IRAQ CRISIS: PLUMES of smoke in the skies over Baghdad, hundreds of tanks advancing across the desert and missiles being launched from aircraft carriers.

All are images of the war in Iraq, flickering on a TV screen in a house in Alexander Road, Malmesbury.

Rebecca Deacon, 26, admits the TV has been on almost continuously since the war began, but she is desperate for news because her 28-year-old brother Damien Slater is fighting in the Gulf.

Damien is a paratrooper in the 7th Royal Horse Artillery, and after eleven years in the Army is seeing action for the first time.

The Ministry of Defence would only confirm that Damien's regiment was based in Kuwait, but Mrs Deacon, who spoke to her brother nine days ago, believes he is now in enemy territory, possibly in the region of Basra, Iraq's second largest city in the south of the country.

With news of the first coalition casualty just coming in, the uncertainty only heightens the tension in the household.

Mrs Deacon who is supported by her mother, Lynn Slater, said: "It is nerve wracking and very hard not knowing where he is. My only prayer is that they will all come back safe."

"The soldiers had their mobile phones removed before the advance. When we last spoke to Damien he was very chipper. He wanted to go and get the job done and was more worried about us and making sure that we were safe. He doesn't like to show what he thinks."

Mrs Deacon said she does not agree with the war but believes that now British troops were risking their lives to fight, the country should be there to support them.

She said: "I feel, along with the rest of my family there should be no war. I think Tony Blair should resign. He ought to be listening to what his country wants rather than being dictated to by George Bush.

"I doubt Tony Blair would be so keen for war if a member of his family, especially his son, were in the Armed Forces facing a war on Iraq."

Damien has no children but his wife, Victoria, lives in Colchester.

Mrs Deacon sid they are in constant contact and everyone had been sending Damien parcels of little luxuries from home since he arrived in the Gulf six weeks ago at £15 each time

It previously took 24 hours for the parcels to reach him but it could be more than four days now they have moved forward, and there was no knowing if he had received them.

"My parents, my brother's wife and I have been sending my brother food parcels as although they are getting food, they aren't being fed all that well.

"We still have to pay the full postage price which we feel is diabolical. Perhaps the Government should foot the bill.

"It doesn't appear to be worried about spending millions of pounds on a war that we shouldn't be involved in."

Mrs Deacon said: "The troops have a huge supplies shortages, but why? How can the Government justify sending all out troops over there as ill prepared as they are. Don't the lives of the troops mean anything?"

The family have been steeped in Service life. They were brought up in Germany where their father was in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers based in the Rheinland.

Both children went to Army schools in Germany. Damien moved back to Britain when he was 16 to join the Army and was based at Nuneaton.

The family moved back to England ten years ago to live in Malmesbury.

Mrs Deacon said the Army had always been her brother's dream.

"Since he was a boy he has always wanted to be in the Army. The fact that his father was in the Army probably had something to do with him joining."

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