SOLDIER Marc Beckett beat asthma to win a place in the army and has just passed out at Winchester.

Marc could be serving in Kosovo in the next 12 months in a peacekeeping force.

His parents Andrea and Jeffrey, from the Accrington Road area of Burnley, were celebrating their wedding anniversary when Marc completed his initial training so it was a double celebration when 14 friends and family attended the barracks.

Andrea said: "On Monday he will be starting his second 20 weeks of training at Bovington in Dorset and then he will be stationed with his regiment the Kings Royal Hussars either in Germany or Kosovo.

Marc, a former pupil of St Wilfrid's C of E School, Blackburn, and Gawthorpe High School, Padiham, had hoped to join the army as a boy soldier at 16 but asthma prevented him.

His mum said when he was rejected he threw away his inhalers and was determined to fight the disease and when he was interviewed again he was accepted.

She said: "We are all very proud. He has worked very hard to get what he wanted."

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