The name of a dead comrade murdered by a Taliban infiltrator was close to Jack Sadler-Purkiss's heart as the young Afghanistan veteran marched on Anzac day.
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The former cavalryman even wore a metal clasp bearing the name Stjepan Milosevic - 'Milo'.
Corporal Sadler-Purkiss was close friends with Milo when both men both served in and commanded ASLAVs and bushmaster troop carriers in Afghanistan in 2011.
The cavalry lance corporal was killed by a member of the Afghan National Army on 30 August 2012.
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He was one of three diggers killed in the brutal "green on blue" surprise attack.
"He was one of my really good mates," Mr Sadler-Purkiss.
It's particularly hard to see a close friend killed by one of the people they were deployed to help, he said.
"It's tough," he said.
"And then going back in 2014 after he got killed in 2012 was tough, was very tough."
Mr Sadler-Purkiss was far from the only veteran to have lost a friend who marched in Tamworth on April 25.
Jack Woolaston lost a close friend just three days ago.
Jack Ivory served alongside him right from the start of army training towards the beginning of the Second World War.
Both Jacks served in New Guinea during the Kokoda campaign and stayed close mates after the end of the conflict.
"I was best man at his wedding. He had three girls and I had three boys, we said we'd start a stud farm," he said.
The former commando said Jack Ivory was in his memory during the Anzac day march.
"I always think about him, we were such great mates," he said.
"Three days before Anzac day I got this phone call to say that Jack had passed."
Mr Sadler-Purkiss said marching marching alongside veterans of the Second World War and the Vietnam War is a great honour but it also can be a strangely distant experience.
"As a young veteran - I'm 31 - I still don't feel like it's my day, if that makes sense," he said.
"It's still for them. Yes I'm a veteran, I've been overseas and all that, but I don't think it's my day I think it's their day. Even the Vietnam veterans."
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