Deploying to Afghanistan

I’m no one special, I’m a regular guy that grew up with a regular family in a regular town. I’m 22 years old and have a wife and a daughter. I live the normal life except for one thing I’m active duty military. I have been in the Navy for 4 years and have never done a deployment until now.

I joined the Navy in 2007 hoping to be like my big brother and sail around the world and hop from port to port. after my A-school I recieved orders to go to a battalion in Virginia. The first thing I did was call my big brother and ask him what the heck was going on? Isnt the Navy supposed to be on ships? Well I guess I was wrong about the ship life and my dreams of hoping from port to port were weathering away as I read into detail about my future command.

I arrived at the battalion and it wasn’t that bad, I worked 0700 to 1500 every day and on occasion I got to go to a different country and get the feel for different cultures. Not a bad life. I went threw three years doing my battalion job until Finlay I heard enough war stories to the point that I wanted to have my own. I went home and talked to my wife and basically told her that I wanted to do my part in Afghanistan. After many talks of death and glory she agreed to my request of war. I went into work the next day and told my officer that I wanted to go to Afghanistan and sure enough he had orders right there on his desk awaiting a volunteer. Before I knew it I was checking out of my command and getting ready to embark on the next phase of my career.

I showed up to Norfolk where the Navy has a station that is specially made to get sailors ready to go to training. I got my shots, I signed my papers, and dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s. I am ready for war. After Norfolk the station put me on a plane heading for New Mexico where my training was going to take place. I got off the plane and was met by a master chief and my new commanding officer. They drove me to the base and I joined the rest of my group. Now remember when you volunteer to go to Afghan, you join up with a bunch of other sailors that volunteerd, which means no one knows each other. All of the sailors are put into a housing unit and told to play nice, stay clean, and show up to muster on time.