An inspirational former Royal Marine from Devon has hit back at Donald Trump’s ‘insult’ to those who served in Afghanistan.

Lee Spencer, famous as the one-legged rower in his record-breaking Atlantic exploits, is a veteran of the deadly Afghan conflict.

He spoke up in defence of all those who fought and died or survived the war, often badly wounded.

Lee, of Horrabridge, said the president had diminished all their contributions.

The US president said in a media interview that the US could not rely on NATO allies, such as the UK, to come to its aid and when they did fight, they stayed off the front line, in other words out of serious harm’s way.

Trump said: "We've never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them. They'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan... and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines."

His comments on Fox News, on Thursday (January 22), drew outrage for being both disrespectful and inaccurate from many veterans, including Prince Harry and PM Sir Keir Starmer, who called them “insulting and frankly appalling”.

The president later rowed back yesterday (Saturday, January 24) on his (Truth Social platform) saying British troops were ‘among the greatest of all warriors’ and acknowledged that 457 had died in Afghanistan. But he did not apologise, as demanded.

Meanwhile, Lee, who served with 40 Commando, Royal Marines, in Afghanistan said: “President Trump’s comments about NATO soldiers not being anywhere near the front line is a horrific insult to the friends and colleagues that I lost. But more than that, it tramples on the bonds of kingship between our two nations forged in the hell holes of both Iraq and Afghanistan, when our closest ally called for help and we answered that call.”

While training in Cyprus on September 11, 2001 he remembers marines staring in shock at the infamous TV footage of the attacks in New York and Washington.

Lee said: “Although we didn’t know it then, the entire world had changed. America invoked Article 5 of the NATO Treaty that states ‘an attack on one member is considered an attack against all’.”

Over the next 11 years he fought on front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. From the first Iraq operations, to the bloodiest battleground of the Afghan conflict, in Sangin in 2010, when 40 Commando handed over to the US Marines, he ‘stood shoulder to shoulder with American soldiers’.

Lee, a motivational speaker and charity adventurer in aid of recovering serving and veteran military personnel, said: “The US Marines were exceptionally well trained, often courageous and many I now call ‘brother.’

“That bravery, kinship and teamwork was never better displayed than when I witnessed an American Blackhawk helicopter shot down over Sangin. It had been called in to rescue a British Marine who had been shot and it was British Marines who ran out of the base to rescue the American survivors in the burning hulk of the crashed helicopter. “

In October 2001 the US invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban, whom they said were harbouring Osama Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda figures linked to the 9/11 attacks the previous month.

More than 3,500 coalition soldiers died, about two-thirds of them Americans.

The UK suffered the second-highest number of military deaths in the conflict behind the US, which suffered 2,461 fatalities.