Two New Mexico National Guardsmen will have the unique pleasure of being deployed overseas with their family close at hand.

First Sergeant Lacey Macias is among 100 soldiers being deployed to Kuwait for a long nine months. Though he will have to say goodbye to most of his family, he will serve alongside his daughter, Specialist Krista Macias.

“A few years ago, she said she wanted to go in the military,” said Lacey Macias. “It really surprised me, and so for her to volunteer to go with me to go overseas to do the mission is an honor.”

Krista was inspired to join the military by her father while she was still in high school. She became a military medic, and when she learned her father’s unit needed a medic, the pieces fell into place.

“It was one of his friends that he actually deployed with, he actually asked me to go,” Krista Macias said. “They said that they needed medics to come and they just figured it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to go with my father.”

The two are being deployed as part of Operation Spartan Shield, a military initiative to fight terrorism in the Middle East. Since this will be Krista’s first deployment of her career and Lacey’s last before his retirement, the next nine months will represent a father passing the torch to his daughter to carry on the family’s legacy of military service and honor.