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Lance Corporal Geraint Hillard of 1st Battalion, Welsh Guards is back at work teaching the latest recruits to the Corps of Drums at the regiment's Aldershot base. He's also lucky to be alive.

Last June the 25-year-old from Cardiff was badly injured after the armoured vehicle he was travelling in was blown up by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

Geraint was flown home to intensive care at Selly Oak Hospital in the Midlands. After three months treatment he went to the Ministry of Defence's rehabilitation centre at Headley Court in Surrey to continue his lengthy recovery.

"I had four fractures to my back and three to my pelvis," he tells Eye on Wales. "When I came to I had an open-vac dressing to my front, which meant my stomach and chest were left open in order for it to heal and to reduce the risk of infection."

"I lost my spleen and had various other internal injuries to my pancreas and lacerations to my liver. The other injury I wasn't aware of initially was to my lower right leg, which I've had more complications with than my back and my stomach."

Geraint is on the road to a good recovery and is keen to continue his Army career. But he may yet lose his leg - a fate that is distressingly common amongst those injured in Afghanistan.

Medical staff working in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, where the majority of British troops are deployed, say that the injuries they are now seeing are worse than ever.

Phil Thomas from Penderyn near Aberdare is a Territorial Army medic on his second tour of duty at Camp Bastion, the site of the hospital which receives casualties from the front line.

"I thought I was going to be ready for it this time, but it's just knocked me for six, some of the things I've seen over the last week or so," he tells the programme.

"The difference from the last time I was out is that the injuries were below knee injuries, with the odd upper knee. But this time most of them are coming in with both legs blown off up into their groins."

"Sometimes you're getting eight surgeons working on one person at the same time."

And it is not just the physical injuries that soldiers and medics are having to cope with. The conflict is also inflicting mental scars and traumas.

Lt Colonel Andrew Baker is an Army doctor with 1st Rifles, based at the Beachley Barracks just outside Chepstow. On their last tour of duty to Afghanistan his regiment lost eight soldiers and saw a further 27 injured.

He says the Army is doing all it can to help those affected by their experience in the war zone, but that it is impossible to fully prepare soldiers for the sights they will inevitably see.

"Seeing combat, seeing serious injuries does change people - that will always be the case. We can train for it, but there is no training that we can do that will cover every single eventuality.

"When you are on patrol and there is an explosion and the next thing you are face to face with a young child killed or one of your mates horribly mutilated, we can't train for that."

The legacy of such experiences is reflected by the announcement that £35 million of lottery funding is going towards helping soldiers and their families deal with the psychological effects of war when they eventually return to civilian life.