Tributes paid to killed servicemen

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Royal Marine Lance Corporal Rob Richards, 24, died at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham late on Wednesday night from injuries he sustained near Lashkar Gah in Helmand Province last Friday.

And Lance Corporal Kieron Hill, 20, of 2nd Battalion the Mercian Regiment, was killed in an explosion near Garmsir in Helmand on Thursday morning.

L/Cpl Richards, of the Armoured Support Group Royal Marines, was seriously injured when his Viking armoured vehicle hit an improvised explosive device. He was given first aid at the scene and in Kandahar before being flown back to Britain for specialist treatment, but he died from his wounds five days later.

A second serviceman also wounded in the blast is still being treated.

L/Cpl Richards, known to his family as Martin, lived in Betws-y-Coed in North Wales and was enormously proud of his Welsh roots.

Comrades described him as the "alpha male amongst the pack" and said he was the epitome of a Marine. One said: "Like a stick of rock, if you snapped him in half he would have Royal Marines Commando written the whole way through."

L/Cpl Richards joined the Royal Marines in April 2002 and served in Northern Ireland before training as a Viking operator and deploying to Afghanistan for the first of three tours.

Major Richard Hopkins, officer commanding the Armoured Support Group, said he was "an enormous character".

"L/Cpl Richards was a unique, utterly confident and accomplished Viking operator," he said. "His eccentric pranks and arid banter, coupled with his ability to dress in quirky PT (physical training) kit or the most obscure items of issued clothing, made him stand out starkly in the group and for all the right reasons."