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A RESERVIST soldier from Newport joined more than 90 paratroopers from the UK and US as part of a spectacular training exercise.

Corporal Paul Shergold, 39, was one of the paratroopers exercising as part of Exercise Airdrop Warrior, an annual exchange programme between reservist soldiers from the two countries in Weston-on-the Green in Oxfordshire.

Cpl Shergold's 144 Parachute Medical Squadron, who are based in Cardiff, travelled to Oxfordshire last weekend to join soldiers from the 4th Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, the only airborne infantry regiment in the TA, and the US Army's Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) to build on their knowledge and experience of airborne operations by jumping using each other's equipment.

The US paratroopers flew into the UK only days before jumping with their British counterparts.

They are in Europe to develop their working relationship with the Paras.

The opportunity to jump in another nation's parachute kit allows the soldiers to wear that country's coveted wings, the universal symbol of military parachutists.

As well as his British parachuting wings Cpl Shergold has also earned his US Army wings while on an exchange visit.

He travelled all over the world with the TA training and serving Holland, Cyprus, the US and Afghanistan.

Cpl Shergold, who used to work in the chemicals industry but now works four day a week for the TA said: "This training is all about getting us ready to support the regular battalions. We have seen what the French have done in Mali, where paratroopers were used and dropped into the operation. So we need to be ready for anything."