 After leaving school at 16 he became a trainee mechanic for a local garage, where he stayed until he was 18 when he joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers.Edwards was promoted to Lance corporal in 1992.After serving two tours of duty with the Army in Northern Ireland, where he had seen one friend killed and another wounded, Edwards deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in November 1992, based in Vitez as the driver of a FV510 "Warrior" infantry fighting vehicle.