Bullets flew as I snatched the guard's gun and shot him dead

IT'S the most DANGEROUS country on earth-and a GOLDMINE for British war heroes embarking on a second career.

LURED by huge rewards of up to £1,000 a day, 21,000 ex-soldiers have risked their lives to help rebuild Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

TODAY we tell the incredible, dramatic and harrowing story of the BRUTAL KIDNAP of five of these men-which resulted in one being recommended for a posthumous GEORGE CROSS and another hero surviving against all the odds.

IT WAS the terrifying moment ex-soldier Rick Curzon had always feared.

He was in IRAQ, KIDNAPPED and in the back of a speeding rebel truck, staring down the barrel of a GUN.

And the man holding it had just made a DEADLY SIGN guaranteed to send a chill down the spines of the security guard and his four fellow captives.

"The gunman ran his finger across his throat in a slicing motion," says ex-Royal Artillery soldier Rick. "It was clear we were going to be beheaded.

"At that moment we knew we were one step from being put in an orange jumpsuit. And so adrenaline took hold."

What happened in the next few bullet-riddled, blood-curdling minutes- and the hours of terror that followed -was the stuff of action movies and is told here today in gripping detail for the first time.

It would see one of the hostages LAY DOWN HIS LIFE for his friends and be recommended for the George Cross-and leave brave Rick so badly wounded he had had to hold his INSIDES in as he tried to escape.

And when Rick thought he was going to die, he reveals how only the dream of his forthcoming wedding to fiancee Claire kept him going.

The nightmare unfolded just 48 hours after Rick-part of a security team guarding aid convoys-had set foot in the war-torn country.

He and colleagues, 1991 Gulf War veteran Simon Hall, 39, and Will Cassidy, along with two other men, were stopped by what they thought were police at the Kuwaiti border-only to discover the six men were Mehdi army militia.

KILLED: Simon may get medal

"As Simon got out of the vehicle to show them our documents, the insurgents cocked their guns and we knew we were in trouble," says Rick 29. "They bundled us into a gun truck and started speeding into Iraq blasting shots at cars to clear the way.

"The guy in front held a pistol to our faces. When one of our team-Will -spoke, he was punched several times." The truck-with four armed guards stood in the open back and the hostages squeezed into three seats behind the driver and passenger - slowed down as it passed through villages so the cheering insurgents could show off their captives.

"Each time we got to a village the insurgents sat on the back of the truck would start firing their guns and the villagers would come out to see us," says Rick. "They stared and jeered at us in the vehicles, some of them jostling with mobile phones to take photos of us."

But after an hour of this fear and humiliation, things were to rapidly go from bad to worse as the front seat militiaman guarding them made his cut-throat sign.

"Luckily he couldn't speak English-so we whispered a plan to each other to go for it as soon as the truck stopped," says Rick. "We knew we might never get the chance again."

After 20 minutes of high tension, that chance arrived as they approached another village. "Will and another of the guys pounced on the front passenger and started punching him.

"Meanwhile Simon held the driver as Will grabbed the AK47 he had lain by his seat and trained it at his head."

As the terrified driver leapt from the vehicle, a hail of gunfire burst in from the insurgents at the back. As bullets ricocheted everywhere, Rick wrestled the 9mm pistol from the passenger seat kidnapper fighting off his comrades.

"By now I was on automatic-I shot him in the head at close range," said Rick, who served 10 years in the Army. "Then I scrambled into the driver's seat."

But as he looked around he saw Simon had been fatally hit. "He had a deep wound to his face and I knew he was dead," says Rick. "It was a terrible moment but there was no time to mourn.

"Bullets pinged all around and I knew if we didn't shift soon we'd all be dead." It was only as he took the wheel, that Rick felt what he calls "a warm vibration" in his lower back-it was blood spurting from a gunshot wound.

SURVIVOR: But bullet had to stay in Rick's back

"I had been so focused in getting control of the truck I hadn't realised I'd been shot in the back," he says. "Then when I put my left foot down I realised I'd been shot in the leg as well."

Heart thumping, Rick looked out of the window to see Will slumped on the ground beside the truck. "He'd taken a bullet too," he recalls. "We had no option but to leave him-it was a hard but necessary split-second decision. We never thought we'd see him again."

As Rick sped off, he fought to stay conscious. "To this day I don't know how I managed to keep driving," he says.

With its tyres shot out, the truck only got the escapees a few minutes down the road where they flagged another vehicle down.

"We forced the driver out at gun point and bundled inside, with me dragging my left leg behind me," Rick says.

"By this time my innards were spilling out the wound in my back-I was literally holding them in with my hands.

"One of the guys ripped a piece from the bottom of his trousers to use as a field bandaged and bound it around the wound.

"But the thing really tearing us apart was having to leave Simon's body in the truck. Though he was shot in the head, his grip on the driver had given us valuable time to escape."

But if Rick and the two other survivors thought their luck had turned, they were wrong-because the banger they'd commandeered broke down.

"Me and one of the guys who'd been shot in the wrist then hid down a desert embankment for four hours, while the third tried to find help," says Rick.

"I was pretty certain I was going to die. As we lay there motorbikes and cars with pillion passengers wielding guns sped past.

"At the same time my back and leg began to hurt like hell. I managed to pull the bullet out of my leg as I lay there.

"I thought if I don't die here, surely we will be found and killed.

"I just focused on my fiancée Claire at home-we were due to get married.

DANGER AHEAD: Rick before kidnap

"I'd just left the Army and working as a security guard in Iraq was a way of making enough money for our dream white wedding and honeymoon.

"Now I wondered if I'd ever see Claire again."

Eventually a vehicle stopped. Two men got out to investigate. Rick's heart pounded. But at last their luck had turned.

"They turned out to be Iraqi police who were guarding the oil pipelines," says Rick.

Rick and his colleague were taken to a British Army camp. The third survivor was also picked up by the pipeline police. Rick passed out and was stretchered to a field hospital. It was two days before he came round.

"My first thought was Will, who we'd left behind," says Rick. But incredibly he too had survived and was already at the hospital. It later emerged the remaining insurgents had run off and Will, in his early 40s, had been taken to hospital by special forces police with a wounded thigh.

Doctors operated on Rick and saved his life but they could not remove the bullet from his back. Weeks after the incident in November, 2006, he was flown back home to Chesterfield, Derbyshire. When Claire saw him for the first time she was horrified.

"He was sat in a wheelchair and must have lost five stone," she says.

"The bullet that went through his back caused huge damage. It took him a year to learn to walk again."

The couple received a further blow when Rick's employers, Securiforce International half owned by a Kuwaiti company, REFUSED a payout.

Lawyers for Rick and Claire tried to sue claiming, among other things, that the company did not provide them with sufficient weapons to look after themselves. But any legal action would have been too risky and costly.

"It was a devastating blow and we will never forgive the company," says Claire. "Rick will never be able to work again."

Meanwhile his dead comrade Simon has been recommended by the firm for the George Cross-a move backed by the coroner at his inquest, Dr Richard Whittington, who said: "He carried out an extraordinary act of bravery and deserves a medal."

In April Rick and Claire did realise the dream Rick held onto as he lay wounded in the desert. In front of 40 friends and family they finally wed at a local country club.

Rick says: "I was determined to walk up the aisle and I am pleased to say I managed it without using any crutches."

Claire adds: "The past 18 months have been a nightmare and we have both been through more than many couples do in a lifetime.

"But what's happened has only made both of us realise just how much we love one another."