This article was posted to Military Families Against the War, August 23, 2009
The ‘Naming the Dead’ ceremonies, held in Edinburgh’s Princes Street and Glasgow’s George Square, came only hours after it emerged the son of a SAS hero is one of the latest British soldiers to be killed in Afghanistan.
Serjeant Paul McAleese, 29, of 2nd Battalion The Rifles, died alongside Private Jonathan Young, 18, of 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment in Helmand province on Thursday.
Sjt McAleese's father John McAleese, who lives near Falkirk, was at the centre of the dramatic raid that ended a siege on the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980.
He was watched by millions of television viewers as windows were blown out moments before the building was stormed and 19 hostages rescued from fanatical gunmen.
The deaths of Sjt McAleese and Private Young took the number of UK troops killed in the conflict to 206. They came as voters went to the polls in Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Defence said the troops were on a routine patrol not connected with election security. It later emerged that Sjt McAleese died in a secondary explosion after going to the aid of Private Young, who was killed in the initial blast.
Sjt McAleese leaves a widow, Jo, and a son, Charley, who was born a week before his deployment to Afghanistan
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