(1 May 2009) SHOTLIST
1. Pan of soldiers with gear and bags
2. Various of soldier preparing bag
3. Soldier sitting
4. Various of soldiers saying goodbye to their wives and partners
5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Bill Pelletier, Captain and Public Affairs Officer of the Second Marine Expeditionary Brigade:
"The big difference for us, the thing that makes it significant for us is that we're taking a much larger force than we've had in Afghanistan up to this point, so as we're bringing a bigger force obviously it's to do a bigger job to continue building on the success of the battalion sized units, the Marine Expeditionary unit that was there before us, the special purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force that's there now. Our mission remains the same, it's just on a larger scale and in a larger battle space."
6. Soldier with family
7. Soldiers taking photos
8. SOUNDBITE: (English) Bill Pelletier, Captain and Public Affairs Officer of the Second Marine Expeditionary Brigade:
"The biggest challenges we'll be facing in Afghanistan is going to be fighting an adaptive enemy who's not afraid to put civilians in harm's way and has a campaign of lying to get their information across so that's a pretty big challenge for us."
9. Various of woman hugging husband and crying
10. Girl crying
11. Soldier hugging girl
12. Soldier with family
13. Close-up of girl holding dad's hand
14. SOUNDBITE: (English) Bill Pelletier, Captain and Public Affairs Officer of the Second Marine Expeditionary Brigade:
"Anytime a family is going through a first time deployment there's a lot of uncertainty some concerns, what's going to happen while the service member's gone in addition to what's my marine going to be doing over in a combat zone it's also 'what do I do when things go wrong at home or the dishwasher breaks' or you know the children are asking 'when's daddy going to be home', that's a big challenge every time."
15. Gunnery Sergeant Michael Turcotte playing with baby daughter
16. SOUNDBITE: (English) Michael Turcotte, Gunnery Sergeant and father of three, fifth deployment:
"Hey if you don't have the family support at home then you don't have really nothing to even worry coming back to. If gives you something to look forward to at the end."
17. Turcotte playing with daughter
STORYLINE:
The first 100 US Marines and soldiers who will deploy to Afghanistan on Thursday bade farewell to their families at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
US President Barack Obama has ordered an additional 21,000 US soldiers and Marines into Afghanistan this summer.
Most of them will deploy in the country's south - the Taliban's heartland and the world's largest opium producing region.
According to Camp Lejeune officials, the troops will serve on a team that will provide command and control to the ground, aviation, and logistical combat elements which will comprise the bulk of US forces in southern Afghanistan.
Officials said their mission is to conduct counter-insurgency operations and to train and mentor the Afghan national security forces.
Officials said they started conducting planning for the deployment at the end of January, ahead of Obama's announcement of the troop surge.
Captain Bill Pelletier, the Public Affairs Officer of the Second Marine Expeditionary Brigade, said that the biggest difference in this deployment is the size of the force.
"Our mission remains the same, it's just on a larger scale and in a larger battle space," he said.
He said there were many challenges facing his troops in Afghanistan.
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