A Nottingham priest is flying out to the front line of the war in Afghanistan.Father Daren Brown is an army padre who works with soldiers who have lost their friends and colleagues.
He has been attached to the army since 2005 and is at present the chaplain to the Queen's Royal Lancers.
Of his work as a Roman Catholic priest in Helmand Province he said: "Prayer is the best thing that we can do for soldiers."
On the wall of the church at Camp Bastian, where Father Brown holds two Catholic services every Sunday, there are the photographs of the 51 men who have died in the last five months in Helmand Province.
When he looks at the pictures, like everyone else, he feels deeply sad.
"They paid the ultimate sacrifice. They've done their bit out here. They were extremely brave all of them."
Evening vigil
The padre spends half of his week flying out the front line visiting as many forward operating bases, patrol bases and checkpoints as he can to offer prayers and pastoral care.
"As a team we've seen quite a lot. We've seen IEDs go off, we've been shot at and so forth, we've been in helicopters which have had to turn away as a battle is in progress..."
He has also been with a number of the soldiers when they died.
"One in particular, I was next to him for the 20 minutes they were trying to revive him. Then I anointed him and said a few prayers for him."
Giving pastoral care to the bereaved is a big part of his job.
"We get a message come through that someone has died and we start to organise the repatriation.
"We have a vigil the evening of the ramp ceremony where the whole camp here, about 2,500 soldiers and civilians, come together.
"We have the ramp ceremony normally at 1.00am in the morning where the soldiers from the same cap badge, his friends and mates, his own unit, are present.
"It's obviously deeply upsetting. We have a little time to go around and see these soldiers because sometimes they come from the front line, they have the ceremony and then fly back out so that's the only time we might see them."
Father Brown said he carries the Christian message of peace with him.
"We don't carry arms out here. Hopefully we are a sign of what ought to be. I think that our contribution is that visible one - the non-combatant."
Daren Brown moved to Nottinghamshire with his family as a 16-year-old, living in Dunham-on-Trent in north Nottinghamshire.
He was ordained in 1999 and has been a deacon at St Philip Neri in Mansfield and a curate in St Charles Borromeo church in Hadfield, north Derbyshire.
His tour finishes in mid-October.
He plans to spend his month's leave scuba-diving.
SIC: BBC/UK