Ian Malone - Military Service

Military Service

Malone was promoted to lance corporal in October 2000 and served on Operation Agricola in Kosovo. He completed a piper's course in April 1999, and was a member of the pipe band. He also served with the Battle Group in Poland, Canada, Oman and Germany.

In November 2002 Lance Corporal Malone was one of a number of British soldiers interviewed on a Radio Telefís Éireann documentary series, True Lives. Regarding his membership of the British Army, he said:

At the end of the day I am just abroad doing a job. People go on about Irishmen dying for freedom and all that. That's a fair one. They did. But they died to give men like me the freedom to choose what to do.

Malone was deployed on Operation Telic in an armoured infantry section with Number 1 Company, Irish Guards, as part of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Battle Group within 7 Armoured Brigade. Lance Corporal Malone was shot in the head by a sniper on 6 April in Iraq during the Irish Guards' advance on the country's second largest city, Basra.

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