Corporal Sarah Louise Bryant (née Feely) (17 December 1981 – 17 June 2008), of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

's Intelligence Corps, was the first British servicewoman killed in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

Career

Born in Liverpool and raised in Cumbria, Feely joined the Army in 2002 and completed basic training at Army Training Regiment

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

as a soldier in the Intelligence Corps. Following specialist training at the

Defence Intelligence and Security Centre The Joint Intelligence Training Group (JITG) is the location of the headquarters of both the Defence College of Intelligence and the British Army Intelligence Corps. It is located at Chicksands, Bedfordshire, approximately north of London. Th ...

(DISC), Chicksands, she was initially posted to

Whitehall Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain numbering scheme, A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea, London, Chelsea. It is the main ...

, London. She was then posted to 11 Military Intelligence Section, Headquarters 1 Armoured Division (UK) in Herford, Germany, and completed 2 tours in Iraq at Basra and then Baghdad. Whilst in Baghdad she received a medal and commendation from the US forces commander who described her as "a credit to the British Army". She married in 2005 in Wetheral, Cumbria, to a fellow Intelligence Corps soldier. As a Corporal, Bryant later joined

15 Psychological Operations Group 15 (United Kingdom) Psychological Operations Group was a tri-service, or "purple", military unit formerly parented by 1 Military Intelligence Brigade but from April 2014, part of the Security Assistance Group within the British Army's Force Troop ...

based at DISC, deploying to Afghanistan in March 2008 as a Target Audience Analyst. Her team, 152 DELTA Psychological Operations Effects Team, was part of the PsyOps Support Element (PSE) supporting Headquarters

16 Air Assault Brigade 16 Air Assault Brigade Combat Team, from 1999 to 2021 16 Air Assault Brigade, is a formation of the British Army based in Colchester in the county of Essex. It is the Army's rapid response airborne formation and is the only brigade in the Britis ...

, commanding

Task Force Helmand Task Force Helmand was the name given to a military unit of the International Security Assistance Force in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Task Force Helmand was part of Regional Command Southwest and consisted primarily of personnel from the Briti ...

Fatality

Corporal Bryant died whilst taking part in an operation east of

Lashkar Gah Lashkargāh ( ps, لښکرګاه; fa, لشکرگاه), historically called Bost or Boost (), is a city in southwestern Afghanistan and the capital of Helmand Province. It is located in Lashkargah District, where the Arghandab River merges into ...

when the Land Rover SNATCH 2 vehicle in which she and four other soldiers were travelling in received the blast of an

improvised explosive device An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechan ...

. All but one of the occupants of the vehicle died.Ministry of Defence News
/ref> After her remains had been repatriated to

RAF Lyneham Royal Air Force Lyneham otherwise known as RAF Lyneham was a Royal Air Force station located northeast of Chippenham, Wiltshire, and southwest of Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The station was the home of all the Lockheed C-130 Hercules transpor ...

, Bryant's military funeral took place at Holy Trinity church in Wetheral, where she had married her husband two years previously. She is buried at Wetheral Cemetery. Bryant's name was later added to the roll of honour for Burscough and Lathom Royal British Legion branch and Burscough War memorial, and the Wetheral Lych Gate war memorial. The Intelligence Corps will henceforth award the Sarah Bryant Medal to the student who "best espouses the Values and Standards of the British Army" as voted by his or her peers when passing out from the Chicksands Intelligence training courses. Her death received a great deal of coverage in the UK and international media, which in turn provoked discussion on the gendered nature of the

War on Terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international Counterterrorism, counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campa ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bryant, Sarah Military personnel from Liverpool Intelligence Corps soldiers Women in the British Army British Army personnel of the Iraq War Deaths by improvised explosive device in Afghanistan British Army personnel of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) British military personnel killed in the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) Women in the Iraq War 1981 births 2008 deaths People from Wetheral

Career

Fatality

See also

References