THE letters home from a young Herefordshire soldier describing his experiences in the war in Iraq are worthy of ending up in the Imperial War Museum, writes LIZ WATKINS.

His proud mother Anne Double of Garway says the series of letters are not long or elaborate they simply convey what it is like being caught up in a desert war.

Her son, Jonathan, is still there, helping in the rebuilding of Basra and hoping he is not one of a forgotten band of British troops left in the Gulf.

Like those whose homecomings were reported in this newspaper, he is concerned over public opinion and says they could all do with a little morale boosting. He would like to be remembered in The Hereford Times to all his family and friends.

Jon is just 21, having celebrated his birthday in the Gulf far from home.

A former pupil at Garway Primary School and Kingstone High, he was restless in the classroom and left at the age of 16 to join the army and chose to be a chef.

Most traumatic for him was a spell in Sierra Leone, attached to an Irish regiment , where a group of soldiers were hi-jacked and held captive in the jungle.

When the SAS was called in to stage a rescue, Jonathan volunteered to join them at their jungle training base.

But the operation was touched by great sadness. Trooper Brad Tinnion was fatally wounded in the successful rescue.

Jonathan was one of the first to go to the Gulf, ahead of the many thousands of troops, in readiness to feed them.

When the fighting started it meant a move into Iraq and becoming a soldier, always the priority in war - sleeping out under vehicles and living off ration packs.

Coping in a desert thunderstorm was an experience in its own right. Then it was back to Basra and the challenge of conjuring up a birthday cake for a colleague in a kitchen at 60 degrees C.

Writing to his family, Jon described sandstorms as 'like driving in thick fog on Garway Hill'.

Jon, a Lance Corporal in the Royal Logistics Corp, is attached to a squadron of Royal Engineers engaged on bomb disposal work.

He was deeply grieved by the loss of three colleagues who went missing, their bodies recovered from desert graves and whose deaths are still being investigated.

His mother, father Anthony, sisters Margaret, Katy, Sasha and brother Michael are proud at the way he has coped with each situation he is confronted with.

"It's been a fast learning curve in a young life and illustrates what we ask of our young servicemen and women today,'' she said.