It was a Sunday morning and I was almost ready to leave home for the war, I ate breakfast and then said goodbye to my wife and little girl Aimee. I had to walk to the pickup point at the end of the field where the truck was waiting for me.

It started to tip down with rain yet I was at the back of the truck with all the other men, we didn't have the roof cover on the truck so we were getting soaked like a tin of sardines, it was a 2 hour drive to the military grounds so I thought it would be a good idea to have a nap. I woke hearing two gunshots with the shock of what had happened, it turned out that the gunshots were only to wake us up because everyone at the back of the truck had fallen asleep.

Straight away we were on our feet waiting to be allocated to our rooms, I was staying in a large tent with 4 people that were from east London. They were called Cameron, Jamie, Connor and Aaron. Then we had to choose a bed so I choose the one in the corner because it was a dry area and there wasn’t a whole in the tent roof. I started to unpack like the rest of us was told to do, I took my boots out and found a teddy that was Aimee's from her first birthday, this put a huge smile on my face but then we all had to go and start training at the beginner’s side of the military grounds.

We started to run through the long tall grassed fields, we kept on running for about 45 minutes approximately and then we had a very short break but this was really tough because we hadn't had any food or drink which didn't seem that fair for any of us. We took off again ran back to the grounds that we started on, but lots of the new troops were falling behind and we were told never to leave a man behind no matter what the situation was. We made it back were having lunch which was only 20 minutes, but I guess that’s the regulations for what I signed up for, but I didn’t really have much of a choice.

After lunch all of the other recruits and my tent mates all went to the hall where we had been told to go because there where a meeting arranged to learn about the safety rules for the time we all spent at the military grounds. The presentation was mostly about the regulations encase there was a fire or an attack to the base, but hopefully this would happen.

The presentation was over now and it was roughly 7:30 pm so now it was dinner time so we all went down the canteen, I thought that there was going to be a small list of food that we could choose, but I was shocked because there were a roast dinner and curry including a different choice of puddings. My tent mates and I sat down at a small table that was in the corner of the canteen, Halfway from eating a couple of soldiers walk to the front and had instruments, they started to play but then for some reason a fight started and the whole canteen went wild. Two generals walked in and screamed so loud that you would never want to be out of order again.

Everyone went quite, for 10 seconds but then one of the generals started to speak in a calmer tone which wasn’t so frightening. We all went to our tents now for free time, I jumped onto my bed and layer there wondering what was the plans for the next day, one of the men called Aaron in my tent got a letter from home but it sounded like he couldn't read so I went over to him and ask if he would like help, he said yes but could I maybe teach him as well so I said yes as longs as he stayed with me during the training that we would be doing the next day.

We heard a shout that it was lights out see we all went to bed, but it was really cold that night because the extra blankets hadn't been handed out yet. I picked up Aimee's little teddy and held it hoping that the camp user phone would be available, I got deep into the covers and closed my eyes hoping that the next day would be a great day of training. 

We all got out of bed and got dressed to head to the canteen for morning breakfast which had been quick because we had a long day ahead of us so, we ran to the training centre were our leader was waiting for us.

We all got handed our equipment for the first stage of training, (Shooting), we all went to the shooting range and got trained on how to clean the gun before we could shoot. Then we were taught how to hold the gun correctly because some of the soldiers had known idea on what they were doing. We were given 5 target sheets and then we began to test our shooting ability after 10 of our shots were over we had to go and change the target to a new one.

The shooting marshal was checking our grouping on where the bullets had hit and my shots were actually good according to the marshal. Over the hour of training at the shooting range, we were taught on how to improve our shooting ability to make sure our shots were at our best. The shooting was over and now we headed back to the camp for the second section of our training, We all had to get changed into our water clothes, our next activity was about to become intense because we were in for a shock, (Drowning), to move on to the next stage we had to drown to know what the experience was like if this was to happen.

I got my arm and legs tied up so I couldn’t swim to the surface of the pool, 3, 2, 1 push, I was pushed into the water with waits tied to my feet and then I sank to the bottom with a huge panic, and then I remember waking up on the pool floor throwing up loads of water that I had swallowed when I drowned. At that moment I knew that I had passed the test even though I was freak out like mad, I got dry and had a snack to get my sugar levels up as I felt so dead after the training.

We had a check over to make sure that we were all okay from the drowning and then we went back to the military grounds to get changed into dry clothes, it was the hottest day and for some reason the water supply was running low but we had new stock coming in the next day. 

It was lunch time now and we had a long break because the other troopers that were training hadn't got back yet so this meant we could go up for seconds, I went over to the camp phone and dialled my home number hoping that my wife would pick up, she answered the phone and said that she was so glad to hear from me, I asked how Aimee was and she said that she misses me already and wishes that I was at home. This made me cry but not for long,  I said that I was going to ring inning to again within a couple of days, I went back to the table where I was eating lunch but then we heard a loud siren from the front entrance of the military base.

Everyone went running to the front entrance of the military grounds, two trucks came speeding through the gates and came to a dramatic stop next to the camp hospital. Both of the doors on the trucks slammed open and inside was loads of injured men from the battlefield, they all needed serious help and fast. I ran over and offered to help so the first aiders said, "yes you ,go and help those two into the emergency tent and do it fast", The men were bleeding like mad but it was too much to carry both so I had to put one down and get him after, as soon as I went to put the soldier down he threw up all over the front of me, this made me feel sick instantly but I had to go back and pick up the over soldier that I had to leave behind.

When I got out there the man wasn't on the floor but when I asked where he was, "he was already dead when you picked him up", this put me in so much shock and then I threw up partly because of how shocking this was and I had vomit all over the front of me, the nurse took me into the med bay and then cleaned me up so that I could get back to my lunch. But when I got back to the table all our food had been cleared off into the bin because the kitchen staff thought that we weren't coming back.

We had to go back to our rooms now because the rest of our day's training is going to be over but we had a big activity at night, I got changed into my fresh clothes and laid on the bed but then I remembered that I was going to teach Aaron how to read, I sat on his bed and asked him if I could look at his letter and he said yes. The letter said "Hi Aaron it’s you sister, I hope that you’re doing okay, mum has just come out hospital and she's feeling a lot better now and she wanted me to tell you that she hopes you will do well, call me as soon as you can".

We got prepared for the next training activity that was going to be at night, we all packed our night bags with all the equipment that we needed and headed to the meeting point for our team talk, the task we basically was doing is called paintballing but it was more advanced than just an ordinary game. The arena was huge, I was like a huge maze but loads of different rooms and pathways that you could go down. This was a real and serious competition that we was about to enter but as tough as hell, there as two teams any we were divided equally  and then we had to go to our bases in the corners of the arena.

We heard the start siren and then we knew that the game had begun, the aim of the game was to not get shot and capture the flag as soon as possible and then return to our base to win the points. This game went on for hours but in the end the scores we really even. It turns out though that one of the people from the other team had cheated but didn’t play by the rules so he got disqualified and then that put us in the first place. From this point on we went to bed and at last we had our extra blankets to stay warm.

We had to get up really early this morning because everyone was going to the battle field to experience some live action but we weren't aloud to use weapons so we had to carry some backup equipment and the food for the day. We climbed into a bullet proof truck which looked so cool and impressive, this beast of a vehicle started up the engine that roared as we started to drive towards the gates but before we could leave, the gate warden made sure that It was safe to leave encase there was any enemies in site. We drove off really fast and headed north for 30 minutes, we stopped at a thew abandoned houses and decided that we were going to be there for most of the day. We sat down in the corner of a room to have lunch and to have a break, I got called into a room by one of the generals because there was going to be some map work needed and they knew that I had this skill. 

The plan was to head into the village were some of our troops were being held hostage in the main house, this mission wasn't going to be easy because the village grounds were covered in Taliban soldiers. We all suited up and drove towards the village but stopped about 150 meters away from the entrance so we had a chance to work out our entrance plan. It was decided that the heavy gunners were to lead the way int the village and the snipers would stay back encase there was any undetected enemies,we began to move towards the big doors which was shut tight so we decided to mount some explosive C4 to the lock so we could blast the door open. 3, 2, 1... boom, the door was blown off the wall and we all poured into the village.

We heard screaming in one of the houses so we moved to the door and smashed the door down but as soon as we entered the room there was only a small family and a dog in the corner. I pinned the father to the floor and checked him for an offensive weapon but he was clean. We asked him if he had anything to do with the attack to our other troops but he said that he was living in the village because he had no other place to go. We said that we are going to stay in there house just to use as protection and to store some of our weapons, the family cooked us dinner and we all sat at the table together and started to eat. We all started to relax but everyone was forgetting that we are on a mission so we all got back up and put our equipment back on to go and continue on rescuing our troops from being killed.

At this point it was really dark in the evening so we had to put night vision goggles on so that we could see where we are going. There was a huge explosion from the house the we just had left when eating dinner, all of our weapons and spares were destroyed in the explosion so parts of our plan was now messed up. We moved towards the house which we were going to attack to retrieve our troops, shot's started to come from above us but it didn't take long for our snipers to take them out.

At top of the hill are can drove down the road really fast and we could see that the drive had a bomb next to him so we shot at the car trying to get it to crash and then stop before it got to close to the other soldiers. The came to a hold but none of us moved because we wasn't sure of the bomb would go of waiting, we got one of our troops to suit-up into a bomb disposable suit which would protect him from the explosion if it was to go off. We all stayed back waiting for the bomb to be disposed, the bomb was dealt with and destroyed so that it was safe for us to move on to the next meet-up point.

We made it to the main building where apparently the hostages were being held, we got a truck to drive through the big metal doors which were lock tight so the truck had to get a big run up. We grouped up inside and checked that it was safe but there were voices and shouting coming from upstairs, then were heard gun shots so we had to act fast. An alarm started to go off so this was going to alert everyone, we checked the first floor for any of our soldiers but we couldn't find them. We moved up the stair checking for any Taliban soldiers but it was to late to because they were already shooting at us, Connor was shot in the leg and fell to the floor so we dragged him to safety. Aaron pulled out a set of grenades and launched them at the Taliban soldiers, the bang went of and then it went to silence so I checked if there was anyone there but the hallway was clear. Connor was getting medical attention but we had to move on so a couple of us stayed behind to keep him safe, the medical team said that he would be alright but please come back as soon as you can.