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Tuesday, March 17, 2015
7:00 a.m.
Richard Smith had always been a military brat, as his mother liked to say.
When Martha married Richard’s late father, Air Marshal Lord Hammond Smith, she had made him promise that their kids would first go to what she called a normal college before ever entering the military.
Obediently, Richard had attended Radley College in Oxfordshire, as had his older brother by two years, Hugh, and he graduated in English Literature. But Richard had never doubted that he wanted to join RAF.
As soon as he could, he followed his father’s and brother’s footsteps.
Shortly after leaving Royal Air Force College Cranwell, Richard was deployed to Iraq where he had a variety of posts, from driving armored vehicles to acting as a liaison officer between the military an
