Speaking out: the young men ready to risk their lives in Afghanistan conflict

The Army training camp at Pirbright in Surrey sits in lush countryside, trees towering over its quietly ordered barrack blocks and parade grounds.

In a light drizzle, recruits in smart new uniforms march up and down in drill formations, arms swinging with precision.

The surroundings are a long way from the heat and dust of Afghanistan. Yet within a year, many of these young soldiers, some not long out of school, could be risking life and limb.

Last month was the blackest since the conflict began in October 2001, with, at one point, an average of almost one death a day. For every coffin that comes home, many more troops return with disabling injuries.

Among the youngest of the current recruits at Pirbright is Daniel Murphy, who turned 17 in May. This time last year he had just left school in Luton and was waiting for his GCSE results; today, he is four weeks into a training course that will prepare him for possible action against the Taliban.

Smallish, quietly spoken and looking younger than his years, Recruit Murphy (as he will be known until training is over) sits dwarfed by a wall detailing the Afghanistan campaign, a conflict that began when he was at primary school. Asked how he feels about serving there, he admits: "It scares me a bit. But it is something you have to do as a soldier, you have to go to war one day. It is what you have been trained for."

"It's what you have been trained for" is a mantra repeated in only slightly different versions by all recent recruits the Evening Standard spoke to at Pirbright. Lt-Col Tim Hill, commanding officer of one of the two training regiments there, said: "Every single one of the boys and girls here wants to experience a military operation. They would all say to you, 'that is the reason I joined up'."

His parents were divided over his choice of career: "My dad was fine, he was behind me because he thinks it is a good move. My mum was much more wary. Mum is still worried, but I keep telling her it will be all right." And friends back home in Luton? Do they think he is totally mad or very brave? "A bit of both." He grins nervously.

He is aware of the trade-off: potentially risking his life in a war in a faraway country so he can get a licence to drive lorries back home. He has seen pictures of the dead and wounded coming back, so isn't he afraid? "Of course it's really easy to lose your life out there, but I don't really think about that now," he says. "You can only tell if you are afraid when you are there, you don't really know until then. You just really hope it's not you."

Murphy shows us his home for 14 weeks of basic training: a hard-looking bed in a dormitory shared with about a dozen other recruits, many several years older. Inside a cupboard is his basic kit: precision-folded clothing, a spare pair of gleaming boots and, on top, two equally shiny mess tins, alongside carefully arranged toiletries. They include a shaving kit that, at the moment, he probably doesn't have much use for.

In another barracks room, recruits are just over half way through their 14 weeks. The Army press officer cautions about tricky questions over the political issues surrounding Afghanistan, but it is clear that for these recruits such matters are largely irrelevant.

He wanted, he said, a more exciting life than his friends, whose interests were limited to their jobs, nights out at weekends and annual holidays. "A lot of them think I have been stupid," he added. Army life has been a revelation: "I'm so happy I feel I've a big smile on my face all the while now. I'll be here for as long as they will have me, 22 years or longer." He has the prospect of a long career as a gunner in the Royal Artillery. "I hope to have some great stories to tell, the kind you don't get working behind the counter at Ladbrokes," he said.

Some of those stories might well relate to firing at the elusive Taliban, but he is not really thinking about the prospect of serving in the conflict: "It's one step at a time. I'll worry about it when it comes around. But I'm not scared."

The harsh realities of Army life were something a third recruit, Chris Murray, 22, grew up with. His father, grandfather and other relatives served; he grew up in Colchester, an Army town. "I always knew that was what I would do. There's a picture of me in an Army beret, aged three. And I had my toy soldiers," said Murray. After school he did some travelling, then signed up.

Perhaps more than others, he knows what is ahead: "As a kid I remember things like Christmas and family occasions when there would be people missing on active service and you just get used to it." And the dangers? "They were never really brought up. But I think my mum - she knows about that, on a personal level."

It is, he says, a worthwhile cause, with a "horrible" enemy. A proper conflict, he suggests, unlike the one his father fought in Northern Ireland.

He is "comfortable" with the idea of risking his life, and adds: "You see some of those who have been injured and they are doing marathons and that sort of thing. That shows you the Army mindset. These are get-up-and-go people.''

Until recently, there were about three applicants for every one of the 14,000 or so who enter basic Army training each year. There is no sign that recruitment is falling off, although it would be some time before any change became apparent in the figures.

The reality of current campaigns is not ignored at Pirbright. Lt-Col Hill said: "There are discussions, lessons, briefings. And we need to balance what they read in the press with the benefits of the operation for the future of the country." Afghanistan, he says, "is a good war".

Casualties do not, he insists, act as a deterrent to recruits. Lt-Col Hill repeats the mantra: "They all look forward to serving there. It is just about the best thing they are trained to do. If they don't get on an operation, they would say they felt cheated."