HOPES are high and progress is being made in Afghanistan though the Taliban’s spring offensive has now claimed the lives of seven British soldiers since the start of May.

The mother (who does not wish to be named) of a Dorset soldier serving with The Rifles has been keeping a diary as the unit spends six months in Helmand Province over the summer.

She has been updating Daily Echo readers and here she reflects on her son’s time in a military hospital – seeing suffering and meeting the “bravest of the brave”...

WELL, the fighting season is just starting when the news of the first death from my son’s regiment is broadcast, fear starts to take hold.

I long for him to call me to tell me that he is OK, as the hours go by, taking my mobile phone everywhere with me I wonder was he involved in the incident – is he lying injured in hospital and he can’t bring himself to tell me?

Finally, he phones and my husband happily chats to him first, about football – trying to bring some light relief to the conversation – whilst all I want to do is ask him a hundred questions.

Cut the niceties!

He sounds tired and down and gives me very limited answers to all the questions I am throwing at him. This is a job he knows only too well and what the dangers are.

By the end of the short conversation I hope my final words of encouragement have given him some strength.

As he tells me sternly: “Mother, we are all together. No matter how well you know that person, it affects us all.”

My son phones me again to tell me that he has been in Camp Bastion being treated for an illness.

During his time spent in hospital, he tells me that he has witnessed such sad suffering.

“Mum, this has been the worst 72 hours of my life!”

However, the care and emotional support given by the medical staff he describes is “outstanding, amazing, the best in the world”.

He tells me his illness is nothing compared to what some injured soldiers are going through.

Seeing a seriously injured soldier, he tells me how he wrote a comment of support in the soldier’s diary, along with other comments left by the medical staff and pilots that brought the soldier in.

Feeling helpless, in a very emotional situation, he decides to leave his treasured St Benedict cross with the soldier – willing for him to pull through.

“Mum, he is the bravest of the brave.”

• The mother asks readers to please support The Rifles wristband appeal, which helps relatives and loved ones in the immediate aftermath of a serious injury or fatality.

Visit swiftandbold.org.