Some foreign volunteers had no military experience and found themselves in a similar situation to the Rhodesian teenagers. These foreigners were generally motivated to enlist by anti-communist political views, hunger for adventure, turbulent personal lives in their home countries or some combination of these factors. The Canadian Mathew Charles Lamb joined 3 Commando, RLI in 1973, having just spent six years in a psychiatric hospital. In June 1966, aged 18, he had killed two strangers in a shooting spree in his home-town, but avoided the death penalty on a court ruling that at the time of the incident he had been insane. Keeping his past life a secret, he became a popular and well-regarded soldier in 3 Commando, and eventually rose to the rank of Lance-Corporal, taking command of a Fireforce stick on Operation Thrasher shortly before he was killed in action on 7 November 1976 by an errant shot from one of his own men.
