My Story Prologue It was early morning, up we got as usual ready for another foot patrol out of the PB (patrol base) into the local village named walizi in nar-i-Saraj, Afghanistan. The high temperature combined with the kit myself and my comrades were wearing always made it irritating and sometimes painful, so uncomfortable. As usual the banter between the guys before heading out into a potential fire fight along with always potential casualties was high and jovial, I guess it had to be, what were we to do?? Stand and cry and moan about how fuckin shit it is? Of course not, morale has to be high, well it helps if it is, if morale is good your more likely to stay switched on and focused. It is difficult to keep morale high when you have no idea what sort of shit sandwich you might encounter at any given moment, but such was the mentality of the men of the second battalion the parachute regiment. It was an honour to work and serve alongside such men, hardened and tough who don't know what the meaning of failure is, all they know is to go out and fight for a cause and defend each other to the end. To be a part of it is something I will never forget ever. So I'm ready to go, osprey body armour on, rifle, my medical Bergen which contains some of the most sophisticated and advanced trauma kit that's out there in order for me to my job as a combat medic. Got my helmet on, and my ballistic shades. 12 or 13 of us ready and prepped, another day another dollar and hopefully a quiet day, we get in formation and head out the front gate, it's sweltering, my head is sweating already, the sweat dripping from my head into my eyes stinging them so I'm already not able to see properly, it's hard trying to wipe the sweat away, your not supposed to remove your shades, they are on to protect your eyes from fragmentations, sand, dust, stones and anything else the desert throws up to distract you.yeah fuck that, I need to remove them and replace them all the time to wipe the sweat away, otherwise you might as well put a match to my eyes and burn them. As we head out I sense a different feeling around the village as we approach it, it's eerily quiet, usually the locals are farming, or smoking, or sitting around, the kids are usually running around playing, following us and being harmless but still a pain in the butt. But today none of that, I didn't like it, something didn't feel right, I wander if the guys with me thought the same. Slowly we approach the village. As we had done many times previous on the other hi