FALKLANDS veteran Chris Caroe is remembering fallen comrades 30 years after Britain went to war with Argentina when its forces overran UK territory in the South Atlantic.

As a 21-year-old troop commander, Chris started the campaign a boy but came out a man after he led 32 Royal Marines into battle and helped liberate the Falkland Islanders.

Today Chris, a member of 45 Commando Royal Marines, lives in Canadian Avenue, Hoole, with his wife Sue and their sons Michael, 26, and Justin, 22, having enjoyed a successful career in the food industry.

Despite the horrors of war, he candidly admits 1982 was a time in his life he ‘wouldn’t have missed for the world’.

His Commando saw action on Two Sisters mountain where the fighting was intense and four comrades were lost.

“There’s a real adrenalin rush. The fact it was dark, with a bit of moonlight, then it clouded over and snowed a bit, then cleared again.

“All the time you were moving up the hill and you were looking for the flashes from the enemy, you could hear the bullets whizzing overhead and the mortar rounds bouncing about the rocks around us.”

Intense training meant destruction of the enemy was instinctive.

“You knew there were no friendly forces in front of you so anything that appeared, straight up, boom, next one and you carried on.

“You didn’t think of it as a person. It was only when you look back on it and you saw the bodies on the position and you thought ‘well, who’s was that’ and ‘was I responsible for it’ or whatever?”

Despite being a conscript army, Chris says the Argentinians were a force to be reckoned with because they were led by skilled regulars. He carries a certain amount of guilt for the pain suffered by the families of his young adversaries.

“As a result of my actions there are parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, who either today or whenever it is their loved ones were killed are remembering someone who I had an intimate part in sending to their maker and it’s not to be proud of. But it was a job and you did it.

“I lost a couple of friends down there so I know what it’s like.”

Chris believed in the cause and is still incredibly proud of Britain’s achievements, especially because UK forces were outnumbered three to one.

Recalling the scene aboard the home-ward bound navy vessel Sir Percival, once war had been declared over, he said: “That night we went into the mess and someone put on the tape for Chariots Of Fire and the song Jerusalem came on and the whole mess just sang and everybody was blubbing like a baby.”

Chris is now back in uniform once again but this time at happier occasions like weddings and charity balls in the role of toastmaster and master of ceremonies. On his chest he proudly wears the campaign medals for his service in the Falklands and Northern Ireland.