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Published: November 23rd 2023
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Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
Wishing everyone experiences at least a single moment of Thankfulness on this special day!
I often wonder how other people and other countries celebrate today? I have had the opportunity to be on foreign soil multiple years and have been pleasantly surprised by how the world really understands the thankfulness for others. The military missions never stop but there is something so very special about being deployed during the holidays.
During the buildup to Operation Desert Storm (November 1990), there were about half of the 500,000 Coalition troops on ground in Saudi Arabia and in my location at the Port of Jubail, we kept Thanksgiving quite simple. President Bush, General Schwarzkopf, and First Lady Barbara Bush showed up in a Marine Corp helicopter! Quite a surprise for a young Soldier who had been living in a small tent on the tarmac parking lot on the actual port where the ships would come in and the military equipment would be offloaded and sent forward to the staging area for the potential of war. Gotta tell ya, being President has its benefits. You see, the President and the General continued to the nearby Marine Corp Base and
we heard that he posed for pictures with cooked turkeys and a smorgasbord of holiday trimmings. Poor First Lady Bush stayed with the couple thousand Army logisticians, and she was gracious with her excitement about being served turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing and gravy out of mermite containers that kept the food warm. No kitchen, no cooks, first hot meal since August, and there was nothing better than gravy soaking through the cheap paper plates that the government purchased!
Quote from my 1990 journal from Thanksgiving: “great having a day off to spend with your friends, to reflect and to talk about what people would be eating back home. We were waiting for a war to start. The anticipation, the preparation we were going through, and the battle drills that were conducted were a strain on one’s psyche. Yet, we were thankful to have each other, to be able to confide in someone, to mention out loud that you were homesick, and everybody would nod in agreement. Seems like a lifetime ago, but I can still smell the aroma of the fixings in those tents that we had set up.” A year later I had the fortune to be in
the Netherlands for a rainy and dreary holiday. The Dutch Navy hosted a few of us American Soldiers who were deployed and working the ports, we were still shipping military equipment back to the states after the ending of Desert Storm. We were grateful for the meal that their cooks prepared and were so surprised when it was a somewhat traditional meals with turkey, dressing, hard breads and a incredibly thick form of gravy. Then the sailors tried to convince us that the original Pilgrams were from the Netherlands. Ha! No American Soldier bought into that crazy story………. years later I found out that there really was a pod of the original pilgrims that hung out for years in a small town in the Netherlands before the Mayflower voyage. Guess I’m not the crispiest cracker in the box!
I kept a
journal during the Iraq Thanksgiving season of 2003 and realized that some messages don’t change:
“Thanksgiving holiday today, I am smack dab in the middle of Baghdad. We have been given the day off and the smell of sulfur is thick and fresh from the rocket attacks. The morning was filled with the enemy taking advantage of our holiday and giving us a loud and dangerous wake up call. The walk to the mess hall was filled with soldiers and civilians wishing each other happy holidays, and sharing a silent bond that brought us all together both in spirit and a single understanding of being so far away from home. The kitchen workers from the third world countries had done a marvelous job of carving pumpkins, making ice sculptures, and creating a “happy place” for us all to celebrate our day.”
The location of the meal is mostly irrelevant. From each and every deployment, various countries I believe some parts of my experiences are all the same. The military really does everything in their power to create an environment that stimulates your other senses. The unique beauty of sculptured food, the aroma of crazy non-familiar spices sprinkled in the side dishes that are somewhat related to what we are used to back home. The many loaves of homemade bread are inedible because shiny shellac keeps the bread beautiful for carvings and twists that are so unusual for us to see.
Insert from Thanksgiving 2009 in Kosovo: "The kitchen choir of workers from Nepal were singing and I had stopped for a minute to shoot some video, so I actually listened to the words as they sang with all their heart. It was one of those moments that you just get overwhelmed. I watched the singers sing with everything they had, it was all for us. Every word, every beat of the drum and all the soulful solos that they belted out. They wanted to entertain soldiers and at that very moment I was grateful that they had chosen to take some of their holiday time to sing for us. I somehow got a little tear. Not sure exactly what happened, but all of a sudden, these soldiers weren’t just my friends. For an instant, everywhere I looked I saw mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, grandmas, and daughters. These soldiers were sitting around me, and they all had a story. They left children at home who would be eating turkey with someone else. For some it would be their first holiday away from family, for others it would be just another holiday away from home while they served their country. Some say that sending your child off for a deployment is one of the hardest things
that they will experience. I would guess that holidays are difficult for everyone. We all miss someone, and it is days like today that somehow no matter how hard you try, there is a twinge of homesickness that surfaces above everything else. We smile, we laugh, but guaranteed we reminisce about where we would rather be. The love of family is worn on our sleeves and felt in our hearts. I was missing home a little more today than I have in the past, maybe it’s because I’m getting a little older and I really like my holiday routines. But the one thing that I would never give up is being here in Kosovo. Today. I had the opportunity to spend four hours, shared between the two dining facilities and being able to greet hundreds of soldiers. One by one we would share smiles and then I would try to find a little tidbit of information about them. We have over 20 married couples that have deployed with us, more than 40 family teams like brothers and sisters and dad’s and daughters. Grandparents are taking care of the children back home and so are all those parents who are left
behind to manage kids, the finances and everything else that makes a family operate.
We are all so thankful for everybody who are at home to manage the home front. We love you dearly and wish you all a very special holiday. We will be with you in your hearts and know that everything we do is with thoughts of our families and wishes to be spending the holidays with them. So, we thank you for the support and loving thoughts.” Wherever you are in this world this Thanksgiving 2023, please know how thankful I am for your service and support of this amazing nation. Everyone belongs to a family of birth and many other friendships and family of our choosing; cherish the love you receive from others today. Please also check in on your buddies and let them know you care. Not everyone enjoys the holidays quite the same, and for so many there will be an empty chair at the table — a reminder of loss and longing. Thanksgiving is a great time to treasure our relationships and reach out to others who just might appreciate a smile and virtual hug!
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