Missing holidays comes with territory

Don Kramer / Northwest Guardian

Many of the Airmen, Soldiers and civilians assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord enjoyed Thanksgiving feasts with loved ones last week. Some did not. Dining facilities across the installation did some of their best work to make the holiday special and help friends substitute for Family.

Part of the package of military service is being asked sometimes to give up things most of us hold dear. It’s where the rubber of platitudes meets the road of sacrifice. If there is a positive aspect to sacrificing holiday meals with Families, other than missing political discussions with obnoxious, inebriated uncles, it is that when you’re finally able sit around a table with loved ones, you unquestionably appreciate it more. Whether serving out a single enlistment or an increment of a long career, servicemembers and many civilians who support them learn to take time with Family less for granted.

Easter was always the challenging season for my Family. I began to believe my own joke that some weasely major at my branch in the Pentagon who was otherwise monitoring my career pretty well, took a perverse pleasure in separating me from my Family every spring. I believe we counted seven Easters in a row when TDY or assignment orders took me away from the chocolate bunnies and long church services that required my best suit and my most scolding tones for the kids.

I missed a couple Thanksgivings, too. One came between our wars in Iraq. Saddam moved his army southeast to the Kuwait border for “maneuvers,” violating several enforced post-Desert Storm peace terms, and we had no choice but to react.

Intelligence had been good in this case: we were already on alert. Still, it was tough to get up after two bites of turkey, grab my kit in the corner, and say goodbye for a few days after all three kids had come from their schools and my parents had driven across the state for the holiday.

“We are the point of the spear,” CENTCOM CINC Gen. Binford J. Peay was fond of repeating. I got the point on my way to headquarters. It was part of this profession that we brandish the spear when the nation us needs to, not when it’s most convenient to us.

The role of our military regarding Saddam in the ‘90s was to be ready when all political and diplomatic means failed to make him behave according to international norms. Sanctions, nuclear inspectors, no-fly zones and the strong warnings of our political leaders never had the desired calming effect on the biggest tyrant in the region. If he discerned a need to threaten his neighbors, it was our job to help dissuade him from further action.

So I and hundreds surrounding MacDill AFB streamed through the gates and into operations centers on Thanksgiving Day so that others could overeat, relax and watch football without worrying that the Bully of Baghdad was going to again overrun our allies in Kuwait. Though Saddam is long gone, the struggle continues — and the need to be there when conventional means break down.

Our military members knew it then, and they know it now. You saw it in the eyes of nearly every Airman and Soldier during holiday meals in the DFACs. Overriding the sorrow and homesickness, clearly evident, was a common, quiet resolve.