A real-life "Band of Brothers" are risking their lives serving on the Afghan frontline together.

Phillip, 25, Daniel, 23, and Matthew Baldwin, 22, are all fighting the Taliban.

Phillip is a Lance Corporal in the Duke of Lancaster's 2nd Battalion and is stationed in Camp Bastion, Daniel is an acting corporal in the RAF, working in communications in Kandahar, while Matthew is a Royal Marine with Taunton-based 40 Commando, posted to Sangin.

Daniel was the last to be deployed to Afghanistan, joining his brothers last week.

Their father, David, 52, said he was the "proudest dad in the world", adding "they're men now, not boys".

He said: "I am constantly worried for their safety but I know they are doing a job that they love and are making a difference. The worst thing is putting the news on in the morning and hearing someone has been killed.

"At that point, before they've reached their next sentence, your heart drops and you're wishing it's someone else.

"When the newsreader then says that the family have been informed, you can breathe again. How horrible is it to wish that on somebody else?"

Mr Baldwin, from Blackburn, Lancaster, who is separated from the boys' mother, Shirley, said Matthew was the son he worried about most, as he is regularly shot at by the Taliban while on patrol, and once had a grenade thrown at him by a six-year-old child.

He said: "The lads ring me when they can.

"Growing up they used to fall out like any brothers would do, but now they have an eerie sense of comradeship, not only as brothers but as officers.

"They are very regimented and organised now. They have to be. It gets drilled into them all the time."