Father in 'private Ryan' Plea As Son Killed in Iraq

He survived one of America's most infamous military nightmares that became the basis of the film Black Hawk Down. He went on to beat a more personal battle, this time with cancer.

But Aaron Weaver's life finally ended in tragedy last week when the 32-year-old US soldier died in a helicopter - another Black Hawk - shot down by a rocket attack near Falluja by Iraqi resistance fighters.

In a grim reminder of another movie, the Second World War epic, Saving Private Ryan, Weaver's family are now trying to save his two brothers from a similar fate and are asking the military to change the men's deployment away from the frontlines. One brother, Ryan, 30, is a helicopter pilot in Baghdad and the other, Steve, 39, is also a pilot, weeks away from being posted to Afghanistan.

As the steady trickle of body bags returning from Afghanistan and Iraq increasingly unsettles military families across the US, Weaver's family have taken up the mantle of Private Jessica Lynch in becoming the latest ordinary Americans to attract national media attention that has made them figureheads for the conflict in Iraq.

'We're not trying to get the other two out of the service. We're just trying to get them from suffering the same fate,' said Mike Weaver, the men's father, who has asked the Pentagon to make the deployment shift.

Army regulations allow for deployments to be changed for emergency reasons, such as bereavement or illness. A military spokesman said the situation would be looked at, but pointed out that the two surviving brothers might not want to be redeployed. Any formal request to change their mission would also have to come from the soldiers themselves.

He pointed out that redeployment was only possible for active service personnel and that Steve Weaver, who is only one year away from retirement and is normally based in Hawaii, had not yet been sent to Afghanistan.

Aaron Weaver's death has a particular resonance as he had won a medal for saving a fellow soldier's life during the ill-fated 1993 US intervention in Somalia.

His efforts were featured in Black Hawk Down, which portrayed the Battle of Mogadishu when 18 US Rangers died in a fight with Somali militiamen. During the fight, Weaver volunteered to head into combat as a reinforce ment after two helicopters had been shot down, leaving their wounded crews surrounded by hostile forces.

He also survived a long struggle with testicular cancer and continued his service in the military despite his illness. He signed a medical waiver specifically so that he could be sent to Iraq.

His last journey, in a medical helicopter that was clearly marked with red crosses, was to have a cancer check-up to see if the disease was still in remission. But now flags in his home town of Clearwater, Florida, are flying at half mast.

'It was the life he chose,' Mike Weaver told a local TV station. 'He went willingly and even pulled strings to get himself there when he really didn't have to go.'

Ryan Weaver was on duty just 60 miles away when his brother's helicopter went down. The Weaver family is steeped in military life and tradition. As well as the three brothers, all of whom are helicopter pilots, a sister is also in the air force, though not posted overseas. Mike Weaver himself is a former US marine.

Aaron left behind a wife, a stepson and a young daughter. 'I still don't believe it. I can see his face,' said his mother, Kelly. 'He's just a beautiful boy, so strong and so smart. I just hope he didn't suffer. I'm so proud of him.'

His father echoed that sen timent, saying that his son had survived so much only to die while a passenger in an air ambulance. 'Having survived that [Somalia] and having survived cancer, I didn't dream that something like this would have happened to him,' he said.

In all, nine US soldiers died in the Falluja helicopter, including troops who were based across America, from Fort Carson, Colorado, to Fort Bragg in North Carolina. US investigators said yesterday that an initial examination of the incident had shown that the plane was shot down by guerrillas.

'The investigation has not concluded, but preliminary reports are that the helicopter was shot down by ground fire,' said US Army spokesman Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt.

At least five people were killed yesterday when British troops and Iraqi police opened fire on stone-throwing protesters demanding jobs in the south-eastern city of Amara.