Off to Afghanistan

Heroes Remember

Off to Afghanistan

Transcript

I remember and I was probably pretty naive, I think I was 23 at the time, but there was another guy there at the unit and he had a whole chest of medals and he was probably 32 and two kids and it was very much the adventure but it was also…you see these guys that are older but they’re still pretty young and they have done a lot of tours and a lot of rotations so it’s trying to step up and take some of the burden off of them too. It’s quite a culture shift, I think for me a lot of times if anybody has asked me, it’s more of a shift coming back then it was going over because up until we left that’s all we were doing, it was get ready to go, get ready to go, get ready to go, get ready to go, we’d do different training here and there. So getting there was kind of expected like that’s what you were doing but ya it was a massive difference even just from the weather, you know, we had briefings before we went they said, you know you’re going to get sick at some point whether it’s a month or two weeks in you’re going to get sick and you’re going to be sick for a few weeks and it’s going to happen. So just simple things like that. And you know the heat and everything else under the sun. I think there was a day it went up to about, you know, sitting out in the sun our temperature gauge went up to nearly 50 degrees so like it’s quite a shift working in that type of weather whatever you’re doing even if it’s just loading up. So it wasn’t maybe as bad as I thought, I think like I said I was 23 when I went, I think I kind of had more naive ideas in my head that I was going to go and really do something and we did to an extent but I don’t think I had a perfect idea. I think we have ideas back here that everything is so clean and so proper but it’s very different on the ground right.

Description

Mr. Lord discusses his deployment to Afghanistan and his return home.

Justin Lord

Mr. Justin Lord was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island July 10, 1980. As a teenager he and his family moved to the town of Souris. Before attending university, Mr. Lord made the decision to join the Reserves. With encouragement from his cousin, he joined the 721 Communications regiment as a reservist and worked weekends while attending school. Mr. Lord completed basic training in Kingston, Ontario and experienced varied opportunities with the military. At age 23, he was given the opportunity to join the Royal 22nd Regiment Operation Athena Roto 1 with the regular force deploying to Afghanistan for a six month term in the Communication field holding rank of corporal. Returning home, Mr. Lord continued on as a reservist but his career path took a turn and in 2007 he sought employment with the Federal Government and now resides in Prince Edward Island with his family.

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