News
HRH presents Afghanistan Service medals to 4th Battalion, the Mercian Regiment
26th November 2009
A soldier who continued fighting after being shot in the shoulder was among Territorial Army members who received Afghanistan campaign medals from The Prince of Wales today.
His Royal Highness was presenting medals to 4th Battalion, The Mercian Regiment at Clarence House in his role as Colonel-in-Chief.
Private Anthony Myers, 19, spoke about how he had his wound bandaged up and then picked up his weapon and continued to fight.
After being airlifted to the field hospital at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, he was back on the frontline just 10 days later.
Pte Myers and 79 other men and women from 4th Battalion, the Mercian Regiment received medals from The Prince to mark their service in Afghanistan between March and October this year.
The TA soldiers' roles ranged from protecting Camp Bastion and providing armed escorts for the helicopter medic teams evacuating casualties to supporting the Welsh Guards Battle Group in Helmand's deadly "green zone".
They included a husband and wife who deployed to Afghanistan together but found themselves cut off from communicating with each other, and a new father whose son was born days before he returned to Britain.
The troops from Normandy Company of 4 Mercian marched from Wellington Barracks to Clarence House in Central London accompanied by their regimental mascot, a pedigree ram called Private Derby.
They then lined up to be presented with their medals by The Prince, who was wearing a charcoal suit with the red, green and yellow regimental tie of the Mercians.
Pte Myers, a student from Speke in Liverpool, said The Prince asked him whether he met many Afghans and if he spoke the local language.
The soldier, who hopes to become an Apache helicopter pilot in the regular Army after finishing university, recounted his incredible story.
Pte Myers was on sentry duty at a patrol base in Nad-e-Ali in Helmand when a round hit him in the right shoulder.
He recalled: "That initiated a massive firefight. I got bandaged up, then I was straight back up on the gun.
"I started to laugh - I think it was the adrenaline. Then I thought 'It's them or me'."
He took part in the battle for about an hour with a machine gun and his rifle before being evacuated in a US Black Hawk helicopter back to the Camp Bastion field hospital.
After just 10 days recovering at Camp Bastion, he was back on the ground.
Also receiving a medal today was Colour Sergeant John Penney, 41, who missed the birth of his first child by a few days because he was waiting to come home from Afghanistan.
Standing with his partner Paula Lovelass, 33, and holding his son Oscar, now 10 weeks, he spoke of his joy and the fears he had that he might never see his baby.
He said the Prince talked to him about his own experiences of fatherhood, advising him that this was the time to bond with his son.
Colour Sgt Penney, from Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands, said: "You come out of Afghanistan quite emotionally numb. When I was handed my son for the first time it was emotional overload - it was just amazing.
"It was from one extreme to another. To come home to being a father was life-changing."
Colour Sgt Penney was caught up in the attack that killed Major Sean Birchall, 33, from the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, in Helmand on 19th June.
He was in the lead vehicle, a Mastiff, which passed over an improvised explosive device laid by insurgents.
But Maj Birchall's Jackal armoured vehicle behind, which had narrower wheels, set off the fatal bomb.
Colour Sgt Penney and his men were then pinned down in a Taliban attack involving gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades for an hour and 45 minutes until help arrived.
"I'm not a religious man, but I turned to religion very quickly," he said.
"I remember saying 'God, promise me I'll get out safe and let me see my unborn child and Paula again, and I will never be a bad man again'.
"I was actually really scared at that point and thought I would never see him."
Colour Sgt Penney said he would be very proud if his son went on to join the Army but it was up to him.
"The only thing he has to do is play rugby," he joked.
Lance Corporal Anthony Bradshaw, 28, and his wife, Lance Corporal Claire Bradshaw, 24, both deployed to Afghanistan with 4 Mercian this year.
But while he worked as a chef at Camp Bastion, she ended up being sent into Helmand's green zone as a combat medic.
Despite being based so close each other, they could not speak on the phone during their tour and had to rely on the very slow military postal service.
The couple, from Burton on Trent in Staffordshire, joined the TA together six and a half years ago and got married wearing their uniforms.
Mrs Bradshaw said she only received two or three letters from her husband while she was stationed in the green zone.
"We had a satellite phone to ring home, but I couldn't ring him in Bastion," she said.
"It was difficult when I really wanted to speak to somebody. It was all right for the lads, who could ring home and speak to their girlfriends or wives - although I was able to call my family."
The Prince also met Stephanie Newman, the widow of 4 Mercian Colour Sergeant Phillip Newman, 36, from Coventry, who was killed in a road accident in Afghanistan on 20th September 2007.
He privately presented her with an Elizabeth Cross, a new medal given to the families of Armed Forces personnel killed on operations or as a result of terrorism.
The headquarters of 4 Mercian are in Wolverhampton, and the battalion also has companies based in Birmingham, Widnes, Mansfield, Crewe, Shrewsbury and Burton on Trent, and platoons in Stockport, Stoke and Kidderminster.