Remembering the Fallen: on this day in 2013, Sapper Richard Walker, 28 Engineer Regiment, attached to 21 Engineer Regiment as part of the Task Force Helmand Engineer Group, was killed in Afghanistan. He was shot in an ‘insider attack’ by a member of the Afghan National Army at Patrol Base Hazrat in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province.

He had been working on a construction task with other military engineers from his Troop - as part of the preparations to hand the camp over to Afghan security forces - when the Afghan soldier turned his weapon on ANA and ISAF soldiers at the base. Other soldiers were injured, but Sapper Walker was pronounced dead at the medical facility. http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/richard-reginald-walker-inquest-details-6298850?fbclid=IwAR3NRymW_QIP8Vnf16OEGTSQ7ir4IZRFtk11S0KWnqiVJbxdLsn3btVIc40 Sapper Walker is described as a bright cheerful young man who said that in the army he was living his dream. He had joined up in 2008, and deployed to Afghanistan three months before his death. Lieutenant Colonel Jack Nicholson spoke highly of him: “In the short time that Sapper Walker served with my Regiment he struck me as being a driven young man, full of ambition and oozing with professional pride and confidence. An outstanding soldier in the best traditions of The Corps of Royal Engineers, he made an immediate impact on all those who had the privilege of serving alongside him. Although on his first operational tour, he acted like a veteran of many years’ experience and clearly relished the challenges he faced with his Troop in Afghanistan. Hard working and utterly loyal to his mates, he was a real character who had established himself as a man of action within his adopted Squadron.”

Richard, from Leeds, was 23 years old and left behind an eighteen-month-old daughter.