The death of a British soldier in an explosion in southern Iraq on 31 January brings the number of British personnel to have died in that country to 100.
The tragedy is the latest in a conflict which has aroused sorrow, anger - and also pride - in soldiers and their families.
Susan Smith was torn between grief and fury as she read our camera crew a letter of condolence from the prime minister.
Her son, Phillip Hewett, was killed by a roadside bomb while serving with the Staffordshire Regiment in Iraq last July. He was 21.
"Let Mr Blair put his kids in the Army," she said bitterly.
"Our troops shouldn't be in Iraq. It should have ended when the war ended. We should have pulled out then and left the Iraqis to sort themselves out."
Mrs Smith is one of several grieving relatives from service families whose loss has turned them against the war.
She now campaigns for British forces to withdraw from Iraq immediately.
"I pray every night this not going to happen to another family," she said.
"But you know, inevitably, that it will."
The price of Britain's involvement in Iraq is now 100 servicemen killed and many more injured.
Iraq has turned out to be much more difficult than the British military expected.
"We've touched the lives of thousands of Iraqis and made life better for them"
So the mood was of immense relief for families of soldiers from Phillip Hewett's regiment as they returned from Iraq in October.
Five men were lost from the Staffords' battle-group during their tour, a bad blow for a small county regiment.
It was also soldiers from this regiment who were doused in flames during September's unrest in Basra.
They were shown ablaze and leaping from their armoured vehicles, in pictures transmitted around the world.
"It's been a tour like no other for a long time," said their commanding officer, Lt Col Andrew Williams.
But he added: "I have no doubt in my mind we're doing a good thing. We've touched the lives of thousands of Iraqis and made life better for them."
For British soldiers, Iraq evokes mixed responses: pride, sadness for lost comrades and also aggrieved shock, even despondency, at how some Iraqis viewed their presence.
"You go out there to help them and they prefer to throw bricks at us and try to blow us up all the time"
Pte Daniel Watkin, 19, said: "Some Iraqis wanted us there and some didn't... most didn't.
"You go out there to help and they prefer to throw bricks and try to blow us up all the time. It wasn't very welcoming."
But the tough conditions in Iraq, the casualties sustained there, don't translate directly into poor morale.
It's not that simple. Soldiers like being on operations: that's why they joined.
Still, among senior officers, there is deep concern about the Army fighting what one general described to me as the first war since Suez to be unpopular back home.
Part of the problem?
Public disquiet over Iraq would damage troops' morale, argued Lord Garden, a commander in the first Gulf War and now the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman.
"There is now a sense of foreboding among the British public that we're not going to succeed in the end and that maybe we're part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
"Keeping your morale up in those circumstances is very difficult."
The Defence Secretary John Reid disagreed, although his remarks underlined the worries ministers have about the effect on public opinion of frequent stories about bombings and beheadings.
"The morale among our troops is fantastic," he said.
"I only wish some of the commentators at home had the same moral courage and morale."
"The British Army has been faced with these sorts of challenges many times in the past and has always come out of it with chins up"
The Conservative defence spokesman, Patrick Mercer - a former infantry officer - said Iraq was "more violent, more testing and a lot more stressful" than Northern Ireland, with a higher casualty rate and more rapid operational tempo.
But he stressed the Army had waged similar anti-insurgency campaigns, in places like Aden and Malaya.
"The British Army has been faced with these sorts of challenges many times... and has always come out of it with chins up and bearing themselves like soldiers with great pride."
British soldiers enjoy their reputation as a subtle, skilled military force with long experience in low-intensity conflict.
Patrolling in soft hats in Iraq signifies that approach. But counter-insurgency can be more complex than the straightforward business of war.
Relations with local security forces in southern Iraq remain strained after September, when two SAS men were rescued from an Iraqi police station.
Roadside bombs are more accurate and deadlier than before. For these reasons, say senior officers, security for troops in southern Iraq is worsening, not improving.
How many more British casualties there will be in Iraq will depend on how long British troops remain there.
The exit strategy relies on strong Iraqi security forces, capable of acting independently; on Iraq getting stable political institutions, and on a future Iraqi government asking Coalition forces to leave.
The British Government insists there can be no timetable for withdrawal.
Ministers warn an explicit withdrawal date would encourage terrorists and jeopardise everything that has been achieved in Iraq, at so great a cost.
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