Soldier on Leave from Afghanistan Speaks Out|ABC News 4

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Soldier on Leave from Afghanistan Speaks Out

12/28/08 2:46 pm | reporter: Josh Cascio producer: Katie Newingham

search tags: afghanistan • holiday • war • cascio

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ABC News 4 - Soldier on Leave from Afghanistan Speaks Out

Mount Pleasant, SC - Heroics on hold.

“Home on leave on leave right now, it’s a 2 week break in the middle of a 15 month tour," said Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Pratt. "It's invigorating I don’t have to get up in the morning, I can sleep in, eat when I want it's really nice," he joked.

LTC Pratt is the Deputy Commander for the Afghanistan Engineer District. His mission is to build the infrastructure in what is currently a very unstable country.

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"The people are very resilient, hard working, incredible people that are very thankful for what we're doing and it's not so much reconstruction as construction we're building that’s that never existed before," he said.

Things like schools, hospitals and roads, things many of us take for granted in our country.

"When you build a road it isn’t just a road for US forces to move it’s a road for goods and services to move its a road to get your kids to a hospital,” he said.

Battling the terrain and the unknown, no construction project is easy. Some of his work days last 16 to 17 hours; but LTC Pratt believes the ends justify the means. In fact he volunteered for this tour.

"I volunteered for another tour in Afghanistan because I believe in what we're doing there I believe in the Corp of Engineers mission there that you have to build the country from the ground up," he said.

On January 4th LTC Pratt will head back to Afghanistan until his tour ends in June after that he plans to stay in the Army for 1 more year before retiring.

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