Afghanistan leaves imprint on officer

This is an article describing the year long deployment of one of Canada's RCMP officers serving with Canadian forces in Afghanistan. It describes the difficulties, the accomplishments, how pleased he is now home and how fortunate he feels to live in a country free from the daily life challenges of the citizens of Afghanistan.

www.mykawartha.com

(LINDSAY) Everything is much the same in Mark Mitchell’s office at Kawartha Lakes Police headquarters in Lindsay.
Everything but Inspector Mitchell himself.
The officer recently returned to work after serving a year-long tour in Afghanistan, which he says “was everything I hoped for and more.”
But, he admits the experience changed him.
Insp. Mitchell left for the war-torn country in March of 2009 as part of the RCMP-led Canadian police mission to train and mentor Afghan police officers. It has always been his dream to work with the Canadian Forces; one that would not have been possible, he says, were it not for the support and encouragement of family, friends and coworkers.

My nephew was also a mentor in Afghanistan for a year, teaching police skills.
He taught firearms, and ethics.

He emailed us almost daily, and of course we sent care packages, and ran errands for him while he was away. I was terrified the entire time he was gone. Some of the mentors were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and were killed.

It was interesting to see how he was changing through his daily emails.

I remember his first one which was something to the effect of:

"you can see what hard lives these people have led, you can see it in their faces".

But he did eventually become frustrated when changes didn't occur as quickly as he is accustomed to. I think language might have been a barrier also.

But he was very, very happy to come home.