Shelley Kovco Calls For Inquiry Finding Overturn

After the flood of emotions I"ve been through since receiving a post purporting to be from Shelley Kovco, I'm having trouble believing that it was from the same person appearing in the reports coming out this morning. On the strength of the report commissioned by the NSW Homicide squad, Shelley has called for the military finding of death by skylarking to be overturned. Kovco's mother is calling for an inquest.

The Homicide squad's report says that ""insufficient evidence [is] available ... to determine whether the trigger was pulled deliberately or accidentally".

Here's the current version from The Age.

What do I make of the missive from "Shelley" now? Shelley Kovco has said today that all she wants is for the word "skylarking" taken out, so that the verdict is simply that Kovco died of a gunshot wound to the head. Fair enough. What I still would like to know it that if, as claimed in the post, there is footage of Kovco being worked on, why hasn't it been mentioned till now?

One thing I know for sure is that I've only had a very minor taste of how Shelley Kovco might feel. I feel so sad for her. However, if there is going to be an inquest then I will be following it closely.

An Apology To Shelley Kovco

I have recieved, from Shelley Kovco, this reply to my last post, and reprint it here so that everyone can see the hurt that I have caused.

Richard.....You have no idea what you are on about. Oh....were you in the room??? You seem to know what happened? Please do tell? My husband was still alive when he was in the room. I have seen footage where the boys have been working on him. You have not been lied to and I would really like to stop reading crap that people like yourself keep bringing up.

It has been almost 12 months since my husband died and I'd really like to know that people have something else to talk about. Why not write an article on yourself and lets see what comes up there? Why is it that you think that Jake's mates would pull this sort of shit? A lot of you "civvy's" have no bloody idea about army life and the realtionships the families have. There is no way known that Jake's mates and his commanding officer would be so emotianl telling me about those last few moments they spent with Jake.

If you have any proof of anything you disagree with please let me know and I can tell you the truth or at least find out. A lot of you "Civvy's" out there find it so easy to blame the defence for a cover up. Try walking a day or even a year in my shoes and see what this crap feels like and does to you. Let Jake's name be remembered the way it should, With honour

.

Shelley, my most sincere apologies. I wouldn't and couldn't want to do anything that would hurt you. I thought something was wrong, and was trying, in a way I now see was misguided, to help.



The last was going to be the last thing I was going to say, and now this post.

I am distressed that I have caused you further sadness. I will do whatever I can to try and make amends in memory of your husband.

The Last Word On Kovco- The First Word On Kov

The Last Word On Kovco- The First Word On Kovco

"He died in a US Army combat surgical hospital where he was surrounded by his mates, who draped his body in an Australian flag and with a paratrooper's beret on his chest as they said The Lord's Prayer." These words of Jake Kovco's death appeared on the Melbourne Herald Sun's website on the weekend following his death.

Who wrote this crap? Surely to any reader that's been following the Kovco Inquiry the wag-the-dog-style imagery written here is WRONG.

The lines came from an ADF media release issued on April 23rd of last year. They're the only lines I've read throughout this whole sorry saga that don't say that Kovco wasn't dead on his barracks room floor from the bullet lodged in his head.

I can easily believe that later, at the US hospital, the body was brought out, draped with a flag, and the religious ceremony enacted. What I'm suggesting is that Kovco may have already been dead for a very long time.

The visual image of Kovco's death portrayed here bears the hallmarks of a spin by a writer from the Rendon Group. They're fairly fond of flags. One of their best photo-ops was of the various nationalities of the Coalition as they gathered at the Kuwait border to invade Iraq. The soldiers didn't have flags from their home countries in their hands by accident. Rendon put them there.

The same sort of thing happenned when Saddam's statue fell.

So why re-stage Kovco's death scene? Was it just to make a more "appropriate" picture o an Australian digger's death in Iraq?

If my theory holds true, then there are probably many other event recreations that we'l never get to know about.

Personally, I'd like to know why we were lied to.