Funeral for Mercian Regiment soldier killed in blast
He was described as 'one of the best of his generation' and today hundreds of mourners packed into Lichfield Cathedral to pay tribute to Ian Fisher.
The Warrant Officer Class 2 from the 3rd Battalion, The Mercian Regiment (Staffords) was killed in a suicide blast while on patrol in Afghanistan.
At the time he was on the final day of a two-day operation to disrupt insurgent activity in Helmand province which was carried out last month. He leaves his wife Emma, sons James and William, and his parents Simon and Helen.
On November 5, WO2 Fisher, 42, who worked as a sergeant major for a company of Warrior fighting vehicles, was meeting Afghan National Security Forces near Kamparak, 25 miles north east of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device carried in a suicide vehicle.
He was evacuated by air to the military hospital at Camp Bastion where he died. The physics and geology graduate, born in Barking, Essex, joined the Territorial Army in February 1993 with B Company, 3 Staffords, based in Stoke-on-Trent. He was 'the epitome of an infantry sergeant major', his colleagues said.
He completed four previous operational tours from 1999 – once to Northern Ireland, twice to Iraq and a previous tour of Afghanistan in 2011.
