A Letter from Gen Moores Daughter

[Artist]

Thought this might interest the old and bold. It was posted over on the OAMAAM site. A letter from Gen Moores Daughter.

On behalf of Jeremy Moore's family I would like to say how much we have appreciated the messages that we have read on the Once a Marine website. They have been extremely moving and comforting at the same time. Of course we knew that he was a special man but to have read your tributes, from the people that he admired most (i.e. his men) was something really special - the highest praise he could ever have wished for.

About 8 years ago, I recorded his "memoires" with him. I thought you might like to read the following, in his own words (literally - so it doesn't read very smoothly!), about an event that took place in his training. It is of course one of many but I happen to have this one to hand...

"There's an incident in those days that is, especially on reflection is very important, in my development I think. I've said to you that I was I think pretty underconfidant. I was certainly petrified of having to give orders to marines and that sort of thing and I remember very clearly one day when we'd been drilling, we were drilling that morning with a recruit troop so there were 12 of us and 100 of them and we were marched off the parade ground into the drill shed, which was a great big hangar thing in which one could drill in inclement weather or sometimes the drill instructor would take you there in reasonable weather because it reverberated and could be helpful to getting time right and things. Anyway we were marched in there by the first drill and our 1st drill Packhorse was with him, they were there together - because it was the squad's 1st Drill was actually taking us- and they marched us in and said "Right fall out, 10 minutes smoke over in that corner" and he then said "Mr Moore, come here!" so I went over there and reported to him and Packhorse said "Mr Moore, go over to where all the blokes are, get on the bench in the corner call them all round you and tell them for two minutes why it's necessary to have a shit in the morning!" {look of horror!} I mean one's naive; we were learning words like shit! Sort of thing, pretty well, so we were very callow and straight out of school, I, as I say was very under confident and there suddenly, never happened before, all we'd ever done in the way of talking to people was amongst ourselves. And I was sent to go and get on that bench and talk to 100 young marines. First to get their attention and then to talk about this! And I marched over to the corner trying to look confident thinking {pulls face}. Petrified! Climbed on the bench and called them around. I said something like "Right everybody, gather round here, I want to talk to you" and so I said what I was there to do and I said what I knew about it, which wasn't much and it probably took 45 seconds or something, I don't know, or anything else and they all looked at me and I could see in the marine's eyes, actually an awful lot of them were thinking "Poor little bugger!" You know, Christ if that was me, sort of thing. That's what it means being a young officer... you know, going through a lot of the minds, and being made to do this. And so then, when I'd said my piece, Packhorse called out "Right then, down off there, well done Mr Moore come over here" so I went over there and he then said look here are ways you could improve it and things but "I know that was bloody frightening but you're never going to be as frightened again!" I was the first one that that had happened to. I really believe that was because Packhorse had pinged that I was probably the most underconfidant and to be blunt I think with less reason than some! Not all. Many of them had every reason to be more confident than me, but not all of them did. And remembering also that of course as you will remember with Andrew, at the age of 18 as I then was, I probably looked about 14 and that doesn't help to give confidence. It was a tremendous lesson really, because I suddenly found that I'd done it and furthermore that none of the others had done it! I was the first. None of the others probably remember it. But by golly I do, and I think that was dear old Packhorse recognising that if he did that with me, and he was tremendously encouraging about it... He said before I started "don't worry, you can do it sir" and that was terrific. He gathered us round afterwards, after we'd finished drill and things and said "right, now Mr Moore's had to get up and he's done it, well done Mr Moore. Now have the rest of you started thinking about how you'd gather the marines around and what you'll say to them" You know and he then helped us a bit. And I do believe that was a big step, although I wasn't recognising it at the time, as a big step towards building some confidence."

And "I think the main motivation for [being a Marine came] partially through the course of training and partially at the end of training as one got on with the job, the more one saw of the marines one served with, the more they provided one with the motivation for doing ones own job."



He didn't achieve what he did alone...



We would also like to thank all of those who came to the funeral. It was a truly beautiful occasion our only regret being that we were not able to meet everyone who had made the effort to be there. THANK YOU ALL.

Yours

Helen Arthy


Gen Moore was one hell of a bloke who got total and utter respect from the newest Marine up to the most senior RM officer. I first met him when he was the Brigader of 3 CDOBDERM in the mid seventies. Rest in Peace Sir you were the best.

Artist

[jay999]

I only read about his death in the G&L earlier today. He sounded a very inspirational Royal Marine R.I.P

[TheWedge]

My training troop (935), did the drill display for the annual RMA congregation at CTCRM on Sept 8th, it was nice to get eyes on such a hoofing boss as JJ Moore. My kings squad pass out was a week later, I still cant believe he died the day after my KSPO.

I joined Lima Coy at 42 so was fortunate to be amongst the guard of honour at Wells Cathedral when JJ had his servicea couple of weeks back, Lima put on a great show for him and it was very emotional to be at the funeral of such a corps legend. It was hard work seeing the family say goodbye for the penultimate time, I only saw him briefly but he has already made an impact on my life.

RIP JJ