The village of Comber, Co Down, came to a standstill yesterday for the funeral of British soldier Cpl Channing Day who was killed last month in Afghanistan.
Cpl Day was the first woman soldier from Northern Ireland to die in Afghanistan. A medic from 3 Medical Regiment she and a colleague Cpl David O’Connor died in a gun battle in Helmand province.
Her coffin draped in the British union flag was carried by horse-drawn carriage to Comber Presbyterian Church close to her home. In the town square a minute’s silence was held at the war memorial.
Many tributes were paid to 25-year-old Cpl Day, who joined the British army in 2005 and also served in Iraq, including one from her sister Lauren who described her as “amazing”. “We should all be very proud of Channing and we will get through all this if we continue to look out for each other knowing that we have a diamond in the sky looking down on us all — our very own guardian angel,” she said.
“You were the best sister I could ever have asked for. You were very special but I didn’t know just how amazing you were. I’m in awe the more I find out about you each day,” she added.
British army chaplain the Rev Albert Jackson told mourners Cpl Day’s passion from her early days was to be a soldier. “That was her goal. She wanted to be one of the best. She wanted to be the best,” he said.
He said she was always willing to face the same dangers as her male colleagues.
Among the hundreds who attended the funeral were First Minister Peter Robinson, SDLP Minister Alex Attwood, DUP junior Minister Jonathan Bell and DUP MP Jim Shannon.
