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It has been three years since the roadside bomb which killed his colleague on the streets of Iraq, but the memory is still vivid in Lance Corporal Rick Mason's mind.
As part of a quick reaction force, L.Cpl Mason was first on the scene when an insurgent's device exploded near Al Amarah.
The explosion killed 21-year-old L.Cpl Alan Brackenbury who was manning a gun on top of a Land Rover in a three-vehicle convoy.
"I did all the first aid that needed to be done and the casualty evacuations for the other four people who, luckily, survived," says former Fulwood High School pupil Rick, 23, of Tanterton.
"I knew Alan well enough to go for a beer with. It was tough but I knew that I couldn't dwell on things because I had to get on with the job.
"You have to stay out there and do the job no matter what happens."
L.Cpl Mason completed another tour of Iraq two years later and is preparing to return again to the war zone in May with the KRH, a cavalry regiment which has a long history of recruiting in Lancashire.
He was among 200 KRH soldiers who spent more than three weeks on their tanks on a prairie in Alberta on the MedMan4 live firing exercises earlier this autumn.
It's a chance to work out tactics and prepare the troops as best as possible for the scenarios they are likely to face when they are deployed.
Violence on the streets of Iraq is now at a four-year low but roadside bomb attacks are still common. A blast at a market in Baghdad a few weeks ago killed 13 people and injured 27.
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