Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

In Briagolong, in the Gippsland foothills, the bush starts at the edge of town and keeps going. A boy who grew up there learned to read the country early. Which track to take. Which ridge to climb. When the rain was coming. Jake Kovco was one of those boys.

Jacob Bruce Kovco was born on 25 September 1980 in Melbourne and raised in Briagolong. He went to Maffra Secondary College and finished his VCE in 1998. Afterwards he went to work at the local knackery. It wasn't flash work. It was the kind of job that tells you early what sort of bloke you are, and Jake was the sort who turned up and got on with it.

Weekends he rode. Motorcycles on the regional circuits around eastern Victoria, mountain bikes on the tracks in the bush behind Briagolong. He raced hard and he raced happy. Racing suited him. So did the country he raced in.

In March 2002 Jake joined the Australian Army. Singleton in May, through the School of Infantry, then posted to the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR) at Holsworthy in New South Wales, Australia's parachute-capable infantry battalion at the time. He began in a rifle platoon as a heavy weapons operator, carrying the equipment that gives an infantry section its weight of fire. In time he pushed himself toward the 3 RAR Sniper Cell. That's not a course many try. Fewer still make it through. Jake wanted it and he earned it.

His mates in 3 RAR spoke of him as a soldier's soldier, a bloke who took the hard parts seriously and still found a way to make the room lighter when the day was long. That combination is rare. In an infantry battalion, it's valued.

At home, Jake was married to Shelley. They had two small children, Tyrie and Alana. Jake talked about his kids a lot. He spoke about them from Singleton, from Holsworthy, and later from Baghdad. His mate Corporal Stephen Carr recalled meals at Jake's place before they deployed together. That ordinary domestic warmth marked his family home. It was the part of his life that everything else was for.

In early 2006 Jake deployed to Baghdad as part of Security Detachment IX (SECDET IX), a 110-person task group providing protection for Australian diplomatic personnel at the Australian Embassy. It was his first tour. The role suited his training, observation, overwatch, the rifle. Long hours on a rooftop with his eye on one street. The heat, the noise, the boredom that can turn into a threat in a second.

His journal entries from Baghdad show a man thinking hard about his life. He wrote about missing Tyrie and Alana. He wrote about Shelley. He wrote that he was proud to be there, and he wrote that he couldn't wait to be home. That's most soldiers, most of the time. It's what they carry while they're doing the job.

On the morning of 21 April 2006, Jake was in his accommodation room in Baghdad with two roommates. The Cranberries were playing on the stereo. The three of them were singing loudly, mimicking the lead singer, laughing at each other. That's how his mates remember him. It's the last memory they have of him alive.

Private Jacob Bruce Kovco was killed in Baghdad later that day. He was 25 years old. He was the first Australian soldier killed during the Middle East deployment.

Jake's death left a hole his family has lived with ever since. Shelley lost her husband. Tyrie and Alana lost their dad. His mother Judy has carried him every day since, and Martin has carried him with her.

On 9 October 2010, the people of Briagolong unveiled a bronze memorial plaque for Jake at ANZAC Park on Avon Street. The town that raised him made sure his name stayed there. His name is recorded on the Australian War Memorial's Roll of Honour in Canberra, at Panel 2 in the Commemorative Area, and is projected onto the Hall of Memory on the anniversary of his death. In Victoria, he is commemorated on the Victorian Garden of Remembrance at Springvale and at the Sale Public Cemetery.

Twenty years on, his mates still remember him. A Gippsland boy. A racer. A sniper. A husband and a dad. He sang loud and he laughed loud. They loved him. They still do.