A Thanksgiving far from family that I Treasure

Thanksgiving is a day that most Americans enjoy a nice big turkey dinner with family and friends. For those serving in the military, it can be a tough time of the year.  Many who serve will spend their Thanksgivings away from their family.  It is inevitable. 

Thanksgiving apart

I served nearly 23 years in the Army and spent my share of Thanksgivings far from my family.  One stands out the most in my mind. Assigned to the 24^th Transportation Battalion, out of Fort Eustis, Virginia, we deployed to Egypt in support of Operation Bright Star ‘95^[1]Bright Star is a training exercise that started in 1980 as an effort to strengthen military ties with Egypt. GlobalSecurity.org explains, “BRIGHT STAR is a biennial, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) … Continue reading. This would have been my first Thanksgiving with my wife.

As this story is about Thanksgiving, I will leave the parts out like how we lost an engine on the plane ride, the Paris flight traffic controllers going on strike as we loaded the plane to return, and many other things that happened n between for another time. No, this story is just about Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving in Egypt

We arrived in October to offload the cargo ships full of equipment for the two-week exercise. The 24^th was lucky.  We stayed at an Egyptian Naval Officers resort, if you can call it that. The resort, located outside of Alexandria in the city of El-Agamy, enjoyed the cool breezes of the Mediterranean Sea. Those actually participating in the exercise were in hot tents in the desert.

The majority of the 24^th only spent October and December in Egypt. I was one of the few asked to stay the entire three months. I have no complaints, and I am grateful for the experience. Of course, had I gone home I wouldn’t have this Thanksgiving memory.

What stood out about this was not me missing my first Thanksgiving with my wife, but the meal itself. We lived off T-Rations ^[2]T-Ration or Tray-Ration, which is made up of heat-and-serve prepared foods in half-steam-table-sized rectangular cans. Each meal is nutritionally balanced in accordance with AR 40-25 (1985) and … Continue reading for breakfast and dinner, and MREs ^[3]MRE – Meals Ready To Eat for lunch every day since arriving.  If you have ever had either of them in the mid-nineties, you know just how scrumptious they are!  Some Soldiers ended up in the medical facility, because all they were eating were crackers each meal. They choose not to partake in these delicious meals, because they could not stomach the taste. 

As Thanksgiving was approaching, leadership promised us a real turkey meal. The plan was to get turkeys from the Embassy commissary. You probably can guess what happened. We strolled in to the mess hall looking forward to a real meal only to be feed, T-rations. It was like in the movies where you see someone slop a grotesque pile of crap onto a plate. With a smile of course, and then send you on your merry way. We ate it, but I won’t say we enjoyed it.  We were thankful to be with our brothers and sisters. The fact that we were staying on the Mediterranean instead of the hot sandy desert, made us even more thankful.

It was a Thanksgiving to remember and twenty-five years later it still puts a smile on my face. I’m thankful for the many things I experienced throughout my military career. Thankful for the places I traveled, and those I served with. I am most thankful for having a wife that never complained about missing holidays.

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