Trooper Gareth Kinsey tightens the tracks on his Scimitar armoured car

BBC Wales correspondent in the Gulf, Iolo ap Dafydd, has been speaking to some of them.

I can tell you that their morale is extremely high.

The men are proud of the way they have conducted themselves over the last 12 days - 12 days of continuous action in which two of their tanks were hit.

Their progress - achieved under "friendly" as well as enemy fire - has seen them presented with the Commando dagger by the Royal Marines after taking out more than 20 Iraqi tanks.

Missile threat: Dave Ceeley said action was 'scary'

The honour given to the Welsh Cavalry is thought to be the first time an army unit has received such recognition and their officers have spoken very highly of them.

Major Howard Smith said: "This is a very young squadron.

"Some of these boys have only been in the regiment for three weeks before coming out here.

"Six months ago some of these lads were still in school and yet they performed like veterans."

What you can feel as they are cleaning their vehicles and getting things sorted is that there is a lot of camaraderie.

There's a lot of black humour, a lot of jokes and I think there's a certain amount of relief that they came through it unscathed, with no serious casualties.

But the memories of action are never far away.

Trooper Dave Ceeley has a wry smile when he remembers the most frightening time under fire.

Nigel John Buss: Happy to get away from it all

"When we had a missile come about 100 foot over our head - we thought it was coming for us," he said.

"It's been quite scary but it's been good," he said.

And Trooper Nigel John Buss said: "The worry is when the artillery, etc, is coming at you.

"All you want to do is get yourself away - but it happens, you get away."

But that period is behind them what the Welsh Cavalry are doing at the moment is stripping down the vehicles, making sure all the equipment works well.

They have to clean absolutely everything, especially after fighting in the desert here.

Loyal

They need to make sure that all the dust has been taken out of their filters, the tracks, everything, as well their own weapons.

It is also a very important time for them to relax, away from a war zone.

They are here in a naval dockyard in southern Iraq, a protected area, and they shortly will move into another operation but maybe not one as intense as the last few days have been.

Because this war is still very much in operation, we won't really know what they have ahead of them

But we do know that they will be needed - we're not quite sure in which form - but it's probable that there are still forces loyal to Saddam Hussein in and around Basra.

That still has to be dealt with.