I always like to acknowledge Remembrance Day by posting something on Facebook about the people who have given their lives in the service of their country. Usually, I post a list of names of people of many nations, both ‘enemy’ and ‘friendly’, who died on active service, to honour their sacrifices.

This year, though, I’m going to bring it a lot closer to home, as well as posting it here on my blog. This is Trooper Brett Hall, of the Royal Tank Regiment (RTR). Brett was 21 years old when he died of wounds received in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. His Viking armoured vehicle was hit by an insurgent’s IED (Improvised Explosive Device, basically a home-made bomb or mine), and although he was evacuated to the UK for the very best medical treatment, he died of his wounds four days later on the 16th September, 2009.

The reason this story brings it home for me is because I knew Brett. He was from Dartmouth and was one of my son Richard’s friends at Dartmouth College. He came over to our house several times and was always a real character with an hilarious sense of humour. You can see it in his face in this portrait of him in his uniform.

It’s when something like this happens, to someone in uniform that you know, that brings it home just how precious is our freedom, and how much we owe to service men and women, both current and retired, when they enable that freedom on our behalf.

Every time I visit The Tank Museum at Bovington in Dorset, which is several times a year, I visit the RTR Memorial Wall, which is just outside the entrance to the Museum.

Brett’s name is inscribed there, and I go there to pay my respects.

Brett would have been almost 40 now, and remembering him is how I make these people’s sacrifices real to me.

I will remember him. And we will remember them.