After 23 years service, Rowe reached the second highest level of rank among the corps of non-commissioned officers in the French Army, and had been awarded five citations for acts of bravery in operational theatres around the world, culminating in 2009 with the Légion d'honneur for a second tour of Afghanistan.
[2] Mark was successful but Alex, having already been accepted by the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, was rejected on medical grounds, due to an eye condition.
[3] Following service in Chad, Rowe was deployed as part of the United Nations Protection Force keeping open a corridor out of Sarajevo during the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia.
Rowe was deployed on his first tour to Afghanistan in 2008, as part of the International Security Assistance Force, serving with an Afghan battalion that sustained heavy casualties.
[3] In his second tour of Afghanistan in 2009, Rowe was part of a 700 strong Legion force under Colonel Benoît Durieux, based in Surobi, east of the capital Kabul.
[4] This force was deployed to exert Afghan authority over the upper Uzbin Valley in eastern Kabul Province, in order to cut an insurgent route from Pakistan, and together with French regulars and American troops, also in the Tagab Valley in neighbouring Kapisa Province, in order to allow completion a strategic ring road linking eastern and northern Afghanistan.
[1][3] The news of the award was announced in January 2010, while Rowe was to receive his Légion d’Honneur badge in a ceremony in Paris during the Bastille Day celebrations on 14 July 2010.
[1][3][4] This action was close to the scene of the Uzbin Valley ambush of August 2008 in which the regular French forces suffered their worst death toll in the Afghan conflict.
"[1][2][3][5] His father is a retired sales rep.[3] In addition to his twin Mark, Rowe also has a younger brother Jeremy, a merchant banker in the City of London.
[3] Initially, Rowe advanced through the lower ranks of the Legion at the same rate as his twin brother Mark, who had elected to join the Royal Engineers.