“Good to go!”, “chow time”, “have a great evening” and “what’s up?” – just a few of the turns of phrase in the American serviceman’s dictionary of English that we Brits serving with the Americans have to learn.

I’m one of a small number of British forces personnel working with a large number of Americans at an equally large headquarters in Helmand Province. And the old adage of “two nations separated by a common language” sometimes creates good-humoured interchanges.

The US Marine Corps, with whom I’m working, have high and tight haircuts just like the characters do in the film Jar Head. Their utter devotion to their corps is obvious, as is the sharpness of their drill, their turnout and their instant response to words of command.

Yet for all their stern bearing, they are the most courteous, polite and helpful individuals I have ever met.

For example, how many security guards in the UK greet you with a friendly: “Welcome back, sir, have a great afternoon,” when you show your ID card to re-enter your office building after lunch? And can you remember the last time a vehicle stopped for you, to allow you to cross the road?

Individual American courtesy even extends to offering to bring you an evening meal to your desk if you are too busy to go for “chow”. And if the Helmand desert dust causes you to sneeze, there follows a chorus of “bless yous”, swiftly backed up by offers of pills, cough sweets and other medication.

True, there are differences in ways of working and ways of thinking. But in terms of uniting with the downtrodden and dispossessed Afghan people, ravaged by nearly 40 years of non-stop conflict, our American cousins have much in common with us as we together seek to support extending legitimate governance and the rule of law here in Helmand.

There has been significant progress since I was last here, in 2008/9. Then, I headed up a team of military stabilisation specialists in the northern Helmand district of Musa Qal’eh, helping villagers with their water and infrastructure problems by engaging with their elders in fieldside “shuras” or meetings. It was a face-to-face job that revealed to me the extent of their daily struggle to live normal lives against a backdrop of insurgency, intimidation and violence.

Two years on, I am back in Helmand, but this time working in a large multinational regional headquarters, drafting and developing policies to support the development of governance in the province. Agreed, it is far removed from daily interactions with the farming families of Musa Qal’eh, yet what our teams do will ultimately help improve their daily living just as if we were working among them directly.

Yes, the insurgency is still seeking to wreck lives of innocent families by trying to destabilise the Afghan government’s strivings to reach out to these district communities. But the insurgents are nowadays much more on the back foot than they were when I was last here.

Loss of life on all sides though, still happens. And only recently, two more British soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice. Lieutenant Ollie Augustin, 23, and 28-year old Marine Sam Alexander, MC, both of 42 Commando, Royal Marines, were remembered by our American coalition allies at their Memorial Day ceremony.

Several hundred US, British and other coalition forces personnel gathered to pay their respects to fallen comrades, whose names were read out in a roll of honour.

Each time a name and the date of their ultimate sacrifice was read out, one strike of a memorial bell was sounded, in a poignant, dignified and deeply moving ceremony.

The tomorrow that these young soldiers gave their today for is one of hope, of transition. And that tomorrow is coming closer. Because very soon now, a key area – that of the Hel-mand provincial capital Lashkar Gah itself – will pass from the control of coalition forces to that of the Afghan National Security Forces. Further districts may well soon be handed back to Afghan army and police forces. This significant and telling improvement in security and governance has come about thanks to the sacrifices of many, who fell in actions that have pushed a now discredited insurgency out of the urban areas they had freedom of movement in two years ago, to the margins of the Helmand desert.

They say that the difference between Britain and America is that in the States, a hundred years is a long time, whereas in Britain a hundred miles is a long way. In our shoulder-to-shoulder fight with our Afghan armed forces allies to defeat the insurgency and bring about conditions for a better life for the communities I was working in two years ago, there is no difference between us whatsoever. We really are “good to go”.

• York civil servant Kerry Hutchinson, a major in the 4th Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, is on his second six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan, serving with the US Marine Corps at Camp Leatherneck, in the Helmand desert.