Major General Matthew Holmes served for more than three decades in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and Northern Ireland.
An inquest concluded that the former commander of the Royal Marines, Major General Matthew Holmes, committed suicide after experiencing “significant stress.”
On 2 October 2021, Major General Holmes was discovered deceased in Winchester, Hampshire.
He spent over three decades serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and Northern Ireland while in the military.
He also commanded the 42 Commando Royal Marines from 2006 to 2008 and was awarded the Companion of the Distinguished Service Order in 2007 for his leadership in Afghanistan.
In 2019, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and from 2019 to 2021 he served as Commandant General of the Royal Marines.
The parent of two was awarded a CBE in 2019.
The then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, stated, “I am deeply grieved by the news of Major General Matt Holmes’s passing. I’m thinking of Matt’s family, friends, and the Royal Marines and Royal Navy, who will feel this loss deeply”.
In October 2021, Lieutenant General Rob Magowan, former chief of the Royal Marines and Deputy Commander of Strategic Command, also paid tribute to his former colleague and friend.
My heart goes out to him and his family,” he said. We will honor him and his closest associates. However, I also consider you all. It is irrelevant that he was a general, but the fact that he is a Royal Marine is significant.
“I remember and celebrate him with all those he is now with. We are one family, united, just as we have learned and trained together at the Commando Training Centre. “A marine is a marine for life.”
