For a frontline Scots soldier the difference between life and death is only a whisker

Published on Friday 4 July 2008 22:08

PRIVATE David Poderis was lying flat on the roof of a small brick building when the jolt to his helmet came.

"I felt my head jarring, and the bracket that held my night-sight swung down in front of my face," says the 37-year-old Territorial Army soldier from Wishaw.

"I knew I had been hit but I thought it had ricocheted off."

But not until the following morning, when he staggered exhausted with the rest of the men of 5 Scots Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders D Company, through the gates of Musa Qala district centre, the small compound just outside the Helmand town of Musa Qala that was retaken from the Taleban by British and Afghan forces in December last year, did he realise how close to death he had been.

The bullet hadn't just ricocheted off, it had gone clean through his helmet, entering just above his forehead, ripping through the helmet's lining and exiting on the other side.

Pte Poderis was unscathed.

A few hours later, after a debrief, a shower and some much-needed sleep, he sits in D company's camp, the helmet in front of him, and talks calmly about what happened.

"It's a sobering thought how near it was," he says. "The lads have been telling me how lucky I was. I guess the Gods were on my side that day."

Then, in typical soldier fashion, he adds: "I'm just pleased we got the job done and dusted."

He says that when the shot came, he went on autopilot.

"My training just kicked in. You keep going because there's nothing else you can do."

Indeed, after a few moments, he returned fire, and stopped to consider the fatal implications of the shot only when he returned to base.

"I hope it won't affect how I feel about going out again," he says. "It can't really; you've just got to get on with the job."

The 48-hour patrol involved, says the company's sergeant-major, Alan Goodall, 33, from Helensburgh, the fiercest fighting the company has seen during the month they have been stationed here.

"I really thought we were going to get hit out there," he says, shaking his head in disbelief. "I couldn't believe there were no casualties."

Sergeant Kevin Ledwidge, 30, from Falkirk, who was also out on patrol with D Company, says: "The Taleban are fighting really professionally at the moment."

The patrol, whose object was to "disrupt the enemy" in the desert a few kilometres outside Musa Qala, had three separate contacts with the Taleban. In the first they came under sustained fire as the insurgents used mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.

After returning fire they moved on, taking over a small compound of houses.

That evening they were attacked again, and Apache helicopters were brought in. The Taleban fighters came back a third time, and were eventually pushed back. Radio surveillance suggested they had suffered casualties.

"There was a real sense of relief when we got back in," says Sergeant-Major Goodall. "We were all exhausted but relieved to be back in one piece."

The attack comes after the worst month of fatalities for coalition troops in Afghanistan since the conflict started in 2001, and suggests that although the Taleban recently appear to have undergone a change in strategy, using roadside bombs and suicide bombs, they are still engaging in more traditional fighting methods.

For Pte Poderis, a truck driver in civilian life who joined the TA 21 years ago, there is a question of whether fate intervened. He later phoned his parents to tell them what had happened and was gobsmacked when they told him other members of his TA battalion, currently on a mini tour of the Isle of Barra, had, on a whim, popped into the local church the previous day, told the minister one of their men was in Afghanistan and asked him to say a prayer for him.

Pte Poderis, who is unmarried, is on his second tour of Afghanistan, and was first deployed here in 2002.

"There are a lot of changes since I was last here," he says.

"I was in Kabul and people were very friendly then.

"Here, in some of the outlying villages in Helmand, they just stare at you. It's more hostile."

Miracle material that saves troops' lives

PRIVATE David Poderis's helmet will now be sent back to the UK for extensive military testing before being put on display at the TA centre in Dumbarton.

This particular incident proves the Kevlar helmet is effective, and specialist teams will want to know why.

The helmet acquired its name because the shell is made from 19 layers of Kevlar, a ballistic fabric treated with a phenolic resin system first commercially used in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tyres.

The fabric has been regarded as one of the most significant achievements in the development of body armour.

It was tested in four phases over several years. The programme included tests to see whether it could stop a lead bullet.

In the last phase of testing, the material was improved to ensure its final form was waterproof and sunlight-proof. It had been found to allow bullets through after exposure to rain and UV light.