THE harsh reality of war is coming home. Home in the images of prisoners of war, and and home in the bodies of executed American soldiers, being disgracefully paraded on Iraqi television.

Yesterday, it came very close to home with the moving family tributes to Captain Philip Stuart Guy, who lived with his wife and 20-month-old son in the Yorkshire Dales.

Captain Guy, a much-loved father, husband and son, was one of 12 Allied servicemen killed when their helicopter crashed in the Kuwaiti desert as a result of mechanical failure.

There is a danger of becoming blase about a war being played out with hi-tech weapons on live television.

But the courageous and poignant words of Captain Guy's wife Helen, and his mother Anne, underline the fragility of life on all sides of this horrific conflict:

He was a perfect, loving husband. He loved his wife and his son so very much. He was admired. He was special. He was wonderful. He was brave. He was a true professional. He died a hero, serving his country, and striving to make the world a safer place.

We have published the full text of Helen Guy's statement in full on our front page today because her words capture the enormity of what is happening in the Middle East.

They capture the spirit of those prepared to risk their lives in the Gulf, and they capture the stomach-churning emptiness of grief.

What must be remembered is that they could just as easily have been written by the wife or mother of a much-loved Iraqi victim of war.

Captain Philip Stuart Guy, the first local casualty of this war, was clearly very special to those who knew him. The tributes paid so publicly today by his family do him great justice.

Our thoughts are with his widow, his mother, his little boy Henry and the rest of his family.

And our hearts go out to his second baby who will be born in the next few weeks in circumstances which could hardly be more heartbreaking.

25/03/2003