An Army widow at 22.. but I'll stay strong for Sean; EXCLUSIVE Newlywed Amanda Binnie planned to start a family - until her soldier husband Sean was killed in Afghanistan, just weeks before he was due home.

Byline: Claire Walker

On her birthday, surrounded by flowers, Amanda Binnie wept silently as she read the heart-felt letter from her husband Sean.

It was June 10 - the day she turned 22 - and she should have been celebrating soldier Sean's homecoming from Afghanistan.

Instead, she was sitting alone, full of anguish.

Sean had written, clearly desperate to return home to his bride: "I miss you like mad. Not being with you is driving me crazy. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you..."

But Sean never came home. He was shot dead in Afghanistan just seven months after the couple's dream wedding.

The letter arrived days after his death and Amanda had kept it safe until she felt ready to open it on her birthday - at Sean's grave. "I cried my eyes out reading it," says Amanda.

"But I got comfort from his words. It was like a little birthday present from him."

The couple had a whirlwind romance after meeting in 2007 in a nightclub in Amanda's home city of Belfast, where Sean, a corporal with the The Black Watch, 3rd Batallion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, was stationed.

When he was transferred back to their base near Inverness, he visited Northern Ireland every weekend to see Amanda.

"He proposed on Valentine's Day, 2008," she says. "We planned to marry in September this year but when Sean found out he was going to Afghanistan we brought the wedding forward.

"He said, 'What's the point in waiting? I love you and you love me - let's just do it.'

"It's as if he knew something was going to happen."

The couple married on December 12 in Belfast. "It was the happiest day of my life," she smiles. "Sean was in his uniform and I was in a beautiful white dress.

"Sean kept joking: 'I told you a small wedding, Amanda,' but it was our big day and I had to go all-out. We had 120 guests and it was amazing."

Then, three months later, in March this year, Sean flew to Afghanistan as part of a team mentoring the Afghan National Army. He phoned and emailed every day.

Then, two weeks into the tour, he called with good news. "He'd managed to arrange a break so he could come home on my birthday. I was so excited."

On the evening of May 6, Sean phoned as usual and the couple spoke for 15 minutes. "He kept saying: 'Why do you love me so much?'" she says.

"I told him he was caring and kind. He was perfect - so thoughtful and always thinking of me. I told him that he was my one and only. He replied: 'You know you're so special to me. You've made my life complete.'"

Ending the call, Sean blew her a kiss and said "love you loads". "Those were the last words he spoke to me," Amanda says.

The following afternoon, MoD personnel arrived at her home to break devastating news.

Heroic Sean had been shot by Taliban insurgents at 6am that morning. He'd been trying to save colleagues pinned down by enemy fire. "I just screamed," says Amanda. "I didn't cry. I was in shock. I think I still am.

"For the first few moments when I wake up, I still think everything is OK. Then it hits me and I feel empty. I tell myself he'll be home soon but he won't. I'm never going to see him again." The day after Sean died, Amanda's father David gave her a letter he'd left for her in the event of his death.

"He wrote it the day before he left," Amanda says. "I remember him sitting at the table writing something."

She read the letter with her dad. "It said if I was reading this it meant he was dead, that he loved me more than anything and that he was sorry for all the pain he was putting me through now," she says.

"He said he was really sorry we didn't have a chance to have kids together. He left me his grandad's necklace and told me to keep it in the family, to give it to my kids if I had any. But there will never be anyone else.

"The letter ended, 'I'll be waiting on the other side for you'."

They had planned to start trying for a family when Sean came home.

"Just a few days before he died, we were talking on the phone about having kids," she says. "He said he wanted a boy and joked we'd call him Wheelie Binnie. It's so sad he never got the chance to be a father."

Two days after Sean's death, Amanda received the first of four letters written and posted in the previous weeks. "When I first saw them I couldn't read them," she says. "I didn't know what was going to be in them. I couldn't deal with it."

Amanda waited until her birthday to open a letter and the other three remain unopened.

"I don't want them locked away for ever," says Joanna. "I'll open them in time but just not now."

Five days after Sean's death, Amanda travelled to RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire with her parents-in-law, Janette and Allan Binnie, for a private repatriation ceremony. Amanda wrote a moving poem about waiting for Sean's coffin to be brought out of the plane. And, in the three days before Sean's military funeral in Belfast, she barely left his side.

"He stayed at home until the funeral," she says. "I slept in a chair beside the coffin."

Amanda now struggles to sleep, and shares her bed with a teddy Sean gave her for Christmas.

"It's dressed as a little army man, in boots and a beret, and has a recording of Sean's voice in it," she says. "It says, 'Hello my name is Binnie. I've come to give you a cuddle. I miss you lots.' I press the button and it's like he's giving me a hug. Sometimes, I don't want to hear the voice - it breaks my heart.

"I've never slept with a teddy bear in my life but now, at 22, I can't go to bed without it."

She also spends hours sitting at Sean's graveside. "I feel really close to him there. I know he's with me all the time but it helps to be there, close to his body.

"I just sit and talk. I'm sure he's probably saying, 'Amanda, I'm sick of listening to you. I've got a headache!'" The Army's report into Sean's death said that he'd undoubtedly saved lives by his actions but it's little consolation to Amanda.

"It's sad that Sean will never get a chance to experience all the things he wanted to do, or the things we planned to do together.

"I never dreamed that I'd be a widow at 22 but I'm trying to be strong, for him, because I'm so proud of him.

"Sean saved people that day.

"That was the kind of guy he was, always putting others first.

"He really was a hero."

Amanda's poem

My Hero, My Life, Sean Binnie

I stand on the tarmac feeling cold, alone, I wait for the moment. My hero's coming home.

He gave his life for freedom, so we can all be free, But as I stand here waiting, I wish you were here with me.

I will not feel your touch again, or watch you as you sleep, Pick up your clothes, hear your laugh, the sadness makes me weep.

But as they bring you from the plane, draped with Red, White and Blue, I know you're A HERO and I'm so proud of you.

Sean's letter

Hey Babes, Just thought I'd send you a little letter.

How are you? I'm OK. I miss you like mad, not being with you is driving me crazy.

I don't know what I'd do if I lost you. I know people say it all the time but trust your heart and you will know I mean it.

You're the thing that makes me fight for my life out here, without you I'd let them kill me but, lucky for me, I'm the only guy for you.

I hope you're having fun and not worrying about me. I love you, darling, and on June 10, 09 I'm all yours. xxxxx.

CAPTION(S):

HAPPY: Their wedding day EMOTIONAL: Flag-draped coffin at his Belfast funeral PROUD ROLE: Sean mentored Afghan soldiers IN LOVE: Sharing a kiss