My fire team was woken at 06:00 for our first vehicle patrol; we were all looking forward to getting out on the ground and do what we had been training for the last few months to do.

We sat in the briefing room and the commander gave us our orders and what threats were out there. After the brief we kitted up and mounted the vehicles.

My position for this patrol was as a dismount, this means that I sit in the rear of the vehicle and when needed, I will jump out of the back and walk along at the front end of the vehicle, keeping eyes on anything that may come at us from side streets or alley ways.

We loaded our weapons and the three vehicles headed out of the base, I felt a little nervous as this time we were doing it for real. I could not see much out of the small rear windows on the Snatch Land rover so was a little disorientated as to where we exactly were, after about ten minutes the patrol came to a halt and the order came through my personal radio “dismounts out”, me and another of my fire team jumped out of the back leaving another two in, standing up through the roof of the vehicle as top cover. We moved forward of the vehicle and patrolled along at the same speed. The area of the city I found myself in seemed completely different to what I had experienced a day or two before, much less traffic, not the hustle and bustle of the city centre. We were patrolling along a street with large gated compounds either side, each compound having its own armed security guards outside them, mixed with Afghan Police officers. The street had parked vehicles either side, each vehicle we passed we had to check in the windows, looking for anything suspicious. We carried on up to the base of a large towering hill covered in snow. The commander had previously said in the brief had said his intentions were to patrol straight on up it, however when we arrived, children were playing on their sledges sliding down the slippery track at quite a rate.

He decided that it would be best to scout around the base of the hill and take another way up further around, as we certainly didn’t want to put any of the children in harm’s way.

It was hard work walking up the steep slope which had ankle deep snow, the armour and ammunition weighed me down and I could feel the pain in my legs. Almost all the Afghan people that we passed on the track said hello and were very pleasant indeed. This was reassuring and came as quite a surprise as I was not sure how they would take us foreign troops being there. We carried on up the slope and noticed that one individual was following the patrol. This was a security breach as he walked beside us all the way up; he was talking on his phone and at one point decided to take a picture of our patrol. In previous training we had been informed to watch out for insurgent informants or as we call them ‘Dickers’.

As this individual had been acting suspiciously the commander, another soldier and our interpreter stopped him. They made sure he deleted any photos and gave him a stern talking to. We carried on up to the summit where we found ourselves surrounded by graves, hundreds possibly thousands. It was a sight that will I remember for the rest of my days, they looked over a long barren valley towards the huge mountains that soared way above us.

We dropped down the other side into a rural village, all the buildings were made from mud but were very solid, the main track through the village was very uneven and the land rovers were just coping. Villagers were coming out to see us and greet us, it was a great feeling. That was until I slipped over, I was a little embarrassed but it gave the villagers a good chuckle.

We had to lift electrical wires up over the roofs of our vehicles as we passed underneath. The village certainly felt very old and certainly not modernised in any way until we came across a new school that had just been built. The commander got us to take all round defence while he entered the building and handed over a large bag full of pens, pencils and stationary. The teacher was very happy at the gift, as children cannot attend school without at least a pencil.

We carried on around the village but every exit we came to, the way was blocked either by broken down vehicles or fallen power lines. We ended up having to help a local push his car out of the way so we could proceed. The patrol came back to the main road; we mounted back up and headed back to the base for a debriefing.