UK NEWS

TEARS FLOW FOR 19-YEAR-OLD GIRL KILLED IN IRAQ

Sally Veck fights back the tears as her daughter is placed in the hearse

Saturday April 28,2007

By Tom Price

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THE tears fell amid a 12-gun salute and full military honours for 19-year-old Basra bomb victim Eleanor Dlugosz yesterday.

The poignant funeral was almost too much for her family to bear.

They heard her described during the service as “a bright star with the promise of a dazzling future”.

A wreath, signed by six comrades and friends, read: “You will never die in our hearts and memories, you will stay forever young and beautiful. You have gone beyond the call of duty.”

Private Dlugosz – DZ to her friends – became the youngest British woman to die in Iraq when a roadside bomb ripped through her Warrior armoured vehicle on April 5, also killing three comrades.

Yesterday Royal Medical Corps medic Eleanor’s coffin was draped with the Union flag and her peaked service cap, medal and belt were placed on top, with a family wreath.

It was taken from her home in Swanmore, Hants, to St Peter’s church at nearby Bishop’s Waltham in a hearse drawn by two black horses.

Some 300 mourners, including almost 100 military personnel, flocked to the church to pay tribute to the brave teenager who had been desperate to help people in war-torn Iraq. Her mother Sally Veck, 41, and brother Andrew, 16, sobbed as they watched eight pallbearers from Eleanor’s unit remove their caps and lift the coffin from the hearse. Her grandparents Lionel and Mary Veck, both 68, were also overcome by the occasion.

The Rev John Whitton, a former Army chaplain, told mourners: “She could not join the infantry, being a girl, but she had three words that mattered to her – being a ‘combat medical technician’.

“She wanted to be on the front line – and I know her family had reservations about this. But they knew as well as any parent that you can’t stand in the way of your child’s wishes and you have to let them go and not rein them in.”

Her mother, a hotel manageress, described Eleanor as her “beautiful action girl”, who had always dreamed of joining the Army. “Nothing could have stopped her from serving her country,” she said, “she was doing exactly what she wanted.

“She was totally selfless and loved doing what she could to help other people. She was very proud of what she was doing in Iraq. There are plenty of innocent people in Iraq and it was my little girl’s job to go out there and help them, not the people we saw on TV holding up her helmet.”

RIP

29.04.07, 2:04am

Rest in peace

• Posted by: The_Way_I_See_It • Report Comment

GIRL KILLED IN IRAQ

28.04.07, 6:48pm

You have to feel anger when Muslims kill a young British girl for doing her duty by fighting terrorists in Iraq. At the same time, we read at home, about a Muslim woman who was given legal aid at British tax payers expense to fight for the right to where a veil, even as the defendant in a Court case!
Anyone with any brain cells know that Blair and his government have ruined this Country. But the situation now is ridiculous and we, as the voting public should hold our heads down in shame!
I shudder to think where this Country is going to end up!

• Posted by: steveg • Report Comment