The blazers, berets and regimental ties were out in force, including contingents of old boys from the Fusiliers, the Royal Artillery and, outnumbering all the rest, the Parachute Regiment.
More intriguing were those with no tie, no insignia, no medals – nothing, in fact, to suggest a military connection.
‘Just look for the scruffiest buggers you can find,’ was the advice of George Simm, former Regimental Sergeant Major of the Special Air Service when I asked him to point me towards bona fide alumni of his old regiment yesterday.
Veterans of all stripes were in Parliament Square to support the public petition demanding that the Government stops peeling away the legal protections for Northern Ireland veterans by repealing the Legacy Act.
Many of those are now facing historic claims and vexatious ‘lawfare’ under human rights laws which never existed at the time when these men were simply doing their duty.
So many people have now signed the petition – with more still signing it every day – that the Government was forced to hold a debate on the subject yesterday in Westminster Hall.
The petition is running in parallel to the Mail’s ‘Stop The SAS Betrayal’ campaign, which seeks to stop the terrorists and their supporters from rewriting the history of the Troubles in order to paint our Special Forces not as heroes who defeated the IRA and their ilk but as criminals.
Hence the presence of many SAS veterans yesterday. Some had never attended a demonstration before and were not entirely comfortable being at this one, with lots of pesky journalists like me milling around with photographers.
‘I’m not sure I should even be talking to you,’ said one who gave his name as Ian. Dressed in shorts and trainers, his only military insignia was the small black insect (a tick, it transpired) printed on his sports shirt, the unofficial badge of A Squadron of the SAS.
He had turned up because he is fed up with ‘two tier’ justice which grants terrorists immunity thanks to ‘comfort letters’ from Tony Blair but no such comfort for veterans who were simply obeying orders of the state.
‘It’s one rule for us and another for the terrorist,’ he explained. He is furious that the SAS are now being framed as rogue operators, when they had to abide by the same code of conduct and strict rules of engagement – known as the ‘yellow card’ – as every other branch of the military serving in Northern Ireland.
Take the day a well-known IRA terrorist sprayed petrol over the hedge in which the SAS man was hiding, having rumbled that he was under surveillance.
The terrorist then sent his young son forward with matches to ignite the petrol, knowing the SAS would not shoot a child. Sure enough, the SAS men ended up in hospital being treated for burns instead.
I bumped into Colonel Tim Collins, famous for his stirring address to the Royal Irish Regiment on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was here wearing his previous hat as an SAS commander.
‘All this lawfare is because the Government wants to garner plaudits from the international legal establishment and because republican lawyers know they can divert vast public funds and attack the old enemy using his own money,’ he told me.
There were plenty of Conservative MPs on parade, many with military backgrounds such as Lincoln Jopp MC, late of the Scots Guards and a four-tour veteran of Northern Ireland.
He clearly remembered the strict training on rules of engagement, but also the maxim that soldiers could safely take decisions on the basis that ‘it’s better to be tried by 12 men than carried home by six’.
He added: ‘Sadly, that is no longer the case.’
Perhaps the boldest man present was a gent standing on the edge of the throng. He was a Chelsea Pensioner in the full, splendid scarlet uniform of the Royal Hospital, who politely explained he could not comment or give his name. Everyone knew he would be in almighty trouble just for being there.
Another Chelsea pensioner (in plain clothes) explained that our man had seen so many friends killed or maimed in Northern Ireland that he felt he had to come and was not going to dress down.
He received a throaty ‘three cheers’ from the 200 or so members of Rolling Thunder, the band of biker veterans who hold regular rallies in support of better legal protections for old soldiers. They had secured official permission from the police to form their hardware up alongside the Cenotaph yesterday.
As the debate kicked off inside Westminster, they spent an hour driving round Parliament Square and along the Embankment, growling, parping and waving their flags.
One of their number, an alumnus of the Military Police who would only identify himself as Rob from Brentford, had an odd-looking passenger on the back of his Harley-Davidson. On closer inspection it was a skeleton wearing a T-shirt saying ‘Labour Loves A Terrorist.’ And not a Palestinian flag in sight.
