Deployment

Hello,

Well I missed all last week and do not quite know what the topic is so I decided to write my own topic, mine is what I think about my pending deployment to Afghanistan with the 216th Engineer Battalion. After a week of train ups at Ft. McCoy, Wisconsin in which we practiced urban warfare, breaching, IED simulators, live fire lanes, combat stress, and combat trauma among other things it really makes me think of the decision I made to join up. Four years ago I was just graduating high school and now I am preparing to go to war with a primary mission of convoy security and to find and disarm IEDs as a combat engineer. It just rocks my mind, but I definitely would not be preparing to graduate college if it was not for the army or I definitely would not be the man I am today with the morals and values that I strive to hold if it was not for the army. It is at times a love hate relationship and yes I am a little nervous about this being my first deployment to the most hostile spot on earth but I am ready to take that burden and live up to what I signed up for.
A lot of men and women have died in this war on terror that the US has waged in the middle east for the past 10 years and I like to think that they did not die in vain. Ultra liberal media and groups like the Westboro Baptist Church just freaking make me sick. I have no idea how these people call themselves Americans when all they do is down talk a country that has literally gave them everything in the world. I am just not sure how people like that live with themselves. I am proud of what I am about to do, and if means taking a life well its better him then me because I am coming home in 12 months. I love this country, this land, and its people and I will be damned if I let some punks in the mid-east stray us from our day to day living.