To start this journal I will have to go back to that day, 29th august 1993 the day when my life as I knew it came to an abrupt end. It started out just like any other Sunday, as I worked through the week Sunday was always a busy day catching up with all the housework and preparing dinner,my daughter Arlene her boy friend Brian my youngest son Dean and myself finished dinner around 5pm.and were just settling down to watch a film, around 5.10pm I saw a police car pull up outside the house I knew my daughter had been a witness in an assault case so I thought it was about that,It never even occured to me it might be about J.P. I had just spoken to him at 9pm the previous night,he was just leaving camp to go and meet a girl he had managed to get a lift from a soldier in his troop so him and his friend Chritian were heading into Hamburg, he told me he had just bought a car and as usual we argued about what kind of insurance he should get, he said third party I said fully comp. I won but only if I payed the difference, I agreed, that was the last time I spoke to him. When I opened the door the policeman asked if he could come in, so we walked into the sitting room I remember I was holding a cup of tea at the time then he asked if I had a son John Paul McMurray serving in germany,I remember telling him to stop I didn't want to hear but he kept talking I sat my cup down and started to walk out of the room but I could hear those words every parent dreads "I'm sorry to have to inform you your son John Paul McMurray has been killed in a road traffic accident" I was screaming at him to stop but he didn't the next thing I remember was my daughter helping me up of the floor. The policeman told me he did not have any details but that the army would be in touch later that evening. It was about 9pm when a Cpt. Colclough arrived he still did not have all the details but he told us that John Paul his friend Christian Powell and the guy they had got a lift from Ian Richardson had all been killed when the car they were in had collided with an articulated lorry at around 3.30am that morning, but because it was a bank holiday weekend there had been a delay in informing us, seemingly it had been on the news all day but I had not heard it. He told me he would be back in touch when he had more to tell us. The next week was a nightmare we were getting bits and pieces of information but still no date when his body was coming home Cpt Colclough was not very helpful he was supposed to be my casualty officer but seemed not to be that interested. It turned out that when J.P. had been home on leave at the beginning of August he told one of his friends Angie that when he went backto Germany that he had a feeling he would never come home again, He told her to tell me he wanted a military funeral with a piper,a gun salute and he wanted his favourite song Brothers in arms, played in the church. When I told Cpt Colclough this he told me J.P. was not entitled to a military funeral as I had chosen to have his body brought home so it was up to me to arrange everything not the army. Fortunately he was due to go on holiday so I was handed over to another officer,Major Norrie Donald. He took over all the arrangements and made sure the funeral would be done the way J.P. wanted it. The funeral finally took place on tuesday 14th Sept. it was so busy we even had a police escort because of the amount of people that were there, they coned of the street at the church and at the cemetary, everything went to plan a Union Jack on the coffin, a six gun salute and a piper playing in the back ground, all thanks to Major Donald, and for that I will be eternally grateful to him.