It’s a strange one, I never thought I’d be in the position where I had to defend myself over my own apparent death.
I noticed some strange searches hitting the blog just over 24 hours ago in the style of “gavin elliott dead” and “gavin elliott killed” which started raising some alarm bells. Our family name is quite strong and there are plenty ‘Elliott’s’ to go around but matching both my first and last name is not something that happens frequently.
I ran my own couple of searches which led to newspaper articles that were possibly pre-published then taken down, and further investigation in the last few hours has shown why it’s been happening.
Unfortunately/Tragically, Private Gavin Elliott of 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, was killed in Afghanistan after being shot on Thursday 3rd September.
It is very close to home, just over 3 years ago I was serving in the British Army, in the Royal Engineers. A few friends from home have been killed and some soldiers I knew of have also lost their lives. To have someone die in a war with the same name as you is eerie to say the least and I feel for his family and friends.
This, very short blog post, is a quick note to say that it is not actually me who passed away and a very big tribute to Gavin Elliott of 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment for doing something he believed in whether it was protecting the Afghan people or serving with his mates.
Rest In Peace mate.
