Shropshire soldier's pride at national accolade

Corporal Sean Jones, 25, from Market Drayton, said it had been 'brilliant' to be presented with the award by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall at the Military Awards on Thursday. Corporal Jones, who is serving with the 1st Battalion The Princess of Wales Royal Regiment, led a bayonet charge against the Taliban.

But he said he was just doing what he had to do after his platoon was ambushed in Nahr-e-Saraj in Afghanistan in October last year.

He led his platoon over 80 metres of open ground through enemy fire. He received the Military Cross for his actions.

Corporal Jones, who is married and has a one-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter, is back from Afghanistan now and on Christmas leave at his home close to his base in Paderborn, between Dusseldorf and Hanover, in Germany.

He said of his award: "Words just can't describe it really. It is a massive honour, especially with all the people who were at the ceremony on the night. It was brilliant to be singled out but I just think it is my job.

"All I was doing was my job. If I hadn't been doing it people could have been injured or killed."

Corporal Jones's latest tour of Afghanistan was his third to date and he faces just one more in about 18 months time before the British Army is scheduled to pull out of the country.

He said: "Afghanistan is hard to describe.

"Some of the days you will do some of the hardest soldiering and fighting you will ever have to do in your life.

"At other times you get to meet and know the people. You are able to build relationships with them and that is brilliant."

Thoughts of the country are being put to one side now, however, as Corporal Jones prepares to enjoy Christmas.