A PUB manager who now spends his days serving customers has been decorated for serving his country.

Jon Hill was given the Queen's Gallantry Medal, which is awarded for "exemplary acts of bravery".

Corporal Hill, of the London regiment of the Territorial Army, was on a nine-month tour of duty in Iraq when the convoy he was leading was ambushed on January 6.

One of the vehicles in the convoy was stopped by insurgents and he did not know whether the soldiers inside were dead or alive when he led a group to rescue them.

They were heavily outnumbered and had to run for about 300m while being shot at.

The group was also under fire from rocket-propelled grenades but managed to get all the soldiers out.

Cpl Hill said: "You do not really notice it at the time.

"Because they were my guys I wanted to make sure everyone was okay."

He added: "You think if I am going to die then I do not want it to be painful. The future was not really in my mind, just the past and the present."

Cpl Hill, 35, was given the honour by the Queen in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on December 8.

He said: "I was quite nervous but it is an honour to be recognised as gallantry medals are few and far between because theoretically we are there for peacekeeping."

His recent tour ended in August and took him all over south-east Iraq including Basra and Al Alamara.

He has been in the military for 13 years and is now the manager of the Queen's Head, High Street, Chislehurst.