Pre-deployment

Found out a few days ago I'm going to be deploying to Afghanistan. I go in on Feb. 4 for my 6 week rotation.

I have a little way to go before I get on that plane to Kandahar Airfield for my new home for 6 weeks. I have to go and do my hostile environment training. There are two locations that Global uses; one is in Virgina and the other is in England. I think I'm going to the England location but that will be confirmed in the coming days. The point of the training is to give us a little bit of an understanding of what we're getting into and to have a grasp on how to deal with some of the situations that I might encounter over there.

I think the tough part of all this is telling my family and friends. There has been a huge range of reactions; there has been the mother of my friend crying, guys have congratulated me and told me that they're jealous, people have looked at me like I was crazy...that one I think they might have reason for.

It takes a special kind of person to want to go to a war zone but I am that special kind of person. For those of you that think that I might be crazy, here is my thinking. I am in the business of telling stories and there are a lot of stories to be told in Afghanistan. As a story teller I want to go where the stories are, one of the biggest stories is Afghanistan which was led by the largest story in this decade maybe century... 9/11. In 2011 the Canadian government is suppose to pull out of Afghanistan, between now and then the citizens of Canada deserve to know what is going on over and someone needs to be their eyes over there.

This blog will be my way of sharing with those left behind what is going on in my mind and in my world. Enjoy.