Soldier recounts front line life

L/Cpl McCormack is the youngest of five brothers from Wollaton

A British soldier fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan has spent three weeks in one of the few places in Helmand province where a front line exists.

Lance Corporal Joseph McCormack, 20, from Wollaton in Nottingham, was stationed at Checkpoint North near Basharan outside Lashkar Gah.

In seven days the base came under attack five times.

Asked about the constant danger, L/Cpl McCormack said: "It sounds pretty bad but you get used to it."

On four of the five days the base was targeted with bursts of inaccurate gunfire but on the fifth day insurgents launched a sustained attack from various positions, one as close as 150 metres away.

"I was sat down on the toilet once when I heard a couple of rounds snapping over my head," said L/Cpl McCormack, a member of Queen's Company 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards.

"I just finished up, got my body armour, my helmet and my weapon, went to the defences and started returning fire at them."

Soldiers living in the three outlying checkpoints around Basharan make the most of austere conditions.

The toilet facilities are basic, with a pipe which exits through the outer wall acting as a urinal and a bag for number twos.

"Murder holes"

On life fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan L/Cpl McCormack said: "When you tell someone back home that you're on the front line, getting shot at, it sounds pretty bad.

"But you get used to it and [you get] almost blasé when you hear the rounds snapping over."

The 6ft 4in soldier said his height did not make him an easy target, with the base fortified using giant containers filled with gravel and sandbags.

He has not seen the Taliban fighters with his own eyes, as they keep down and shoot through "murder holes" - small openings in the compound walls to point a rifle through.

But he said it was possible to return fire in the direction of the muzzle flash.

The sustained 45 minute attack, which took place five days ago, gave the men a boost after the British killed two Taliban using a javelin missile launched from the base.

Proud family

L/Cpl McCormack, the youngest of five brothers, Leon, Nathan, Seth and Darren, said his parents, Maureen and Mike, were proud of what he was doing in Afghanistan.

Speaking before he returned to base in Lashkar Gah he said: "I think they are quite proud of me. If they worry they don't tell me."