Map of Afghanistan

       1 January 2005

      10th of January 2005 I received a call from the company sergeant ("Spieß") of my former unit, the 294th Mechanized Infantry Brigade. He was looking for a logistics assistant for the upcoming overseas mission. The destination: KUNDUZ, Afghanistan. I was quite surprised. But being a member of the reserve with still valid certification for this kind of position I had no doubt that I was going to support and accompany any battalion they would assign me to. At that time, I had a good job. I had responsibilities. But nothing could stop me from going with them. It´s one of these things you become a soldier for. Yes, of course I had been in the Army for 8 long years already. But it was nothing compared to what was about to come. Those years we´ve only been to countless exercises. All with the same scenarios. All about the same enemy. The enemy those days: "The East". In that past, counterterrorism and asymmetric warfare, at least in Germany, were not even close to become a term the army would focus on. You had 2 nations or blocks in conflict. Blue and red. Blue = good. Red = evil. After 9/11 the whole role of the Bundeswehr and its enemies had changed rapidly.

      After the phone conversation with my "Spieß" I went straight to my boss asking him for approval to join the Bundeswehr for active duty to go on mission. He was far away from being amazed by my idea, but after a long discussion about a man´s values and appealing to his idealism he finally agreed. After taking care of all administrative things with my employer and covering all needed aspects with my family I confirmed my participation in the upcoming mission. The preparations for my first mission began.

      Those days I felt like I would finally do something meaningful for those people who had known only three things in the last year: war, suffering and oppression, caused by the same inhuman creatures who attacked the way of life of the western world. There are so many thoughts running through your head while preparing for a mission. You need some time to get their true meaning. To realize what is coming up to you. I was married at that time and my son had just turned 7. It was a hard battle to convince my wife. But like many times before my will won over her concerns.

      During the time of my active duty in the past I learned the true meaning of comradeship. What it means to have true fellow soldiers. This understanding already began with my first day in basic training. 12 completely different characters put into a tiny room in a lousy barrack forced to come along with each other for months. Back then, a lot of the guys were away from home for the very first time in their life which led to the funny picture of a crazy long cue in front of the only phone cell on our military base every single evening. Fortunately, I was spared that kind of homesickness since I had left my home early to be trained as a cook prior to joining the military. But these new dogmas of order and obedience left a strange taste inside my mouth and stomach.

      Coming back to camaraderie, I witnessed that we were capable of achieving anything as long we stood together. Within the group as well as with the platoon. You help each other no matter what. Being it the seemingly endless marches, the combat and survival exercises or our final military exam. You carry the backpack of someone who is close to collapse. You turn around and grab a guy whose legs refuse to keep on running. You do all this because you can be sure that they would do all this for you as well once you faced your limits. It was a uniquely good feeling to know this each time we managed an exercise or task. This feeling stayed throughout all my courses and later in the everyday military life. The things I learned and the role models I was led by created the credo I used through my military career as a Sergeant leading young people myself. "I, as a sqad leader won´t expect or force anyone to do anything that I am not capable of doing myself." Just like Alexandre Dumas wrote in "The three musketeers" One for all and all for one! Those years in the army really brought me forward as a human being in many aspects.

      In Germany of the 1980s the relationship between the civilian population and its countries’ forces and the picture the people had of its soldiers was a much better one than nowadays. You could see it specially during the large exercises like 1984 "Flinker Igel" or 1987 "Kecker Spatz". Farmers would let you rest and sleep in their barn and when you had to make a tactical stop in front of a gymnasium of a school, kids would