Lance Corporal David Bolton

An office worker from Wigan has deployed to Afghanistan for the first time to work as a Territorial Army medic in Camp Bastion.

Lance Corporal David Bolton, 28, is an ambulance driver with D (64) Squadron, part of 5 Medical Regiment which is currently providing ambulance and emergency medical transport at the base’s Military Hospital.

In his civilian life he works for EoN Energy in an office-based role organising the movement of tenants in and out of rented properties, he said: “In Camp Bastion my Squadron transfers patients between medical aircraft and the military hospital. It’s chalk and cheese compared with what I do at home, but I enjoy both jobs.”

David added: “Camp Bastion’s good, I feel pretty secure. The accommodation’s good and the food’s not too bad at all; I’m enjoying it. The tempo of life here is faster than in Chorley but it is manageable because there are enough of us.”

His TA squadron, which is based in Chorley, Lancashire, is unusual in the way it works with the full time Army, David explained: “We are a TA squadron embedded in a Regular regiment. So we spend a lot of time working with the Regular soldiers and therefore deploying to Afghanistan has made very little difference to the way we work.”

David lives in Wigan and his parents, Alan and Jacqueline, live in Addlington. Alan served in the Army for 30 years.

David said: “I was always going to join the TA, it was in my life-plan. But the catalyst for me was that I was working with some people I wasn’t getting on with and so, rather than doing the same thing week in week out, I thought might as well join the TA. I’ve no regrets at all about doing it.”

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