CORPORAL Shaun Dick has dodged rockets in Iraq and fought for his country across the continent.

Now the 31-year-old soldier from Paisley is getting ready for a fight of a different kind - as a professional boxer.

Dick has been jousting in the ring for over two decades but tonight will be his first ever contest in the pro ranks as he takes on Kristian Laight from Nuneaton.

Away from his day job as a member of the Highlanders, 4th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland (4 SCOTS), he has told SportTimes it is now or never for him to realise his dream of becoming Scottish lightweight champion.

He said: “Preparation has been fantastic. I’ve had a hard eight weeks at Hayfield in the Gorbals but it’s been great. Done some really good sparring with Joe Ham which has helped enormously.

“I’ve been boxing since I was 10. I had a couple of years out a few years ago when I went back to work, but off and on I’ve been doing it for 21 years.

“I’ve done everything at amateur. I’ve boxed for Scotland and overseas, but I thought if I don’t turn professional now I never will. I don’t want to get to an age where I can do it and regret it, so I grabbed the bull by the horns.

“The guys I’ve boxed with went to the Commonwealth Games and have gone professional, so I want this to be my turn."

Dick's career has taken him from Iraq to Afghanistan and from Belfast to Bosnia.

Along with being part of the Army Boxing Team, the man who has been training for the last eight weeks at Hayfield Boxing Gym in the Gorbals admits his previous trials and tribulations have not stopped his pre-fight nerves from kicking in.

“In 2003 I was in Belfast for a year. The following year it was Iraq, 2005 it was Bosnia, 2006 was Afghanistan and from then until 2012 I was in the army boxing team," said Dick.

“That was basically my job. I was based in Aldershot and trained three times a day for fighting all over the country.

“The longest tour I’ve had abroad was six months in Iraq. I was 19 and to be honest I loved it.

“It was absolute mayhem. I was based at Amarah and it was crazy.

“Looking back on it, it was the same as every other tour, you had good days and bad days. You look back at brilliant memories.

“You used to get rocketed every day and mortared at the camp every day and stuff. We were quite busy.

“We were kept busy with the attacks. I was never injured, thank God.

“You would think it makes immune to going in a boxing ring, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter how many fights you have had, or what you’ve been through, you’ve still got that same fire in your stomach.

“If someone tells you before I fight that they are not nervous they are lying."