Preparing for the heat of the battle

Now a sergeant in the reserves Damon Warren, from Hastings, has served in Northern Ireland and Kosovo and his next step is to go out to Afghanistan.

He started out as a regular soldier, then joined the police before returning to the reserves.

After that first brush with death, Damon thought he was invincible.

He said: “The Army instils a sense of invincibility, but you are not.

“If you have contact [being fired at] you kick into action. Your training does that.

“You can go weeks without an incident and then something happens.

“The threat is always there.

“You have got to keep your boys alert. Don't become complacent.”

However tough the rigorous training, the unexpected emotional fallout can be even harder to deal with.

He said: “I was telling off this big guy and he burst into tears.

“He said he had a hard time as a kid and my screaming and shouting brought it all back.

“So you have to listen to your soldiers.

“I have had them in tears when some have just become fathers and they don't know how to deal with it. You have got to be strong of character.”

Major Ian “Chelsea” Hall looks into the distance of the Cypriot hills as he reflects on a long career in the regular Army spanning 40 years.

He served from 15 to 55 and is now in the 3rd, reservist, battalion of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, also known as 3PWRR.

The 57-year-old has lived in St Leonards for three years and is making a life for himself in Sussex as an Army reservist.

“After being in the regular Army for so long it was more of a case of weaning myself off.”

He sees his role as someone who can look over the younger recruits entering a more professional outfit which, through a long-term plan called Army 2020, is closing the gap on the regulars.

He said: “It's more relaxed than the regulars but it's more professional than it used to be.

“The younger reserves are entering an organisation that's better equipped.

“For all young men, if there is a conflict going on, they want to go there.

“They have the opportunity to go on operations and they crave it.”

Major Hall has served in Kosovo and Afghanistan.

He said: “It was a very torrid time and for the younger lads it was life-changing.

“It plays on the nerves. I would be lying if I said there wasn't a fear of dying.

“As you get more senior, you fear more for the younger men.

“We have an ongoing situation in the Middle East.

“For the young lads it is a bit of an issue but we do get a lot of home support and without that it wouldn't be possible.”

In his younger days he remembers thinking he was in a difficult situation in Kosovo, when his men were being machine-gunned quite heavily during low mist.

“We couldn't find them,” he remembers.

He says he was crouching behind a wall and not sure if the enemy were in the village with them.

“I remember one guy asking me, 'What now Sir?' and I thought, ‘Good question’.

“With the fear for your own safety is the fear of letting the side down.”

In the Armed Forces, there are two types of people: military and civilians.

For soldiers like Major Hall, it's difficult to leave the profession behind.

Even when they leave the service some will call themselves “ex-military” sooner than become a “civilian”.

For them, civilian life is very different from the theatres in which they are used to operating.

For others, civilian life just wasn't for them in the first place.

Private Oliver Bailly, 24, of Peacehaven, said: “I was just working a normal civilian job and I got fed up with it. “I thought, ‘I have to do the Army’. You get to see the world.

“It's something I have always wanted to do.

“I am a different person now. I am grown up.

“There are things I didn't think I could do. You want to give up but there is this urge to keep going.

“There is a goal at the end and you don't want to fail.

“You do all this training so I would like to go on a tour [of duty].”

After four years in the Reserves, Lance Corporal Luke Garner, 27, of Saltdean, is due to go to Afghanistan after dissolving his electrical business.

Some would think he is mad to end a business that paid his way in exchange for a potentially dangerous situation.

He said: “I am excited but also nervous. I'm going to make a difference.

“Everyone wants to do it but not everyone can.”

For him, the Reserves meant he could continue to see his mum.

“When my dad passed away I didn't want to leave my mum,” he said.

LCpl Garner previously spent a few weeks in Kenya, undergoing the sort of intensive training 3PWRR have been replicating in Cyprus. The troops also helped in the community.

LCpl Garner said: “Going there was an amazing experience.

“You do things you don't think you can do but then realise you can.”

He added: “Getting through the hard times is key. The camaraderie is important.”

Ice sculptor Private John Bolton, 40, of Crawley, wanted to join the Army for years but couldn't because of his eyesight.

When he found out he could still join the reserves in his late 30s he jumped at the chance.

The dad-of-five is due to go to Afghanistan.

“Obviously I have concerns about leaving my kids behind but I see it as a challenge,” he said.

“Sometimes it's best not to think about things too much.”

Private Adam Clarke, 21, is looking forward to the challenge.

He said: “To put your training into practice is something we all want to do.”

Originally from Hangleton but now living in Patcham, he was an Army Cadet for a few years and was inspired by his uncles in the services.

He tried college, attending Bhasvic in Brighton, but it wasn't for him.

“There aren't many jobs where you get to carry one of these around,” he says, holding his SA80, a switchable, automatic assault rifle which can put a bullet through a car door from half a kilometer away.

When he talks to The Argus he is on exercise, his gun tethered to a laser-guided system that synchronises with the blanks he fires at opponents.

It forms part of the exercise, described by Lieutenant Colonel John Baynham, Commanding Officer, 3PWRR, as “Lazer Quest on speed for grown-ups”.

Pte Clarke adds: “This makes it as realistic as it gets without going into battle.”

As for the fight itself, he says: “I'm trying not to think about that.”

His fiancee, Mercedes Packham, 21, is also in the Army. They met at Brighton Army Cadets aged 14 and when he gets back off tour they plan to get married.

It’s no holiday

For most British soldiers, their first step towards a conflict anywhere in the world is RAF Brize Norton, an air base in Oxfordshire and the only gateway to operations.

It's a four-and-a-half hour flight from RAF Brize Norton to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.

When you get there, the warmth smothers you like an electric blanket as you step off the plane.

A row of men in combat gear and matching backpacks file off the large, grey RAF flight and queue into what turns out to be the terminal, with whirring ceiling fans, 1970s wood panelling and a massive laminated map of the island.

A sign hangs above a luggage conveyor: “Camp Bastion 1,807 miles, RAF Brize Norton 2,077.” A reminder that this isn't a holiday destination.

Yet for all the brawn and might gathered here, there are still manners.

Amid the din of more than 200 soldiers getting their bearings, a lone voice belts out: “Ladies and gentlemen”

Within two seconds the entire room falls silent.

The soldier, tall with a lean face, goes on to announce where to collect luggage, vehicles and weapons, observed by young, attentive faces and older, knowing ones.

For some of these soldiers, the adventure starts here; for others, it's just the next chapter.

Cyprus: location and history

It is no coincidence that British Armed Forces have chosen Cyprus as their base for stationing reserve troops.

The small, wheelbarrow-shaped island is about the length of Sussex from east to west and the distance from Brighton to London from top to bottom.

It is its geographical significance, though, which makes it so important; its eastern-most peninsular sits about 70 miles off the coast of Syria, with Israel, Lebanon and Egypt all nearby.

Iraq and Iran lie to the east of Syria, a Mediterranean dash for the RAF Tornado jets leaving RAF Akrotiri.

The British control of Cyprus, initiated in 1878, has come at a cost; the British lost 371 soldiers in Cyprus while trying to keep the peace.

That's no small number compared with the 271 lives lost in the Falklands in 1982 and, to date, the 453 soldiers killed in the Afghanistan conflict.

But it is a vital fulcrum on which the Armed Forces pivot.

The island supports 6,000 personnel and families as well as locally employed Cypriots.

Cyprus is a launch-pad, a springboard for sending soldiers, weapons and supplies into uncertain parts of the world.

It also provides a valuable platform for readjustment; soldiers fresh from a war zone, in which they will have experienced the intense rigours of things beyond most imaginations, are given 24 hours of “decompression” before returning home.