1,500 Fort Bragg soldiers deploy to Afghanistan Tuesday

The Fayetteville base is deploying 1,500 soldiers from the 3,500-member 82nd Airborne Division. The 19-hour trip to the Middle East will be the first or second for many of the soldiers.

Staff Sargent Robert Hilton is on his second deployment. He's leaving behind his wife, two daughters and many memories.

"I'm going to miss all his jokes he tells because he's really funny, and he likes doing stuff with me," said Kira Hilton, the soldier's daughter.

He will be missing many milestones.

"I'll miss her first crawl, her walking for the first time probably," Hilton said.

It is an emotional deployment for Sargent Jacob Sexton and his wife. She's in the unit as well and will soon follow her husband to Afghanistan.

"Well right now it's a lot because along with the deployment comes taking care of your cars, what are you going to do with your house, moving out, putting everything in storage," Specialist Brianna Jacob said. "We're planning to drop (our daughter) off where she'll be with our family."

The mission is to support the Afghan security force and soldiers could be faced with a number of challenges.

"So there's the threat of Taliban attacker, and then there's there's insider attacks that's giving us some difficult as well," Col. Tobin A. Magsig said.