Quotes of the Day
The flag that hung half-mast today
Seemed animate with being
As if it knew for whom it flew
And will no more be seeing.
The British poet laureate John Betjeman, who wrote those lines in 1966, lies buried in the graveyard of the 12th century Church of St. Enodoc in Cornwall. Just a few kilometers away, in the small town of Wadebridge, the flags are hanging low and animated for Sergeant Steven Roberts, who was 33 when he became the first British soldier to die in combat in Iraq.
Roberts' death on the fourth day of the war was a big story in the U.K. newspapers; before he shipped out, Roberts had enjoyed phoning radio talk shows and debating opponents of the war, and of course the papers noted that the war he believed in had claimed his life. But then the war and the papers moved on; Wadebridge still has not. "There's a closeness here in Cornwall," says his friend Nick Yelland, a builder. "When Stevie went down it affected an awful lot of people around here."
Outside the town hall a bank of bouquets lies on the steps under a black-and-white Cornish St. Piran flag and a photograph of Roberts with his wife, Samantha, and mother, Marion. Wherever Roberts went he took the flag, the symbol of his Cornish home, with him. It was with him when he died. The British combat death toll has turned out to be far lighter than many feared — 30 so far — but that's scant consolation for the town. "When you hear that 30 have died, it's just 30 soldiers," says Shaun Beare, a linesman for the local electricity company and close friend of Roberts'. "But to others, it's 30 sons, 30 friends, 30 cousins." This is the story of one.
Last week Roberts' body was flown back to the U.K. with those of 10 others who died in the conflict, and met at an R.A.F. base in Oxfordshire with solemn ceremony by soldiers from the 2nd Royal Tank regiment, in which he served as a commander. As 100 members of the dead soldiers' families looked on in the spring sunshine, pallbearers from each of the men's regiments carried the coffins, draped in Union Jacks, from the aircraft. Roberts was caught up in a civilian riot near al-Zubayr, southwest of Basra. He left his tank in an attempt to pacify the crowds, and was killed when a sniper opened fire. "That was the way he was," says Yelland. "He would try to calm things down before they got out of hand. Perhaps others would have carried on and ignored them, but he wasn't like that. If there was a problem that could be sorted out by peaceful means, that's what he would do. And through his goodness, he came off worst."
In Wadebridge there had been none of the antiwar demonstrations that had happened elsewhere. Many felt that the war was the only option. Yelland speaks for many when he says, "I believe that we are right being there. When you hear from the ordinary people what Saddam's hierarchy have done to their own people you think, 'That's not right. It's got to stop.'" But Roberts' death made another friend, Paul Allen, think twice. "Stevie obviously believed in it because he was over there doing his job," Allen says, "so he wouldn't want anyone to think that way, but you do wonder if it was worth it now he's gone."
Roberts joined the army cadets at 14, becoming a junior sergeant before leaving school at 16 and going straight into the regular army. He served in Northern Ireland, Cyprus and Canada and spent two years at the regiment's base at Fallingbostal, in Germany. His commanding officer, Lieut. Colonel Piers Harkinson, calls him "a first-class tank commander, a strong and effective leader with great depth of character, who excelled under pressure." But that's only part of the the story. His closest friends in Wadebridge, who knew him since junior school, remember his cheeky smile and easy laughter. "Nobody said a bad word against him and he never had a bad word for anyone else," says Yelland. "He was always fun to be with, even in school, making the teachers laugh, not ruining the lessons, but just making the day a bit better."
After Roberts' regiment left for Kuwait on March 3, his vivacious wife, Samantha, took his place in local and national radio discussions about the morality of the impending war. She was totally supportive, both of her husband and of the reasons for the war's necessity. From her home in a converted mill at Shipley, near Bradford, she told listeners to a bbc radio phone-in, "I think it's the only thing to do. It's all that's left now." After news of his death came through, she said, "Steve's whole future lay within the army. It was his life and he was very proud of his job. He was adamant that he was doing the right thing and said he was doing it for the people back home and the Iraqi people."
Roberts' mother, grief-stricken by the loss of her "darling, beautiful, kind, funny and precious son," intends that his memorial will be made of Cornish granite from the quarry a few kilometers away where his great-grandfather worked. As the fighting in Iraq subsides, and the other fallen soldiers return home, communities around Britain will have to decide on suitable memorials.
- KATE NOBLE | Wadebridge
- The first Briton killed in combat returns