RAF serviceman killed in Iraq on Tuesday 7 August 2007

It is with deep sorrow that the Ministry of Defence must confirm the death of a British serviceman Martin Beard from 1 Squadron, RAF Regimentin Basra City, southern Iraq last night, Tuesday 7 August 2007.



The serviceman died as a result of a small arms fire attack which occurred at approximately 2030 hours local time during an operation in the Karmat Ali district of Basra City. Read It Here RIP

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.
Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-leads,
Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads,
Or give him cartridges whose fine zinc teeth
Are sharp with sharpness of grief and death.

For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor anders through the thickness of his curls.

Wilfred Owen


© Mack (RG) The thoughts of a Falklands War Veteran.