KINGSMAN Nathan Akers is just 18 and fighting on the frontline.

“Nothing can prepare you for this place”, the Nelson teenager said. “It's a nightmare.

“When you start acting like a hero, you start to lose your legs.

“I'm glad every 18-year-old hasn't experienced what I have.”

He provided stark proof of the dangers by revealing he was one of 'a few soldiers’ he passed out with that have not been killed, maimed or injured in Afghanistan.

Kingsman Akers, of the 1st Battalion Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, began his first tour in March and within weeks he and his fellow members of Burma Company were frequently enaging the Taliban.

By May the teenage solider was involved in gun batles ‘three or four times a week’.

He said: “It's very rare to see the Taliban, but when there is shooting it's them or me at the end of the day. I have too much to go home to. I miss my family.

“The Taliban celebrate when they shoot someone. They fire their weapons in the air which makes me angry.”

Patrols have to face everything from snipers to rocket propelled grenades and the dreaded improvised explosive devices.

Kmn Akers, who joined the army when he left school, said: “A few of my friends have been shot and even blown up.

“In one IED incident two months ago my friend's legs, arms and his head and neck were injured.”

* Click on the link below for more stories by Nafeesa Shan in Afghanistan.