VALCARTIER, Que. — The first contingent of 125 soldiers from CFB Valcartier near Quebec City left Tuesday for Afghanistan.

About 1,900 other soldiers of 5 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group will arrive in Kabul by mid-February for a six-month mission as part of an international security force.

The Royal 22nd Regiment, commonly known as the Vandoos, will replace the Royal Canadian Regiment based at Ontario's CFB Petawawa, which accounts for 40 per cent of the 5,000 contingent from 34 countries.

A handful of the soldiers will join ongoing peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia.

The mission in Kabul is to maintain peace, and security in and around the Afghanistan capital.

Most of the troops enjoyed a brief year-end vacation after a fall of intense training in New York and Sherbrooke, Que.

Defence Minister David Pratt thanked the troops for their efforts to maintain peace and stability in a country that has been at the centre of the war on terrorism.

Also seeing off the soldiers were spouses and children left behind.

"It helps when you are prepared and used to the situation," the wife of Eric Arsenault told RDI, Radio-Canada's all-news channel.

"Each time we restart from scratch," she said.

A daily routine will soon set in for the couple's four children, she said.

"The days and months pass and he'll come back."

Once their flight takes off, the soldiers focus on their mission, along with things they forgot to say to their family, said Capt. Mario Couture, who has been on two military missions overseas.

"People think that because we're in the army it's easy to leave," he told RDI.

"It's not always the case. One often has feelings of guilt that we have abandoned family and left them behind."