
Life & death Pte Jake Kovco 3 RAR Iraq
Carry Me Home the Life and Death of Private Jake Kovco
Carry Me Home the Life and Death of Private Jake Kovco
Jacob Bruce "Jake" Kovco (25 September 1980 – 21 April 2006) was a private in the Australian Army who died while deployed to Iraq, fatally wounded by a single shot to the head from his own Browning 9mm sidearm. He was the first Australian soldier to die while deployed to the Middle East Area of Operations.
A military inquiry found Private Kovco accidentally shot himself while mishandling his pistol. This conclusion was disputed by his family and on 2 April 2008, a second inquest returned a similar verdict, finding that his death was "irresponsibly self-inflicted", and that when he pulled his gun's trigger he "disregarded the possible consequences of dange