This Christmas I know I will be home to see friends and family, but thinking about that leads me back to other Christmas days, ones where I was far from home. You see unlike most people I am part of the 1%, not the rich 1% that is being protested against, but a member of another select few, those that choose to serve our country. This group of men and women take upon their selves to guard the freedom of the United States of America, and in doing so miss out on so much.
I have spent Christmas morning with the wind blowing across the open desert, watching the sun come up in the cold Iraq air, on a guard mission watching over a bridge reconstruction. We were there to make sure that no one planted explosives that would later be used to attack us again. Bundled up, breath white in the air, seeing that sunrise, it reminded me of why I joined in the first place. For months I had lost my faith in our mission, due to all of the bombs, shots fired, and corruption I had seen. That Christmas morning seeing the sunrise, my spirit rose with it, that I was there to make life better for an entire country, and in turn make sure others would be safe. That little bridge, and that cold soldier will last forever in my mind.
A few years later again I was spending Christmas far from home again in Iraq, looking at a helicopter as we cleaned it up trying to get it ready for shipment back stateside. It was the second Christmas in a row I had spent away from home on that tour, and I was so ready to get back home. The sun once again rises up, the air filled with sand and grit, casting a gold-ish hue to the light shining down on us, and there I stand, filled with hope to get home, and a better feeling about what I was leaving this time. We had made great progress, the surge being successful in reducing the violence, so we could all hold our heads up high as we got ready to come home once again.
This Christmas will once again be filled with friends and family, food and sugar. Gifts given and received and relaxing in the comfort here stateside are welcome respite from war. The other Christmas’ that I have lived through will always be with me, as well as the friends I have, the one’s this year will be deployed once again, watching the sun rise on Christmas morning standing in foreign soil, will be with me in spirit.