KEY POINTS:
It was 3.15am, pitch black in an Afghan war zone, when a rocket-propelled grenade hit Corporal Willy Apiata's vehicle, lighting up the night sky and blowing him off the bonnet.
His patrol was laid up in defensive formation for the night so that the soldiers could shelter from the harsh conditions.
But under cover of the darkness about 20 enemy fighters crept over the undulating ground to get close enough for an assault.
As machine gun and automatic rifle fire started to rip up the earth around him, a dazed but uninjured Corporal Apiata staggered clear of his vehicle and looked around.
He saw two of his fellow soldiers wounded by shrapnel, one critically.
His position, 70m ahead of the main New Zealand contingent, was taking heavy fire, but Corporal Apiata's colleague had serious arterial bleeding and was lapsing in and out of consciousness.
That is when he decided to try to save him, a decision which yesterday earned him the first Victoria Cross awarded to a living New Zealander since World War II.
The medal, with its simple inscription "for valour", is the military's highest bravery award.
As the dense machine gun fire and more rocket-propelled grenades exploded around him, Corporal Apiata realised there was almost no chance of help reaching their position.
He picked up his comrade and carried him 70m across broken, rocky and fireswept ground to safety.
The burning vehicle he had been sitting on seconds before lit up his path.
But it also put him in plain sight in the middle of a gunbattle between the attackers and the New Zealanders.
Somehow neither man was hit, to the amazement of soldiers familiar with the type of skirmish Corporal Apiata - then a Lance Corporal - survived.
But at the time, in 2004, Corporal Apiata took no time to count his blessings. As soon as he delivered his wounded companion to the remainder of the patrol, he picked up a weapon and joined the battle.
Although outnumbered, it took Corporal Apiata's patrol only 20 minutes to vanquish the attackers.
A medical assessment on the man Corporal Apiata rescued concluded he would have died from blood loss and shock had he not been carried to safety.
The man, also a corporal, has made a full recovery and returned to duty.
"I see him every day and it's a blessing," Corporal Apiata said yesterday. "Every time I see him, we have a beer and catch up. We're just good mates."
Corporal Apiata was in the second contingent of elite SAS troops sent to Afghanistan.
Details of SAS actions are seldom revealed but the significance of the awarding of a Victoria Cross prompted the Army to yesterday give some details of the engagement where Corporal Apiata won the VC, and also to take the unusual step of revealing the identity of a serving SAS soldier.
The Army will not say where or when Corporal Apiata and his comrades were ambushed.
But sources have told the Herald that the area where the SAS troops were serving is a harsh mountainous area, barren apart from a few trees. It is extremely hot in summer but has sub-zero winter temperatures.
And it is a dangerous place - more than 550 foreign soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan since 2001.
Yesterday, Corporal Apiata said he was only doing his job and looking after his mates.
"At the time I was just doing what I'm trained for - to do my job and look after my mates, watch each other ... It was in the heat of the moment ... "
Corporal Apiata's Victoria Cross was one of four SAS medals announced by Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday. Two soldiers will receive the New Zealand Gallantry Decoration and one the New Zealand Gallantry Medal.
Two of the medals were earned in the same incident in which Corporal Apiata won the VC and all winners were part of the same 2004 contingent.
None of the other medal recipients was named for security reasons. The Prime Minister said Corporal Apiata displayed stunning courage.
additional reporting: Derek Cheng
