HE is one of just seven living holders of the Victoria Cross, yet Johnson Beharry shrugs and shifts uncomfortably when words such as hero and brave are used to describe him.
Today, the bearer of Britain’s highest military decoration will play a central role in the Royal British Legion’s commemorations of the Iraq War at the National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire.
Johnson, 46, is among 1,500 veterans and their families gathering to mark the 15th anniversary of the end of the conflict which claimed the lives of 179 British soldiers and serving personnel and left him with life-changing injuries.
He said: “I don’t know what it’s like to be out of pain any more. I’m telling you that while I’m getting goosebumps.
“All of the top of my head is reconstructed, so that’s titanium. My head is quite heavy just to hold up, so my neck and my shoulder feel like constant whiplash.
“I’m tired all the time. I don’t sleep very much, more like a cat nap, and I’ve spent the last 22 years in eight out of ten levels of pain.
“My head hurts constantly and because there’s so much titanium, it’s very heavy to hold up.”
In 2004 Johnson saved the lives of 42 of his colleagues in Iraq, in two attacks weeks apart.
In the first attack, in the early hours of May 1, he was driving a Warrior armoured vehicle which was caught in a fierce ambush involving rocket-propelled grenades, machine-gun fire and roadside bombs.
Despite being wounded and exposed to enemy fire, he drove the damaged vehicle and led four others to safety, then rescued his fellow injured soldiers from the burning Warrior.
In the second attack, on June 11, a grenade hit his Warrior vehicle six inches from his head, causing serious shrapnel injuries, which led to the loss of 40 per cent of his brain.
Today, still serving, and promoted to Warrant Officer Class 1, Johnson is one of 6,000 British personnel who were injured in the eight-year conflict.
Recalling the devastating second attack, he said: “I remember someone removing my helmet from my head, pouring water on me, and saying, ‘Harry, Harry, stay with me’ — and that’s it.
“Everything went off. The next thing I know, I was in hospital in Birmingham.”
According to government figures, last year alone more than 18,000 Armed Forces personnel sought help for mental health problems — and Johnson has had a continuing battle with mental health issues himself. He said: “I think the best person to ask about who I am is my wife, because to me I think I’m OK.
“The minute I step out, I’m professional, I’m a soldier, I’m on duty.
“So no matter how bad my pain is, you will never stop me from carrying out my duty.
“But when I go back home and I take my uniform off, you’d have to speak to my wife and kids and ask them who I am, what kind of person they’re dealing with, because I’m not performing any more when I’m not on duty.
“I’m in that safe place where I can let my guard down.”
Like thousands of serving and former service personnel across the country, Johnson’s mental health is an ever-present issue.
A suicide attempt in 2008 and a diagnosis of PTSD — post-traumatic stress disorder — have meant his recovery has been just as much mental as physical.
He said: “I’m back in rehabilitation. Last year I realised — well, my wife told me — I’m not the person I used to be.
“So I had to do something about it, and I went back into rehabilitation.”
Thousands of former servicemen and women who served in Iraq have been supported by charities such as the Royal British Legion to deal with their physical and mental injuries.
While dad-of-three Johnson is the highest-honoured soldier from the conflict, he is using his position to speak out in support of every man and woman who might now be struggling as a result of their military service.
He said: “I live my life conscious of the problems I have to deal with.
“That is because I haven’t left the battlefield — I feel I’m still there.
“Every time I was injured, I was in the middle of contact, and the last thing my brain remembers is going into that.
“So I would like to go back. I don’t care which country it is — it doesn’t have to be Iraq or Afghanistan, but I need to hear it again.”
He said of coping with everyday situations: “I have to deal with loud bangs, sirens, kids crying.
“It’s a lot, just dealing with day-to-day life.”
He says he has reacted in the past — by getting upset, even fighting people.
Johnson added: “I went into rehabilitation for anger management. I realised the only way to deal with it was to stay conscious.” Although he has a VC tattoo that covers his entire back, Johnson, who proudly describes himself as an infantry soldier, revealed that he does not think about his medal.
He said: “I met a lot of Victoria Cross holders after I received mine. There were 14 of us alive at the time.
“I remember meeting Eric Wilson, VC.
“He was 93 and used to say, ‘I’m 93 years, six months, three days, and 12 hours old’, or whatever it was, which always made me smile.
“At one reunion, I remember counting the room and thinking, ‘I can’t find all 14 Victoria Cross holders’. Then I realised I was one of them.
“That was the only moment I truly thought, ‘Oh wow’. The medal represents my battle group, my regiment, my colleagues, my boys who came back in one piece, those who didn’t come back in one piece, and who didn’t come back at all.
“I wear it with pride, knowing the history it represents, but I’m not connected to it.
“I don’t think about it. I know I have it and I know what it represents but I cannot mentally associate myself with the medal. I just don’t know how to feel about it.”
He is also visibly uncomfortable at being called a hero. He said: “I don’t want to sit here and say, ‘The lives I saved’.
“It was my duty. Anyone else would have done the same.”
When reminded that there are 42 men alive who have children, grandchildren, wives, sisters, mums, dads and brothers who get to tell stories because of Johnson’s bravery, he looked uncomfortable with the praise, shifting in his seat at the National Army Museum in West London during our interview.
He said: “You’re telling me that, and I can feel the emotions in my body, but I don’t look at it that way.
“Every decision I made on the ground was conscious.
“I knew I wasn’t going to die in the process.
“I had no fear of dying because I had ruled it out.
“But when I hear it, it confirms to me I wouldn’t change my pain, my sleepless nights, because yes, there are 42 soldiers and families who got their loved one back.”
With his charity work, plans for a follow-up to his top-selling 2006 book Barefoot Soldier, and the Warrior armoured vehicle that saved his life going on display next month at the National Army Museum, Johnson has a busy schedule.
The soldier has just one day off in the next four months.
There is a mix of excitement and trepidation at being united with the vehicle that changed the course of his life for ever.
Then in November he has been invited by the King to Antigua for the 28th Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
Yet despite his life changing irreversibly 22 years ago, Johnson is quick to smile and see the positives that life has given him in the years since then.
He said: “The way I deal with life is this — I take all the negative things and turn them into positives.
“That’s how I survive.”
