U.S. Troops Mourn French Reporter

American soldiers offered prayers Sunday for a French television reporter killed in an accident during the biggest U.S. military exercises since the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The exercises ended late Sunday with a display of tracer fire, antitank missiles and machine-gun rounds lighting up the northern Kuwaiti desert for more than an hour as rampaging M1A1 Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and soldiers attacked imaginary enemy targets during nighttime exercises.

The maneuvers ended two days of live-fire exercises involving thousands of soldiers and hundreds of vehicles.

Earlier Sunday, troops from the U.S. Army’s 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division offered prayers for French journalist Patrick Bourrat, killed while covering the exercises.

Bourrat, who was in his 40s and worked for TF1, was struck during exercises Saturday while crossing the path of a tank and was thrown 15 feet into the air. He died at a hospital early Sunday of massive internal injuries.

“Everybody feels terrible about this,” said Chaplain Ron Cooper of Saginaw, Mich. “It’s been a real shock, especially when we had heard that he had just broken a couple of ribs and had been talking to his family.”