Few of those following the war in Afghanistan would have thought a Maltese was among British troops guarding Kandahar International Airport against Taliban attacks.
He is Ivan Calleja, 38, of Mosta who has been living in the UK for the past 11 years.
Slim, suntanned and looking as fit as a fiddle, he talks, using deft body language, as his eyes dart about as if he were still on patrol.
It's small wonder that Mr Calleja was one of just five members of his squadron presented with a commendation for his professionalism and the way he related with the local population near Kandahar. Out of the 150 men in the squadron, 25 were auxiliaries.
Mr Calleja hails from a family of men in uniform. His father Charlie, known as Kalif was, for 33 years a sergeant in the police force and his brother Raymond served as a police inspector for five years before moving to the UK.
Mr Calleja was on holiday in Malta when he was interviewed, having spent over five months in Afghanistan as a member of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. This is a force made up of volunteers.
He has been in the force for the past four and half years saying the reason he joined was to get the best of both worlds - civvy life and the air force.
Away from the RAF, he is a logistics supervisor with the supermarket firm ASDA where his branch is responsible for 50 supermarkets.
He was released by his employer for one year to undergo training and be deployed in Afghanistan. During his deployment he was paid by the RAF the same salary he has at ASDA.
"Apart from two interviews, the air force carries out security checks especially on applicants born outside the UK.
"Basic training consisted of 15 days where you had to get the hang of stripping, cleaning and maintaining your personal weapon which in our case was an SA 80 assault rifle and firing it from different positions.
"That was the first time I handled a firearm," Mr Calleja said with a sense of covert pride.
The men were lectured on map reading, combat, first aid and NBC, nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. Another hands-on experience was field craft, that is how to pitch a tent and how to cook.
"You don't get much sleep on such assignments when most of the time you're out on patrols. The duration and intensity of the shift depends on the degree of threat we were informed about. The patrols lasted between 18 and 48 hours".
Did he expect to be called to go to a war zone?
"I had mixed feelings but I was expecting to be called. And once it happened, I was all up for it.
"It was definitely not a pleasant experience to tell my parents, my sister Michele, my brother Raymond, my daughter Valentina, 10 and her mum, Rachel."
His father, his mother Nina, his sister and his daughter were shocked and in tears when he broke the news.
But, trying to limit the damage, he told his parents he would be marshalling aircraft which he is trained to do, and unload and load general security cargo within the airfield. "I was switched on to go. In the last week of November 2006, I stopped working with ASDA and went to RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland where 51 Squadron is based. The deployment in an operation Op Herrick was on April 3.
"Apprehension gripped me as the date of deployment drew closer. I experienced a great fear of the unknown. As soon as we landed in Afghanistan, our main threat was going to be mines, which were planted since the Russians were there, and suicide bombers. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were another great danger."
The men were trained to look for signs. All eyes just scanning and scanning. The coalition force guarding Kandahar International Airport was principally made up of US, British, Canadian, Dutch, Australian and Romanian forces.
"I was proud to be Maltese among these nationalities."
One of Mr Calleja's colleagues died a horrific death. The group was in a convoy when one of the patrol vehicles got stuck in the mud. As the team tried to free it, an IED went off, ripping the vehicle in half, leaving a colleague and an interpreter dead and two soldiers wounded.
"It was a miracle there were two survivors. We had passed by that stretch 20 hours earlier," Mr Calleja said, the shock still seemingly mirrored in his eyes.
"I used to think I might die but I tried not to think about it. The risk was always there for this was no playground. "The long patrols pushed the Taliban out of the area."
From mid-May until the end of July, there was not a single attack on Kandahar International Airport.
"Once the attacks stopped, we concentrated on assisting the locals, providing medical supplies, wheel barrows for agriculture, books and pens and repairing wells. Schools were built by the coalition forces.
"Our aim was to make the airfield safe from rocket attacks. In the last four weeks of the deployment, the Taliban were back on track and we started getting rocket attacks from two/three kilometres away. The number of roadside bombs was also on the rise."
War in Afghanistan
The war in Afghanistan started on October 7, 2001 in reaction to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.
The war marked the beginning of the Bush Administration's attack on terrorism. The stated purpose was to capture Osama bin Laden - who, it was believed, was the brains behind the attack on the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon Building near Washington, DC which killed thousands of people - destroy al-Qaeda, and get rid of the Taliban regime that had supported and provided a safe haven to al-Qaeda.
The US and Britain led the aerial bombing campaign, with ground forces supplied mainly by the Afghan Northern Alliance. By November 2001, the Northern Alliance rebel troops and US military forces drove the Taliban regime out of Kabul, the Afghan capital.
US and British infantry joined the attack a year later and eventually Nato troops came in.
The war upstaged the Taliban from power for some time, but there has been resurgence in Taliban forces.
The Taliban - students of Islamic Knowledge Movement - ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001. They came to power during Afghanistan's long civil war.
The word Taliban means "seekers after knowledge" and refers to the group's origin in Islamic schools.
Although they held 90 per cent of the country's territory, their policies - including the treatment of women and support of terrorists - made them a pariah force. The Taliban stuck to their interpretation of Islamic laws banning most modern forms of entertainment and dictating forms of dress and grooming. They forced men to wear beards and women veils. Those who breached these laws were punished severely.
The Taliban are one of the groups called mujahideen meaning holy warriors or freedom fighters.
They were formed during the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989.
Osama bin Laden leads al-Qaeda which is an international terrorist network. Al-Qaeda seeks to rid Muslim countries of what it considers as the profane influence of the West. It works to replace their governments with fundamentalist Islamic regimes. Al-Qaeda means "the base".