Remembering the Fallen: on this day in 2013, Kingsman David Shaw from 1st Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, died in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. He had sustained a gunshot wound when his checkpoint came under attack from insurgents in the Lashkar Gah district of Helmand province two days earlier.

He had joined the army in 2008, then served in Afghanistan for the first time in 2010. Upon returning home, he successfully qualified as an Assault Pioneer. As the battalion prepared to deploy back to Afghanistan in 2012, he was considered the voice of experience for the junior soldiers, not only as an Assault Pioneer but also as a qualified sharpshooter. New soldiers looked up to him and followed his example. He is remembered as being an “incredibly engaging individual” and it was said that he “was usually at the centre of any outbreak of morale and could be guaranteed to put a smile on the face of any Kingsman.”

Major Mark McLellan praised him: “As a senior soldier who had already deployed to Afghanistan, he could often be found dispensing advice or guidance to one of the many junior Kingsmen in the company. He always underplayed this, however, and probably did not realise the full extent of the effect he had on these young men. It was for this and many other reasons that Kingsman Shaw had been selected to attend a Potential Junior NCO cadre where I am convinced he would have done very well. Kingsman Shaw had been through some of the fiercest fighting we have seen as a company and always came out the other side smiling and cracking jokes. He had the ability to raise morale just by being in the room and his loss is keenly felt across the whole battalion as there are few people who did not know him. Within Corunna Company we are left hollow and saddened by the loss of our friend and comrade.”

David, from Barrow-in-Furness, was 23 years old.