Brierley, 29, and three other Britons who died in accidents while serving in Iraq were solemnly laid to rest at funeral services Wednesday:
Lt. Philip Green, 30, who was one of six British servicemen killed when two Royal Navy helicopters collided over the Persian Gulf on March 22.
Sgt. Steven Roberts, 33, who was shot during a riot near Basra.
Lance Cpl. Karl Shearer, 24, who died when a Scimitar-armed reconnaissance vehicle flipped over and landed in water.
Britain suffered a much higher death toll - 252 - during the 1982 battle for the Falkland Islands and had been prepared for deaths on the battlefield in Iraq.
But “friendly fire” and other accidents have raised questions, and there was outrage when the Arab television station al-Jazeera broadcast images of two dead British soldiers.
Britain’s churches are full of memorials to war dead, especially from the mass slaughter in the trenches of World War I. In this war, the death toll has been small enough that the country could know each victim by name and see the grief of their relatives.
Britain’s first eight deaths came in the crash of a U.S. helicopter in Kuwait on March 21. The helicopter collision came a day later, and then on March 23, two British flyers died when their plane was shot down by a U.S. Patriot missile battery.
- ‘Friendly fire’ accounted for most British deaths, Associated Press, April 24, 2003.
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