When Samantha Roberts, pictured, heard that six British military policemen had been killed in Iraq, her heart went out to their families.

"I thought, for them it's only just beginning," she said. "Someone else is now going through it. There is nothing you can say. It's your worst fears come true."

Samantha, 32, was in that same heart-breaking position in March when her husband, tank commander Steve "Buddy" Roberts, became the first British soldier to die in combat in the second Gulf War.

She hadn't gone into work at a gym that morning after feeling odd the day and night before.

She woke at 3am - the exact time he died.

She told her pal to tell work she was taking a day off as holiday "because I felt someone would need to get hold of me".

Half an hour later the men from the MOD were walking up the garden path at her home in Shipley.

"I knew they were from the military because of the way they looked but I thought Steve had been injured," she recalled.

"I asked them who they were and why there were here. They asked to come in and after that it all gets hazy. I thought there had been a mistake and that Steve was still alive in his tank."

She is still no nearer the definitive truth about the matter. An inquest lies ahead.

But she said the death of the 33-year-old has not changed her thoughts about the war.

Nor do this week's tragic deaths.

Before the conflict she was strongly pro-war and remains so - defending Tony Blair, who is still heavily criticised for taking Britain to war.

The pretty fitness instructor, added: "Nothing makes me more angry than when people ask me: 'Do you think he died for nothing?'

"I believe he was doing the right thing because he believed he was. If he has changed one Iraqi's life then it was worth it.

"There are children in poverty out there and they have found mass graves.

"It was easy to be anti-war and to be liked for being anti-war. Steve used to call them "tree-huggers". But people don't know all the facts, I don't.

"It is irrelevant now to criticise Tony Blair. I can't stand it at all. It is history. It has happened."

She firmly believed the weapons of mass destruction did exist and have been hidden away by Saddam.

"If they can't find him, do you think he will let the weapons be found? I believe they have been squirreled away for a rainy day."

On October 26, the second anniversary of her wedding to Steve, she will attend the Royal British Legion's remembrance concert at Leeds Town Hall.

A massed choir and military band will play Aerosmith's "Don't Want to Miss a Thing". It was their song - because Steve always said he didn't want to miss a moment of them being together.

"What a way to celebrate your wedding anniversary," she said. "I just don't know how I'll get through it."

She is backing the RBL's fundraising campaign and wanted to remind people it is not all about pensioners and poppies. Young men and their families need their support as well.

She said she has been helped enormously by them, her family and friends and Steve's family - along with "lots of brandy and cigarettes" - since the day he was killed.

Only now is she able to talk about him with ease and recalled how his sense of humour won her heart.

"I know people who have married soldiers and I vowed I never would," she said. "He was on a rugby tour in Bristol with the Army and they were due to play the university.

"We were in a pub and his mates were drunker than he was and he came up to apologise. He told us they had no supporters and the other team had loads.

"So the next day we went along - just three of us, me, my mate and her boyfriend and cheered them - and it took off from there."

They were married two years ago in the Cook Islands, then had a blessing at St Wilfred's Church near the Army College in Harrogate where he was an instructor. It was to be the church where his funeral was held.

"He was 100 per cent army," she recalled. "When we were buying a wedding ring he said 'I don't want a poncey gold one and went for titanium. It looks like something off a tank!"

Samantha has scattered some of Steve's ashes off the coast of Cornwall where he grew up and where he always said he wanted them to go.

The rest are still in her bedroom and will be interred in Harrogate so Samantha has somewhere to visit.

"The last time he left me he said he didn't want to go," she recalled. "He had this thing about being first - it is ironic he was the first to be killed.

"But he would have loved all this. He loved being at the centre of attention and everyone was talking about him at his funeral.

"We set off a rocket with "Buddy" written on it and the dates he was born and died because he loved fireworks."

Samantha knows she must return to work soon, having been off since Steve died.

"I've been in limbo ever since the day he was killed," she said. "My heart goes out to those other families. They are just starting out on what I've been through."