Remembering the Fallen: on this day in 2007, Captain John McDermid, The Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, died in Afghanistan.

He was serving with 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, leading a joint UK and Afghan National Army patrol when he was killed by an IED. He had joined the army in 1983 and served – twenty-one years as a soldier and three years as an officer – in Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland and Iraq. He excelled as an instructor at Sandhurst, was commissioned in 2004, and although posted to a staff appointment there he volunteered for operational service in Afghanistan.

Lieutenant Colonel Simon Downey MBE said: “Captain McDermid was an exceptional soldier, officer and man. Deeply able, hugely energetic, and an accomplished, compassionate and encouraging leader, he rose rapidly through the ranks from private soldier to captain, excelling at every stage. As a member of the Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team, he made an immediate and thoroughly positive impact. Good natured, good company but with an inner steel, he was a very popular and key member of the mentoring team.”

John, from Glasgow, was 43 years old and married with three children.