page_title: Mascot
section_title: Military mascots
hierarchical_section_title: Mascot / Government mascots / Military mascots
caption_attribution_description: English: The goat mascot and Goat Major of the Royal Regiment of Wales, Cardiff, Wales. Deutsch: Die Ziege und der Goat Major des Royal Regiment of Wales Nrf: Eune biche tch'èrprésente un régînment à mênom "eune vaque à soudard"
context_page_description: A mascot is any human, non-human animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fictional, representative spokespeople for consumer products, such as the rabbit used in advertising and marketing for the General Mills brand of breakfast cereal, Trix.
  In the world of sports, mascots are also used for merchandising. Team mascots are often related to their respective team nicknames. This is especially true when the team's nickname is something that is a living animal and/or can be made to have humanlike characteristics. For more abstract nicknames, the team may opt to have an unrelated character serve as the mascot. For example, the athletic teams of the University of Alabama are nicknamed the Crimson Tide, while their mascot is an elephant named Big Al. Team mascots may take the form of a logo, person, live animal, inanimate object, or a costumed character, and often appear at team matches and other related events, sports mascots are often used as marketing tools for their teams to children.
context_section_description: Mascots are also popular in military units. For example, the United States Marine Corps uses the English Bulldog as its mascot, while the United States Army uses the mule, the United States Navy uses the goat, and the United States Air Force uses the Gyrfalcon.
  The goat in the Royal Welsh is officially not a mascot but a ranking soldier. Lance Corporal William Windsor retired on 20 May 2009, and a replacement is expected in June. Several regiments of the British Army have a live animal mascot which appear on parades. The Parachute Regiment and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders have a Shetland pony as their mascot, a ram for The Mercian Regiment; an Irish Wolfhound for the Irish Guards and the Royal Irish Regiment; a drum horse for the Queen's Royal Hussars and the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards; an antelope for the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers; and a goat for the Royal Welsh. Other British military mascots include a Staffordshire Bull Terrier and a pair of ferrets.
  The Norwegian Royal Guard adopted a king penguin named Nils Olav as its mascot on the occasion of a visit to Edinburgh by its regimental band. The (very large) penguin remains resident at Edinburgh Zoo and has been formally promoted by one rank on the occasion of each subsequent visit to Britain by the band or other detachments of the Guard. Regimental Sergeant Major Olav was awarded the Norwegian Army's Long Service and Good Conduct medal at a ceremony in 2005.
caption: The goat mascot and Goat Major of the Royal Regiment of Wales.
exif: {"Image DateTime": "2004:12:23 00:19:32", "Image ExifOffset": "58"}