A BURTON couple decorated for their service with the Territorial Army in Afghanistan have spoken of their experiences in the war-town country.
Lance Corporal Anthony Bradshaw, 28, and his wife, Lance Corporal Claire Bradshaw, 24, from Wetmore Road, received campaign medals from Prince Charles in a ceremony at Clarence House, in London, yesterday.
The couple are both members of F Company of the 4th Battalion The Mercian Regiment (4 Mercian); based at the Territorial Army Centre, in Hawkins Lane, and served a six-month tour of duty in the notorious Helmand Province earlier this year.
Anthony worked as a chef at Camp Bastion, the main British base in the province, while Claire was sent into Helmand’s densely-populated ‘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.
Claire, a healthcare assistant at Burton’s Queen’s Hospital, said she only received two or three letters from her husband while she was stationed in the green zone.
She said: “We had a satellite phone to ring home, but I couldn’t ring him in Bastion. 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.”
Claire, who joined the Army six and a half years ago with her husband, admitted that he had found the lack of communication tough.
She said: “He knew what was going on but wasn’t able to speak to me. When we go out on patrol they hear different things back in the camp, so he didn’t know if I was in the thick of it.”
Anthony, who works for the Ministry of Defence, said: “I was one of the lucky ones to have my wife out there with me, but I didn’t get to see her much when she went out on to the ground.
“It actually took four weeks to get a letter from her, and we were in the same country. She couldn’t pick up a phone and speak to me.”
Claire said she ‘loved’ her time in Afghanistan and would ‘definitely go back again’, while her husband, who has previously served in Iraq, was less enthusiastic.
He said: “The six months were tough because we didn’t get a day off. We were doing 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. It was hard graft.”