Ending Well

SPC Bailey Bullock
166th Engineer Company
2nd Platoon


I'm sitting here on my cot, halfway bundled in my sleeping bag. Why you might ask? Well...it's ridiculously cold outside! You see, I and the team I am with have been out on a mission for the past five weeks. We are on a smaller base, and it lacks a lot of the things that the larger ones have. We have been living in one of our tents this whole time, which hasn't been a problem at all; with the cold weather upon us in the mountains of Afghanistan, it has made staying warm a little bit of an issue. We are managing just fine though. With warm sleeping clothes and a few space heaters, anyone can manage.


It is weird to say this so far into the deployment, but I think this is the hardest mission we have faced (by “we” I mean the guys out here that I have worked with a lot over these last nine months). We have reached that point in the deployment where home feels really close. Sure, we are still a few months away from redeploying to Camp Atterbury, Indiana, but home and what you want to do when you finally get there are popping into your mind a whole lot more now. In addition to that, the mental and physical fatigue of the entire deployment seem to have caught up with us. We seem to lack that energy at the start of a project that existed at the beginning. These things combined make for a hard mission, let alone the actual work that must be done, which is substantial.


I'm sure that many of you understand what I'm talking about. In any job one often reaches a point where you get burned out. The work starts running together, feels as though it's never ending and monotonous, and your “give-a-damn” seems to be broken. I know I speak for a few people when I say that we have reached this point. This doesn't seem to me to be a bad thing, so much as an inevitable point in time. It is what you do once you get here that matters. Do you slack off, or do you keep plugging away? Everyone faces this question. To me, it is this point that sets soldiers apart. When we join up we know full well that we'll see this day. In fact, in basic and other training we are intentionally pushed to this point so we can learn to face it. It's not a new to us, but it still requires grit and will to push through. We have been pushing through and we must continue to do so. As I have mentioned before, to me it is a matter of honor. If we slack off just because we are tired and ready to go home, we dishonor those men who have come before us, been through far worse situations, and had to sacrifice a whole lot more. We must end this well to honor their service...and our own. Otherwise, we have wasted our time over here.



I tell you all of this to let you know how we are and what we, on personal levels, are experiencing. And I tell you this to ask for your help in these final stages of this deployment. You back at home have been an invaluable part of our unit. You, our friends and family, have kept us going. Your words of encouragement and love when we get to call home, the care packages and letters that you have sent, the time we spent with you when we came home on leave: all of these things have kept us energized and morale high, which has made this such a successful deployment for the 166th Engineer Company. All that I'm asking is that you keep plugging away with us. We will probably need you more these last few months than we have the first nine. We have all been in this together since the beginning, and we have to finish it together. Thanks again for all you support.