A soldier in Iraq part I

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After Basra, a fight for life: The story of a 'broken soldier' of the Iraq War
by Audrey Gilian
London Guardian - April 14, 2009
The electric pruners make light work of the bare cox's apple branches as David Bradley strips them back, preparing the orchard for a new season and the harvest to follow. The farmer cuts and thins out the trees but when he removes the chamois leather glove protecting his right hand, the loss of his index finger, ligaments and skin tissue is laid bare.

This is not the only lasting injury from the former British army major's time in Iraq. Sometimes, Bradley, 40, has to step out of the direct sunlight as his damaged iris no longer dilates and contracts in the way that it should.

The right side of his face is lightly peppered with black shrapnel marks but seeing him now on the family farm, it is hard to imagine that in the summer of 2004 he was so badly injured that doctors gave him only a 5% chance of survival.

His right hand and eye were shredded when his Warrior - an armoured infantry fighting vehicle used to carry troops - was hit by rocket-propelled grenades.

He was, he says, "blown up". In the four years that followed, the soldier would first have to fight to live, then fight to rebuild his broken body and then create a completely new life outside the army.

"As soon as the doctors say they can't operate on you any more you have a choice - stay in and do a desk job or leave. I left. It was the right thing for the army and for me. I am a soldier, I joined to command soldiers. With the injuries I have sustained I can't do that. I was medically discharged and suddenly became mister, not major, Bradley."

So, he and his wife Lara and his two children, Philippa, 10, and Alexander, eight, moved out of their military accommodation in Tidworth, Wiltshire, and returned to Bradley's family farm in Kent. There are times, he admits, when he wishes he was back with his company, which is currently in Iraq, preparing for the British withdrawal. But instead of men, the former major will spend his days this spring marshalling apples, pears, cherries and asparagus.

Sitting in the study of the farmhouse that once belonged to his grandparents, it's easy for Bradley to conjure the events and mood of Iraq five years ago just as it might be easy for many to forget just how dangerous it was in the country at that time.

By the summer, the Shia insurgency was beginning to sweep across Basra and southern Iraq and in the months to come crude, but deadly, improvised explosive devices would become the weapon of choice against British soldiers, tearing through ineffectual armoured plating on vehicles, killing and maiming scores of soldiers.

Bradley had been in the country since April and was commanding B Company, the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, a group of 116 men attached to the Cheshire Regiment. This was their first tour of Iraq. The company was based in the grounds of the Shatt al-Arab hotel in the northern part of Basra. Before the war, the art deco hotel had boasted a four-star rating and had been a favourite haunt for foreign businessmen who had come to the comparatively prosperous and cosmopolitan southern port... link to complete article