TAVISTOCK paratrooper Andrew Kelly, the youngest British soldier to die while serving in Iraq, was laid to rest last Friday at a full military funeral.
Eighteen-year-old Private Kelly, a member of the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, was killed in a shooting accident on May 6, in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
Mourners at St Mary and St Julian Church in Maker, near Torpoint, filed into the church beneath a Union flag flying at half mast.
Pte Kelly?s beret, belt and a Union flag rested on his coffin as six members of his Colchester-based regiment carried it into the church.
His mother Helen Yallop and stepfather Nick Yallop, with whom the teenager lived near Tavistock, led the cortege which was also attended by Pte Kelly?s father, Robert Kelly, from Callington.
Padre Geoff Sussex, of the Royal Army Chaplains? Department, said during the service: ?He was a man who wanted more than anything else to gain his wings. He worked hard for them and he succeeded.?
During Pte Kelly?s burial in the church cemetery, Colour Sergeant Mark Willetts, of the same regiment, handed Pte Kelly?s belt, beret and the flag to Mrs Yallop.
After an address by the padre, three volleys of shots were fired by a gun party, and a bugler played Reveille and Last Post.
Pte Kelly?s close friend Joe Smith, from Yelverton, said the funeral would have been just what his friend wanted.
Speaking shortly after Pte Kelly?s death, Mr Smith said: ?Although Andrew was only just 18 when he died, he achieved a great deal in that short life.
?He really cared about his family and friends and I feel proud and privileged to be his friend. He had a great sense of humour, with quiet dignity and great courage.
?We know he will never come home and the world will be a worse place without him.?
Pte Kelly, a former Tavistock College student, was deployed to the Gulf in March, just five days after celebrating his 18th birthday.