First Lt. Mikel Hernandez, a resident of Browns Mills, N.J., and deployed to Kuwait with the 316th Sustainment Command, prepares to send in his absentee ballot. Hernandez who emigrated from Cuba as a political refugee is voting in his first presidential election and is both grateful and excited to exercise his right, saying, “For the first time in my life I voted for the president of the nation that I belong to. This fact makes me feel free.” Hernandez continued about voting while deployed saying, “How then could I refuse to fight for others to have a future they can own and change? This is how I felt for 27 years before I traveled to the United States.”