A military father and daughter who are stationed at Fort Drum in northern New York are gearing up for deployment to Afghanistan together.
Miranda Mogg, 21, who works as an army intelligence officer, said she had always dreamed of following her father, Michael, to the front line.
'It's surreal. I grew up with him always away, and now I get a chance to be out there,' she told the Watertown Daily Times.
Family support: Michael Mogg and his daughter Miranda, who are stationed at Fort Drum in northern New York are gearing up for deployment to Afghanistan together
'If you're going to go to war, you should go with people you know,' she added.
Chief Warrant Officer 5 Mr Mogg, 47, had planned to end his career at 29 years, but decided to stay to be a part of the deployment, which will be his fifth, and his daughter’s first.
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It is reported that the Moggs will be among the 1,800 soldiers from the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade deploying overseas in the next month.
Mr Mogg, a 29-year Army veteran, is the helicopter unit's master gunner and his daughter is an intelligence analyst whose duties will include identifying enemy activity and potential threats.
'I grew up with him always away, and now I get a chance to be out there'
'For once she gets to tell me what to do,' Mr Mogg joked. He also noted that she is likely to serve as a spy for his wife.
'If I eat something wrong, she’s going to "narc" on me,' he said.
The Moggs have been stationed at Fort Drum for the past five years, but the military base is familiar territory for the family.
They lived on the army reservation from 1994 to 2001, when Miranda Mogg attended local schools.
She graduated from high school in Alabama after her father was assigned to Fort Rucker in the southern part of the state.
Following in her parents' footsteps: Mr Mogg affixes a specialist rank on the uniform of his daughter, Miranda, with her mother, Maria, at a promotion ceremony
Michael Mogg and his army veteran wife, Maria, returned to Fort Drum in 2008 when he was transferred to the upstate Army post, home of the 10th Mountain Division.
It is one of several military installations in the U.S. and Germany the family has called home. Specialist Miranda Mogg has been in the Army about two years and arrived at Fort Drum in November.
She said she is a little nervous about her first overseas assignment, and it will pressure her to identify enemy activity and potential threats.
'If something gets past me, it could be very hazardous,' she said.
The helicopter brigade, which has been preparing for the past ten months, will be deployed for about nine months, serving in a variety of support roles in the air and on the ground.
This deployment will be the brigade's fifth since 2001 and its fourth to Afghanistan.
Bill Costello, a spokesman for Army Human Resources command at Fort Knox, Kentucky, said the service doesn't track parent-child deployments so it doesn't have information on any similar situations.