Aghanistan Diary #1

Here is Jack’s corresponding column to mine. We actually wrote them separately and didn’t see the others until the final draft, so it was quite a nice surprise to read.

~FGirl

Kandahar Diary:

Mixed Feelings on packing for Afghanistan
 
I was on the road when I heard the news, way down south in Dallas, Texas. The message was clear though, get back home fast, ideally yesterday. November 27th, 2008, 408 Squadron was given confirmation that they would finally deploy to Afghanistan. I say finally, because we had been given our first warning in late January, and had been training at a frantic pace almost constantly since. Now we had 3 weeks to pack, take care of some additional pre-deployment administration, and hopefully get some time with our families to have an early Christmas. I was lucky, having the opportunity to see both my Mom and Dad before I left, and still took a few days in Jasper to propose to my girlfriend of almost 5 years! I had planned to pop the question over the holidays back in Ontario, but that wasn’t going to be possible now.
 
I had mixed feelings when I heard the news, though my first was relief. I would have been pretty upset if I had spent almost a year training for something that never happened! Then I had some time to consider the fact that I really was going to a war zone and that myself or my friends had a fairly good chance of getting shot at. It’s strange, I’d never been in any real danger my whole life. Sure, I’ve had a fender bender in a car, crashed my mountain bike a couple times, but here I was heading off to Afghanistan. I’m not trying to imply that I’m in mortal peril everywhere I go of course, actually most of the locations I’ll be operating in are quite secure. We’ve also got plenty of armor, machine guns, and most importantly our tactics and smarts to keep our crew safe. After I had some time to sort through these thoughts, it was time to go.
 
We woke up early on the morning of December the 17th, with blessedly little time to get too wound up in the fact that I was about to fly halfway around the world. The city of Edmonton was sleepy at 6am when I gave my new finance a hug and kiss, said “See you soon”, and loaded up my car with my Dad who would see me on to the bus. Heather was flying home to Ontario that morning, which felt like a mixed blessing. On one hand, she would have her family nearby for support, but every minute before you leave is precious, and I didn’t want to miss a single one.
 
The drive to the base was interrupted briefly by the mandatory “I’ve left the house before 7am” Tim Hortons stop. There was the usual “hurry up and wait” administration, then a couple of flinches where people thought it was time to get on the bus but it really wasn’t, then it was finally time. I think the family members who had shown up were ready to throw us on the bus after saying goodbye 2 or 3 times already! Big hugs all around, a few tears, and then the handshake gauntlet including our local MP and a padre handing out tiny St. Christopher medallions (the patron saint of travelers). Although few of us are overtly religious or even Catholic, everyone accepts and as far as I know, we’ve all kept them. Superstition doesn’t count as conversion does it?
 
From the bus to a plane, and then the traveling begins in earnest.