Sapper Mark Smith killed in Helmand Province in Afghanistan
Sapper Mark Smith from 36 Engineer Regiment, aged 26, who lived in Dale Road Swanley was killed in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. Conservative councillors attended on the 19th August 2010 to pay respects at the full military honours funeral. Hundreds of people lined the street to pay tribute to Mark who attended Hextable Secondary School for 5 years and played football for Hextable Harriers.
 
Sapper Smith had been serving as part of a Counter-Improvisation Explosive Device Task Force in the Sangin area of Helmand Province. He had joined the army in 2001 and trained as a combat engineer and communications and information systems operator and had served in Iraq in 2003. He was deployed on his first tour of Afghanistan in 2007 and volunteered for a second tour this year.
 
One of Mark's good friends from Selah Drive in Swanley, Kevin Dove, also 26, said ‘It was a very good send off. It was obviously a very emotional time but everyone was very touched and moved by the service’.
The coffin was carried into St Martin of Tours Church in Eynsford to the hymn I vow to Thee My Country where Padre Patrick Aldridge Chaplain to the Royal Engineers conducted the service. A public address system transmitted the service to the people outside as Jerusalem was sung by the congregation.
Neil Miller, Mark’s form tutor from Hextable School is ex army and used to talk to Mark about going into the army. Adam Knapp from Cherry Avenue, Swanley, who played football with Mark, said, ‘He was a great lad. You knew you could rely on him and he would back you up with anything’.
 
A flag was flown in memory of Mark with a sign below it reading, ‘The flag is flying today in honour of Sapper Mark Smith who laid down his life for his country in Afghanistan’.