Darren Chant was the Regimental Sergeant-Major of 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards. On the day before he was killed it was announced that he had been awarded a commission in the regiment; in the meantime, he was the top contender for the post of Academy Sergeant Major at Sandhurst.

A fine athlete who became an outstanding leader, Darren John Chant was born in Walthamstow, northeast London, in 1969 and joined the Grenadiers in 1986. He was the Army’s junior cross-country champion while in training and skied for the 1st Battalion. Serving as a machinegunner during the Gulf War of 1991, he helped to save the crew of his Warrior armoured vehicle when it was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade and set on fire by dousing the flames with jerrycans of water that he had dragged from nearby vehicles. He received field promotion to lancecorporal.

After graduating at the battle course at Brecon, Wales, on which he received a distinction in 1993, he commanded a team of the close observation platoon gathering intelligence on IRA activities in South Armagh. This was followed by two years as an instructor at the Guards Training Depot at Pirbright. Another distinction, this time on the platoon sergeants battle course at Brecon, saw him back in Northern Ireland for a while until, on promotion to colour-sergeant, he went to Sandhurst as an instructor of the young officer intake.

He returned to 1st Grenadiers in 2004 to take part in the Kosovo operation and then, on further promotion to warrant officer class 2, as a company sergeant-major of the battalion during its service in Bosnia as part of the Nato peacekeeping force. Sandhurst called for him again in 2005 in the influential role of a company sergeant-major. During this tour of duty, he also ran the academy football club and took the rugby club on a tour of New Zealand.

During an operational tour in Afghanistan in 2006, he was present when one guardsman was killed and Guardsman Scott Blaney seriously injured. Chant carried the injured man for more than a mile over rough ground at night to the nearest point where a casevac helicopter could land. Blaney’s life was saved although he had to have a leg amputated.

In 2008 Chant was promoted to warrant officer class 1 and appointed regimental sergeant-major of 1st Grenadier Guards. As the battalion’s role model he pursued the highest standards of conduct and professionalism, his disciplinary demands were moderated with a wit of which even the commanding officer was an occasional, good humoured, target.

He is survived by his wife, Nausheen, and their unborn child, together with two sons and a daughter from a previous marriage.

Warrant Officer Darren Chant, RSM of 1st Grenadier Guards, was born on September 5, 1969. He was killed in Afghanistan on November 3, 2009, aged 40