CMC student and veteran Clayton Bolton shares his thoughts on previous Thanksgiving holidays spent overseas. This article was first posted in his blog, Out of Uniform.
So it’s that time of year again, Thanksgiving. I can almost smell the turkey already. I can’t help though but to think back to some of my past Thanksgivings. Being a veteran means that at some point you gave up spending a few holidays with your loved ones in order to spend them with Uncle Sam.
I gave up four Thanksgivings. The first I gave to my drill sergeant in Fort Sill, Drill Sergeant Monsanto. The second was at the National Training Center in California. I got to spend that thanksgiving standing guard against OP4. The last two I spent in Iraq, one in Baghdad and one in Tikrit. They weren’t too bad. I may not have been able to spend them with my actual family but I spent them with brothers none the less.
This holiday season there will be some postcards floating around campus. I urge you to fill one out. These postcards will be sent to our brothers and sister in arms in Afghanistan. I will have a table set up in the cafeteria of the Leadville campus periodically over the next few weeks. Stop by and fill out a postcard. Your message will be sent to a soldier who will be spending the holidays in a combat zone on the other side of the world.
I know many do not agree with the governments reasons for being in the Middle East. It’s important though to remember that those soldiers are people too. Just because they are in the military doesn’t necessarily mean that they agree with everything it does. They are normal people who just happen to have a very long commute to work. They work long hours for low pay and miss their families dearly. So this holiday season, stop and fill out a postcard and let a solider/sailor/airman/marine know that they are appreciated.
I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I’ll see you in December.