Paratrooper given award for showing disregard for own safety to save others

A paratrooper has been awarded a medal for bravery, after he showed complete disregard for his own safety in order to save his colleagues in the heat of battle in Afghanistan. 

Lance corporal Joshua Leakey, 27, of the Parachute Regiment, was given the Victoria Cross, the highest award in the British military, for valour, after his regiment was subjected to a Taliban attack in Afghanistan.

He is only the third person ever to be awarded the Victoria Cross for service in Afghanistan, as well as the first living person to have been awarded the medal. 

The heroics came after the regiment came under fire from around 20 insurgents, who were heavily armed with machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. They were completely surrounded and had been pinned down by fire, but the lance corporal ran up a hill in order to give aid to an injured American soldier. 

He then ascended the hill once again to reposition a machine gun, despite the fact there was enemy fire ricocheting off its frame as he tried to do so. He returned to help the US army captain again before he came back to the top of the hill to regain another machine gun. 

Speaking of his award, Mr Leakey said: "You don't really think what could happen to yourself, you think 'how is what I'm doing now going to improve the situation?

"It's part of the very nature of being in the Army, and especially the Parachute Regiment, that we have to adapt to situations you don't expect to happen."

He also told the BBC that it was a case that he was in the best position out of all of his colleagues to attempt the move, and he simply did what he had to do, adding that he was "honoured" to have been given the prestigious honour.