Post by Chips on Mar 21, 2009 10:29:58 GMT 9.5
Sergeant Brett Till
A SECOND baby won't know its dad after Sergeant Brett Till, who was due to become a father later this year, was killed as he tried defusing a bomb in Afghanistan.
The bomb disposal expert, from the army's Corps of Engineers at Holsworthy near Sydney, became Australia's 10th casualty of the war when an improvised explosive device he was attempting to "render safe" exploded on Thursday.
He is the second soldier to die this week, after brand-new father and husband Corporal Mathew Hopkins, 21, was killed in a Taliban ambush on Monday.
Sgt Till's distraught wife, Brianna Barclay, is an art teacher at a Sydney high school and was the primary carer for his two older children, aged 10 and seven.
The pair married in the middle of last year and their first child is due this year.
They moved close to her parents earlier this year and found out she was pregnant just before he left for a six-month tour of Afghanistan a few weeks ago.
Her father said the family was devastated. "I can't comment any further; the army is looking after her," Mr Barclay said.
Like his comrade, Sergeant Michael Lyddiard - who lost an arm and his sight when a bomb he was working on exploded in late 2007 - Sgt Till was conducting a "route clearance" when he died, to establish a safe path for his mates and the people who live in the area.
Aged in his early 30s, Sgt Till was an army veteran of over a decade and a member of the elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit of the Corps of Engineers.
It takes 18 months of intensive training to become an EOD technician and to qualify to wear the distinctive gold-and-red badge featuring an upended bomb.
They are the high-flyers of military engineering.
All are volunteers who undertake an intensive, six-month training course before embarking on 12 months of "on-the-job" training; they then receive the badge and are certified operational.
A SECOND baby won't know its dad after Sergeant Brett Till, who was due to become a father later this year, was killed as he tried defusing a bomb in Afghanistan.
The bomb disposal expert, from the army's Corps of Engineers at Holsworthy near Sydney, became Australia's 10th casualty of the war when an improvised explosive device he was attempting to "render safe" exploded on Thursday.
He is the second soldier to die this week, after brand-new father and husband Corporal Mathew Hopkins, 21, was killed in a Taliban ambush on Monday.
Sgt Till's distraught wife, Brianna Barclay, is an art teacher at a Sydney high school and was the primary carer for his two older children, aged 10 and seven.
The pair married in the middle of last year and their first child is due this year.
They moved close to her parents earlier this year and found out she was pregnant just before he left for a six-month tour of Afghanistan a few weeks ago.
Her father said the family was devastated. "I can't comment any further; the army is looking after her," Mr Barclay said.
Like his comrade, Sergeant Michael Lyddiard - who lost an arm and his sight when a bomb he was working on exploded in late 2007 - Sgt Till was conducting a "route clearance" when he died, to establish a safe path for his mates and the people who live in the area.
Aged in his early 30s, Sgt Till was an army veteran of over a decade and a member of the elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit of the Corps of Engineers.
It takes 18 months of intensive training to become an EOD technician and to qualify to wear the distinctive gold-and-red badge featuring an upended bomb.
They are the high-flyers of military engineering.
All are volunteers who undertake an intensive, six-month training course before embarking on 12 months of "on-the-job" training; they then receive the badge and are certified operational.