I was placed in the Advanced Command Post Platoon (ACP) as a security escort for the commander. I was assigned as a team leader, and for the most part, my supervisor was very happy with me. One day my supervisor called the whole platoon to the bay, where he brief the platoon about the upcoming deployment. Finally, I was going to do what I signed up for, yet I could not contain myself, but as soon as the packing list was out my bags were ready. My family, on the other hand was not so thrilled with the idea, but they were sort of happy for me. One very early December morning, the day finally came I quickly put on my uniform, grab my bags and ran out the door. My wife drove me to the bay, where friends and family would sit with the soldiers while waiting for the buses to pick them up. There we practiced one of the Army oldest and greatest tradition the "Hurry up and wait". I sat there for what seemed like weeks, but for my wife, I am sure it felt like minutes. The time came to load the buses, and it was also time to say goodbye, quite possibly forever.
Many people would think of Afghanistan as a dangerous war zone, but not me, I was ready for action. After a few days of travel, eventually my unit and I landed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where the unit performed basic preparations for our battle space. The time came to load the Chinooks, a troop movement helicopter, and fly off to my units designated battle space. The platoon landed on a small outpost called Azzizullah, for this is where I lived for the next year.
At first adapting to the area was hard, and most of the soldiers including myself were missing their families. But it did not last too long, for eventually everyone got used to it making sense of everything and doing things they would normally do, like visit the gym or for a run. My unit would do its best to keep morale up by celebrating holidays and letting the troops have communication with family.