by Mindy Aguon

Guam - Next month Guam will see the largest deployment of soldiers from the Guam Army National Guard the island has ever seen. In the weeks leading up to that deployment, KUAM News will be taking a closer look at those who have sacrificed to take up this latest mission. It's our salute to the soldiers.

Since receiving notification 18 months ago, nearly 600 Guardsmen have been undergoing rigorous and extensive training and tedious preparation for the guard's latest mission: a yearlong deployment to Afghanistan. "It's a big task, but that to me from the leadership above that they have confidence in the Guam Army National Guard that they can fulfill this mission," stated Adjutant General Benny Paulino. He admits that when Guam first got the call about the 600-soldier deployment, he was initially apprehensive.

"How am I going to get this unit ready for deployment? How do I prepare the island leadership, the employers, all the things that has to be done to get this unit ready for deployment?" he explained.

Despite this being the largest deployment ever for a reserve component on Guam, Paulino has every confidence in his troops. Guam's soldiers are some of the most-sought after across the nation, with a reputation for not only being the most professional but highly trained and skilled. "Hands down, bar none, these commanders will take any Guam soldier, anytime. I guess it's just something about our culture, our uniqueness that brings out the best in us," General Paulino said confidently.

The Guam Guard's mission will primarily be to provide convoy security escorting other personnel around the battlefield. The mission comes as President Barack Obama has ordered that all troops in Afghanistan withdraw by 2014. And preparing 588 soldiers for the defensive mission that they will be performing in theatre hasn't been easy.

Battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Michael Tougher says his soldiers have undergone thousands of hours of training, telling KUAM News, "The training we've done has been everything from a resiliency-type training - developing resiliency in our soldiers so they know how to deal with the stress and distance from their families. But we've also done a lot of combat related training."

As with any deployment, LTC Tougher says fear is normal and the Guard has worked over the last year and a half to address those fears with the Chamori Battalion. "I don't look at fear as a negative," he said, "it's just a reality. It's human nature to have fear. We just need to know how to leverage that fear into a positive.

"What we try to do is teach those soldiers how to deal with the fear not let it overwhelm them. Like I said, fear keeps people safe. It keeps people vigilant."

And while they haven't yet left the island, the soldiers are already on deployment mode training six days a week, as the countdown to their departure has begun.