One Marine, Preparing to Go to War

One U.S. Marine is preparing to go to war. Staff Sgt. Nathaniel Dreyer has done this before - he was in the Iraq invasion in 2003. But this time round he has a four-month old baby - Macy - to say goodbye to, reports CBS News correspondent Terry McCarthy.

"It's going be tough," Dreyer said. "There's going be times where you're not going to be able to talk to your family for weeks on end."

Particularly Becky, his wife, who is packing up to go and stay with her family in Texas while her husband is in Afghanistan.

"He's got to go. It is his job, it's the nature of the beast, it's what I signed up for when I married him," said Becky Dreyer.

Soldiers Remember Fallen in Afghanistan

The Marines from 3-1 Battalion have been training for a year for this Afghanistan deployment. They are ready as they will ever be.

"I'm not going to lie, I'm scared," said Lance Cpl. Ryan Tomlin. "But I've been training for a while, and I think the training will hold up."

Training for a counter-insurgency is, to say the least, unconventional. The Marines spent a month in fake Afghan villages with real Afghan role players in the California desert. In classrooms they studied Afghan culture and language, and in big steel boxes they were tossed around, simulating a Humvee being flipped over by a roadside bomb.

This may be the most important training the Marines get - as they all know the IED is the single biggest threat to them in Afghanistan - a threat that's getting bigger every day.

One new weapon and inseparable companion are Labradors, trained to sniff out IED's.

"When we're out in the field, Moe sleeps in my sleeping bag with me," said Lance Cpl. Jordan Ridder.

For the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Ben Watson, the most important part of counter-insurgency training is teaching his Marines to think.

"I don't worry for a minute about the Marines ability to handle themselves when the shooting starts," Watson said. "The question of whether he should shoot is a much more difficult one."

Dreyer says his priority now is to focus on his Marines.

"I spend more time with these guys than I do with my family - it's a second family, I guess you could call it - I take that seriously, I take that to heart," Dreyer said.

But his wife knows where his heart is really at.

"It's his little girl. His little angel," Becky Dreyer said. "He'll cry. He won't tell you, but he'll cry."

One U.S. Marine, preparing to go to war.