I appreciate that chilli. I suppose it's what I was intending with this post (Not for anyone to start bawling their eyes out ). It's really odd, I keep thinking of past encounters with him & how at the time I would never of thought he'd be killed in action.
One that springs to mind is when on the kenya exercise, our section was attacking a position during a live fire exercise. Between us & the for mentioned position was a large 'bastard bush'. Aptly named due to the nature of the complaints erupting from the bush should anyone stray too close (it has 2" thorns lol). "Ooh you f*&$%^g bastard!" or words to that effect.
Anyhoo, we had to get through this 'obstacle', me being the new soldier I was, didn't have a clue what to do, all I saw was a big bush that I was NOT going through. Suddenly, Jamie's behind me screaming "GET THROUGH THAT F*&^%$G BUSH!!!!". Through I go with many "Bastard!" & "S&*T THAT HURT!". It wasn't nice but it made a hole for the rest of the section to get through & carry on the attack. That's just the guy he was - inspiring. One minute I wanted to stay where I was & hope someone else would deal with the situation, the next, I was an aggressive killing machine, hell bent on destroying that bloody bush & the paper targets 100m's behind it!
Thanks for your kind remarks