To be honest, I’ve kind of been hoping that it was going to get cancelled.  Don’t get me wrong, ever since being told I would command a company plus of Soldiers last year on a separate deployment I have been excited for the chance.  With deployments these days, as well as command time being slim, the opportunity for over a year of active duty command time is a hell of a career boost.  Even better, this is in a joint environment working with the Navy and the Air Force and the Major’s board instructions of late have directed primary consideration to those with joint experience.  Its a lot of responsibility, especially not deploying with a higher headquarters and coming under another service’s chain of command.  No chance to lay low on this one, thats for sure.

I’ve been tracking parallel paths in my head for a while: get my company and Soldiers trained and ready for mission success in an unconventional role for an Infantryman, and hoping that politics and constraints would have this thing cancelled so I don’t have to miss the time with my family.

For many of my Soldiers, they are excited for the chance to deploy.  Whether it be for financial, personal, or career enhancing reasons, there seems to be a line for guys that want to go.  I can’t take them all due to a myriad of reasons, and some of them take it personal when I tell them they can’t go.  My old timers, those guys with deployments under their belts, are a bit more realistic.  They want to deploy because they, like I, enjoy the challenge of leading Soldiers, but they understand the real pressures of the actual deployment.

My older kids have lived through multiple deployments and training periods away.  I know from their experience that kids are resilient and can adapt and move past the pain of separation, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me to subject my younger kids to their first deployment.  For my wife, well all I can say is that I am in awe, because here she is doing it again (because what choice does she have) with strength and grace.  I am sure she is pissed at me, but she hunkers down and does not only what is right for the family, but finds the extra energy to help my Soldiers and their families as my Family Readiness Group leader for a second deployment.  She is certainly stronger than I.

As we train up for this deployment, I continue to be surprised by the strength, dedication, and professionalism of my Soldiers and Non Commissioned Officers (NCOs).  In order to meet the requirements for this deployment I have had to pull Soldiers from across the battalion and from our forward support company to get the mix necessary to be self sufficient.  I have had to anticipate what specialty military occupational specialties will be best suited for our success and build a task force package with zero input from the command I will fall under. My job description is an interpretation of various requirements, and the position “N3/SECO” does nothing to describe my responsibilities, nor the responsibilities of my Soldiers once we get to theater.  I guess soon I will find out if my assumptions were correct….What I do know is that given this unconventional role for my Infantrymen as well as the attached mechanics, drivers, chemical, military intelligence, signal, and other specialties, that the fact they have truly melded as a team and developed a coherent NCO support channel is a testament to their professionalism and strength.

A brief story about our train up.

See you next time.