This Is Just A Tribute

Chances are that if you'd gone into the armed forces careers office in Portsmouth between 2009 and 2010 (vagueness is my middle name), with an interest in either joining the navy or telling somebody that you are, in fact, related to the royal family and demand to be given a pilot's licence (this happened on one occasion. The bloke in question was told that regrettably, we didn't offer pilot's licenses to people who wandered in off the street smelling of urine and dressed like an explosion had gone off on a charity shop. Or anyone for that matter); that you would have been asked to take a seat across a desk from myself. Still with me? Ok. That's because I worked as a careers advisor for a brief period and it was my job to have first contact with potential recruits and to give them information about the different types of jobs that were available in the navy.

I also had to answer a whole host of ridiculous questions about ships and numbers of press-ups needed to be done in training, and whether you could get wifi in the middle of the Atlantic...and these were usually coming from worried parents who didn't want little Johnny running away to sea without first getting a good idea of what to expect. Anyway. Whilst I was in that job (it was about a year and a half), I worked with a Royal Marine who did the same job as me, but whom offered advice to young lads who wanted to join the marine corps. We had a really good laugh most of the time and used to chat about some really (well, pseudo) in-depth subjects, ranging from politics and films, to whether or not there are secret bases on the moon mining unobtanium. 

Sometimes the job was horrendously monotonous, and as the two lowest ranked people in the office we usually got tasked off with the shittiest jobs you can imagine by our superiors (including making the tea on almost constant rotation). Happily, me and this marine got on like a house on fire and would spend about 70% of the time in the office bitching and moaning and messing around and trying to make the job more enjoyable. One time we found a box of old plastic and paper flags (they had outdated navy/marines badges on them and would've been used at recruitment events and road shows of yore) and built a replica of the Eiffel Tower out of them in the middle of the office, much to the annoyance of the army Major who ran the place. He would constantly berate me for still buying Dreamcast games on eBay, even though he would read my Dreamcast Junkyard posts laughing his head off. Basically, the guy was a really good bloke to work with and he made it bearable spending every day in such a boring office, and hopefully I had the same effect on his working day too. 

Because I was pretty new to Portsmouth and he was actually from there (well, Havant – a town just up the road), he would invite me round to his parents' house at weekends for BBQs, play Modern Warfare etc, or we would just meet up for a few beers with his other non-military mates. So yeah – if I hadn't met this guy, my life in Portsmouth would probably have been pretty dull. I would count the guy as a friend. 

His name was Corporal David O'Connor, and the Ministry of Defence yesterday released the details that he had been killed, along with Corporal Channing Day, whilst on patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. 

I hadn't spoken to Dave for ages, just exchanged a few random texts with him every now and then, and we eventually (and inevitably) drifted apart what with my departure from the services. What is very poignant though, is that the other day I was randomly looking at old photographs I've got on my computer and came across a few folders of pictures of us messing about on nights out in Portsmouth, and of him trying to get a mutual friend's pet snake to wrap itself around my head whilst I was passed out drunk on a couch. It's true that whenever somebody dies or is killed, that the press-releases from friends and family are unanimous in their praise for the victim, and I'm usually indifferent simply because I didn't know them. In this case, however, I can totally agree with the heartbreaking testimonies of how much of 'hoofing' bloke Dave was. 

Even though I only worked with him for a year and a half, and it was hardly in a warzone, I can see what kind of leader he must have been in theatre just by reading the tributes to him from his comrades at 40 Commando, and from my brief period as his oppo. 

Rest in peace mate.