By Pat Donahue, special to the Herald

Having been down this road before – or more to the point, having flown to this point before – Sgt. Abdul Muhammad could pass along some words of advice to his soldiers before they boarded their plane.

Sgt. Mohammed and about 250 other soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team began their trek to Eastern Europe on Thursday night, leaving a cool evening at Hunter Army Airfield behind for a winter in Poland. The brigade is making its second deployment to Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago, and Muhammad was on that mission, too.

“That experience, it happened fast,” Mohammed recalled of the brigade’s first European deployment in the wake of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. “I just tell my soldiers, go with the flow – be happy you’re having the opportunity to go out of the country and do your job, do what you signed up for.”

The 1st Brigade was rushed to Eastern Europe as an American answer to the invasion. Soldiers trained alongside their NATO partner forces during the deployment, and Mohammed said the training and the experience were enjoyable.

“It was very different, compared to what we do,” he said. “It was amazing.”

Command Sgt. Maj. Ryan Roush, the brigade’s command sergeant major, said the 1st ABCT’s units have been preparing for this deployment for more than a year.

“We’re excited to go do our mission over in Europe,” he said. “This is the greatest team I’ve served with. They are committed to the mission.”

As the brigade’s top enlisted soldier, Command Sgt. Maj. Roush has to look after the well-being of the soldiers – and make sure the families they leave behind for nine months also are taken into consideration. Roush, who has been in the Army for more than 25 years, is a veteran of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s been with the 1st ABCT for 15 months as its command sergeant major.

The brigade has been getting ready both at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, and across Fort Stewart’s ranges for its upcoming task. Now, they’ll have the added component of working alongside and training with NATO partner forces.

“It’s super important to develop that interoperability – how we talk, how we train, how we fight with them,” Command Sgt. Maj. Roush said. “We’ve had opportunities to do that back here at Fort Stewart and at the National Training Center. All of this has prepared us for what we’re about to do.”

Yet getting ready for an Eastern European winter isn’t something that can be replicated across Fort Stewart’s pines and swamps. In all, about 3,500 soldiers from the brigade will be on the deployment.

“We focus a lot of training on prevention in driving in the winter,” Command Sgt. Roush said. “A lot of these soldiers haven’t seen snow. We’re going into an environment that’s very cold and we’re moving equipment all across Europe. It’s going to be exciting to start operating in those conditions.”

Mohammed, a Dallas native, has been with 2/7 Infantry Battalion since he got out of basic in 2021.

“I told them to be prepared to work in the snow and be prepared to be uncomfortable,” he said. “I told them to be comfortable at being uncomfortable. It’s a different type of environment.”