Sitting in my office in a rain swept Portadown, I feel at last a real sense of relief. My adjutant has just given me the good news that all members of Imjin Company 2 Royal Irish have handed over their duties in Camp Bastion in Helmand and are now sitting waiting for their flight out of Kandahar.

By the time this goes to press, they will be sitting on a beach in Cyprus in shorts and flip flops whilst savouring a cold beer – all soldiers on return from operations in Afghanistan or Iraq spend a period of what the Army calls 'decompression' prior to returning to the UK or Germany.

By the end of the week they will have returned to Northern Ireland to eagerly waiting wives, mothers and girlfriends.

For them, their six month tour of Helmand will have come to an end.

Journey to battle

The journey started in November of last year when more than 100 reservists from 2 Royal Irish were mobilised, brought together in England and undertook an intense period of training prior to deployment to one of the world's most dangerous places.

Teachers, fitters, electricians, computer engineers, taxi drivers, chefs, brickies, plumbers, drivers and many more found themselves preparing for six months as the Force Protection Company in Camp Bastion in Helmand.

The task ahead was historically given to Territorial Army soldiers; the threat to Bastion was lower than in the Green Zone and the tasks a little less demanding.

The reality was to prove somewhat different.

On arrival in Helmand, thanks to the considerable training the reservists conducted alongside their regular counterparts from 1 Royal Irish, their capability was considered to be much greater than those who had gone before.

They still provided protection patrols for Bastion, and the Immediate Response Teams that escorted the helicopters to pick up the injured, but this time they were charged with the huge task of mentoring Afghan army soldiers in one of the Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) in the Helmand valley.

Just three kilometres north of them was another FOB with soldiers from 2 Para in an area that saw much of the intense action that took place over the summer period.

For the first time ever, reservist soldiers found themselves alone in a hugely hostile area, fighting alongside the Afghan army, getting close and personal with the Taliban.

I received regular situation reports from the front line.

Gruesome task

Sitting in the comfort of my office I read of contacts with the Taliban in the Green Zone and days and nights of consistent probing attacks against them by the Taliban.

As part of the Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams (OMLT), the reservists were responsible for developing and improving the capability of the Afghan National Army.

It was very rewarding, as the situation reports (opposite page) show, but engagement with the Taliban became an every day occurrence.

Back in Camp Bastion, all my soldiers rotated through the gruesome task of providing protection for the medical emergency teams that deployed in the helicopters to pick up casualties.