To my knowledge I have never met Bobby Hetherington, and now I never will.
He was killed in a roadside bomb in Afghanistan with Fusilier Samuel Flint and Corporal William Savage.
Three young Scottish soldiers, brothers in arms.
Private Hetherington was a Territorial Army soldier, one of hundreds who have served alongside their regular army counterparts on the front line in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Some 25 years ago I joined the Territorial Army and first donned the Red Hackle of the Black Watch. At that time the TA regiment was the 1st Battalion 51st Highland Volunteers. We became The 3rd Battalion The Black Watch and later the 51st Highland Regiment which is today the 7th Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland 7 SCOTS Bobby’s battalion, my battalion.
As a student at Stirling University Bobby served with Tayforth Universities’ Officers Training Corp which has produced many fine regular and Territorial Army officers who studied at Stirling, Dundee and St Andrews.
As a young captain I was posted there as an instructor. My CO said it was to “develop” my career.
I went there kicking and screaming and on direct orders. Two years later when my tour was up I didn’t want to go back to the battalion so inspiring were the young men and women I commanded at Tayforth.
To this day I am still on what they term the Unposted A List which means I can be called up for service. Unlikely, but letting go of such a big part of one’s life is not easy.
In the army the names of the battalions keep changing but the men don’t. In that respect I know something of Bobby Hetherington.
Like me he would have relished the challenge of basic training, felt the camaraderie of the military family and the honour of continuing the traditions of our regimental forebears.
We know that Bobby had an ambition to go for officer training and to attend the finest military academy in the world, theRoyal Military Academy Sandhurstmotto Serve to Lead.
There he would have had instilled in him the unique honour of leading men, as I had. The army may have lost a fine future officer.
I never met Bobby Hetherington but I know where he came from and what kind of young man he was, for in the TA there are many of them.
And with the army family I mourn him.