RIP Sir

One of the greatest aspects of being in the military is the camaraderie. It binds the military ‘family’, which is arguably the greatest family I have ever belonged to. A key part of this camaraderie is the military sense of humour.

One individual managed to capture this humour in these 2 publications, which have been in my possession for a number of years. ‘Jackspeak’ is a dictionary of naval slang, some with particularly unusual origins. ‘In confidence’ is a capture of some of the quirkier comments on human nature in the military and was compiled from historic appraisal reports and good old fashioned stories. (Statements such as ‘His men would follow him anywhere but only out of curiosity’ are real gems.)

Both these publications were compiled by a fairly extraordinary individual, Surgeon Captain Rick Jolly Royal Navy, who sadly passed away on Saturday morning.

Rick Jolly served as the Medical Officer in the Falkland Islands during the conflict in 1982. Under his watchful eye, no UK casualties directly perished in the conflict and only 3 later passed away from their injuries. As well as treating UK forces, he also treated Argentinean Casualties. He was awarded the Order de Mayo by the Argentinean Government in recognition of his effort, as well as an OBE in the UK and is the only person who served in the conflict who was decorated by both sides.

Rick wrote a number of other publications – ‘The Red and Green Life Machine’ is an account of his experience running the field hospital is Port Stanley.

You can read more about him online, he is worth a Google.

The books he compiled that I own represent his medical knowledge and experience for me in a different way – that sometimes, laughter is the best medicine.

RIP Sir.