- On sunday night, Private Lee O'Callaghan called his mother
from his base in Iraq to tell her how "excited" he was about
coming home. He was to arrive a week today. To mark the occasion, she had
redecorated his room.
-
- During the call, the 20-year-old infantryman said to
Shirley O'Callaghan that the situation in Basra was "scary".
It was the first time in five months' duty in the southern Iraqi city that
he had expressed any fear for his safety.
-
- Barely 24 hours later, at 9pm on Monday, two officers
from the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment arrived at the maisonette on
the London housing estate where the O'Callaghan family live to deliver
the news that Lee was dead - he had been shot in the chest during clashes
with Shia militiamen.
-
- He was the 63rd British serviceman to have died in the
Iraq war and the 14th soldier to be killed in action since fighting was
declared over. As the Ministry of Defence began an inquiry yesterday into
the death, which will look at whether the young soldier was wearing appropriate
body armour, a member of his family called for British troops to be withdrawn
from Iraq.
-
- Standing outside the family home in the Elephant and
Castle area of south London, Pte Evans' aunt, Margaret Evans, 51, said:
"My nephew lived for the Army. It was all he ever wanted to do. He
was a great kid who had found the path he wanted to follow. But why are
they in Iraq? It is a nonsense. It is my personal opinion, but my message
to Tony Blair is that we should not be there and we should get the rest
of the kids out."
-
- Defence officials declined to go into detail yesterday
about how Pte O'Callaghan, a fanatical supporter of Millwall FC who had
been in the Army for less than 18 months, was killed.
-
- A MoD spokesman said: "A full inquiry will be carried
out into the circumstances of the death. Until that has concluded, we cannot
comment on what happened."
-
- It is known that he was on a patrol in an armoured Land
Rover which was attacked on Monday afternoon by militants loyal to the
radical cleric, Muqtada Sadr, who were armed with automatic rifles and
rocket-propelled grenades.
-
- Four other soldiers were injured during clashes across
the city. All were thought to be from Pte O'Callaghan's unit, 1st Battalion,
the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment, based at Tidworth on the Wiltshire-Hampshire
border.
-
- For the family of the dead soldier, who lived all his
life in the area surrounding the Old Kent Road, his death was barely comprehensible.
-
- His father Eugene, a retired publican, was being comforted
by relatives as he sat outside the ground-floor maisonette, where Lee's
brother, Danny, 16, and his two sisters, Gemma, 12, and Kerry, 11, were
being comforted by their mother.
-
- Mrs Evans said the family, who had last been together
in March this year for a holiday in Malta to mark Lee's graduation from
his basic training, had been concentrating on his homecoming and assumed
reports on Monday of the killing of a British soldier did not apply to
them.
-
- She said: "He called on Sunday night. He told his
mum he was just so excited to be coming home. His mum was doing up his
room for him.
-
- "He did say that it was getting a bit scary in Basra
that day. That was the first time that he actually said something like
that. He liked to appear relaxed the whole time. His parents and the other
children are devastated, absolutely distraught."
-
- Friends described Pte O'Callaghan as a dedicated soldier
who had joined the Army Cadets as a young teenager and counted his local
football club as his only other love. He had watched the FA Cup final between
Millwall and Manchester United from his base in Basra.
-
- Mrs Evans, standing 100 yards from the Catholic church,
called the Church of the English Martyrs, where her nephew was baptised,
said: "It's terrible. He was a young man who had found his career.
It was what he wanted to do. For life."
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=550119
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