T18:15:42","modified_gmt":"2010-01-21T18:15:42","slug":"soldier-prepares-to-retire-after-40-years-of-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forcespenpals.net\/us\/news\/soldier-prepares-to-retire-after-40-years-of-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Soldier prepares to retire after 40 years of service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the longest-serving soldiers in the British Army is to bring his illustrious military career to an end.<br><br>Major Hugh Benson, of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, has served Queen and country in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan but will hang up his uniform next month.<br><br>He claimed his wife of 33 years is glad he will be spending more time at home instead of fighting wars overseas.<br><br>Speaking to the BBC, major Benson played down his achievements.<br><br>&quot;A lot of it happened by default. I just worried about the rank that I was and the rest followed suit,&quot; he said.<br><br>Highlights of his career include serving in over 12 countries and helping to bring peace to places like Kosovo and Northern Ireland.<br><br>Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales has thanked around 500 members of the Black Watch regiment at a service at Fort George.<br><br>Charles presented each of them with a medal and praised them for all their outstanding work.<br><br>Posted by Jenny Richards<br><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"ADNFCR-2867-ID-19570547-ADNFCR\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.directnews.co.uk\/feedtrack\/justcopyright.gif?feedid=2867&amp;itemid=19570547\"\/><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Major Hugh Benson has served in the army for 40 years.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Soldier prepares to retire after 40 years of service - Forces Penpals US<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/forcespenpals.net\/us\/news\/soldier-prepares-to-retire-after-40-years-of-service\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Soldier prepares to retire after 40 years of service - Forces Penpals US\" \/>\n<meta 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