If you were to tell me that my first military deployment to mainland Japan, thousands of miles away from my birthplace, would remind me of home, I wouldn’t believe you.

My first deployment was supposed to be foreign. The layout of the land, the food, the people, even the weather should have been strange and unique; providing a sense of unfamiliarity and a touch of homesickness. The exercise name itself, Ojojihara, is strange and alien to me.

I’ve been in Okinawa, Japan for 7 months. That place in itself is different from what I’m used to. Japanese writing, called Kanji, advertise the various businesses. The weather is humid, warm, and muggy. The areas where I work are densely populated and urban.

 I grew up in Huntington, Ma., a small little town about three hours from Boston. There are approximately 2000 people in my neighborhood. Crisp, fresh cool air and quite, forested mountains make up the landscape.

The two places between Okinawa and Huntington couldn’t be any more different.

When I heard the name Ojojihara, I pictured a desolate, cold, miserable mountain with no shelter but the foxholes we would be digging. Little did I know the place would remind me of home and the hunting trips I frequently made to Vermont and New Hampshire.

After we landed in mainland Japan, I stepped off the plane and was instantly hit by a blast of fresh cool air, much different from the warm humidity in Okinawa. The temperature made me think of time I’ve spent bow hunting whitetail deer in the mountains of Vermont.

The temperature in Vermont is usually between 45 to 55 degrees. Most of the time, there would be a steady, but chilly breeze blowing.

After I arrived at the camp and stowed my gear in a barracks room that held 12 beds, I began surveying the area. I was actually surprised with where what I would be sleeping. Though it wasn’t the three-man rooms like my barracks room in Okinawa, it was still pretty nice. Especially compared to the image I had in my head of where I would be sleeping.

The camp itself is made up of one barracks and a mess hall, surrounded by little metal shacks. Most of them held offices and one even has a little store that sells Japanese snacks, some that are unknown due to the strange packaging and kanji.

Walking around the camp brought back memories of walking down some of the roads back home in Massachusetts. The density of the surrounding forest and mountainous isolation of the camp only added to the feeling of being home.

When I finished familiarizing myself with the area around the barracks I went for a jog to get a lay of the land around the camp.

While running down the main roads, I noticed a lot more that reminded me of home. The fact that it was a dirt road lined with trees and random openings in the wood line that looked like they may have been roads abandoned years ago brought me back to the days of walking to my bus stop to school.

The area reminded me of home so much that during the run I came across a small puddle. Instead of jump over it, I tried to run around it on the edge. But then I sunk about a foot into the mud, and even deeper on the second and third step.

This made me realize that while this place may look a lot like home, it is not, and the upcoming training exercise is about to put everything I know to the test.