Commencing Countdown, Engines On...

In just over a month from now Shaun O'Mara and myself will be heading to Afghanistan. We've received our embed approval from the Canadian Forces and ISAF. Our body armor has arrived (thanks MS), helmets and protective eye-wear provided (thank you RH, PK and stores!) and our plane tickets are booked (thanks GL). We've depleted our entire budget on airline tickets so from here on out, we're begging, borrowing and borrowing (without permission). Luckily, there are not a lot of expenses once we're out in the forward operating bases otherwise we'd have to fall back on bake-sales (although that is not entirely out of the question).


As I've stated in other posts, we (Shaun and myself) are very, very fortunate to have generous and supportive friends and family. The Hon LCol of the Royal Westminster Regiment, Karen Baker-MacGrotty has gone out of her way to help us raise funds, awareness and promote our cause. The guys in stores, support from the CO and old friends helping with flights in/out of Kabul all amounts to the start of a successful project. This is the power of the social network.

Our focus over the next couple of weeks is to improve our French language skills, ensure our kit list is completed and begin preliminary work on the themes we want to capture. That last part is important because, although we don't want to land on the ground with too many preconceptions, we do want to build up content around some general themes. This gives us some direction instead of the "waiting for it to fall on us" approach to the creative process.

With that said, I'd like to hear what themes are important to you. Soldiers, ex soldiers and the general public alike. Everybody has established some mental images of how they view the conflict and how they view the soldiers. I'd like to hear about some of those themes so please post below.