A soldier walking back to his barracks from the pub was fatally struck by a lorry after taking a wrong turn.
Jamie Staley left the Wetherspoons in Monmouth, Wales in the early hours of September 22, 2018.
Instead of turning off and walking down a country road, the Queen's Royal Hussar trooper found himself on the A40, Wales Online reported.
The 20-year-old was hit by a HGV not long after reports were made to police of a man "staggering" between the lanes.
Reliving the moment she found out Jamie had lost his life, mum Stella Martin, said: "I had left the pub restaurant and I was in the bar.
"I was sat there and I saw the police come in and I didn't know what was going on.
"It was awful. I could never go back after that."
Recently back in the UK following his first posting abroad, Jamie had come to Wales after using his leave to spend three weeks in Thailand, pursuing his love of Mai Thai boxing.
He and his team were due to spend a week in the south Wales countryside walking and trekking in preparation for the gruelling 37-mile Cambrian Patrol mountain exercise.
On the night of his tragic death Jamie, from Doncaster, had been at the Wetherspoons with friends from his barracks.
Fellow soldier Ian Lutaaya told an inquest into his death how Jamie had been "happy and merry" but not "falling or stumbling over his words".
When his colleagues decided to head back to the barracks ahead of their curfew, Jamie stayed behind to continue chatting to Monmouth resident Melissa Brooks - who he had met that night.
"I began to talk to Jamie and we just clicked," she said of the evening they spent together.
"As the evening went on his friends said they had to leave and get back to camp.
"Jamie said he wanted to stay with me and my friends."
At around 1.30am the young soldier left the pub and starting walking back, only to find himself on the busy A road.
Footage from the lorry driver's dashcam found there was 0.6 seconds between seeing a glimpse of Jamie's trainers and the point of collision.
The vehicle had been travelling at 56mph.
Stella explained how her son had began to cause her more worries when he turned 18.
"I always worried more about Jamie when he turned 18 than I ever had before," she said.
"He wasn't one to go out drinking until he was 18. When he was in the local pub some people would ring me up to say if Jamie was drunk.
"He would always say 'I'll be alright' but he obviously wasn't'."
During the days after Jamie's death, Stella and her family were overwhelmed my hundreds of messages of condolences and love.
The 39-year-old mum said: "It took me about three days to go through all the messages after it happened.
"Some were from people I didn't even know but who knew Jamie."
In an obituary posted in the Journal of the Queen's Royal Hussars, tribute was paid to a trooper who was "warm, funny and caring", who was known for a "witty but dry sense of humour."
Stella, also mum to Bobby, 15, and Brooklyn, 11, said: "When Jamie was younger originally he wanted to go to a sports academy. Then he wanted to be in the Marines but when he decided to go for the Army he practically flew through it.
"He was always running, going to the gym.
"He loved playing football at school and he was managing one of the youth football teams for kids for a little while.
"He was so good with kids. When he was on leave he would even help with his friends' children.
"He would message me saying he would pick up their kids from nursery."
Today, Stella is the proud owner of her own café named in her eldest son's honour, which has photos of him on the walls.
Stella said: "There's not one second where I don't think of Jamie.
"People ask questions when they see the pictures and they don't know what to say when I tell them he's not with us, but we are here because we want to talk about him.
"I have an old veteran who was in the same regiment as Jamie. He came in and said he had never met someone who had been in the same regiment."
