Christmas a time for joy

This Christmas season I find myself thinking more of Christmases past than Christmas present.?My fondest Christmas memories are of those spent with family and friends.?However, my military career caused me to miss more than one Christmas at home.?

For example, Christmas, 1960 found me serving as a 22-year-old staff sergeant in the First Cavalry Division in Korea.?Like most soldiers far from home, we did our best to replicate the sights, sounds and smells of a hometown Christmas. Still, it was nowhere near the same as the real thing.

I spent Christmas, 1962 in Berlin, Germany, helping guard the ramparts of freedom against Communism. By then, I was ?an officer and a gentleman? ? barely.

I had graduated from Infantry Officer Candidate School in March, and was serving as a Rifle Platoon Leader with a ?forward deployed? company of the First Infantry Division.?I was also married, with a prematurely born son, whose birth I also missed. Fortunately, my wife Nancy and her parents were back here to look after him.

I spent Christmas 1964 in Vietnam, again apart from my family.?I was an advisor to a Vietnamese light infantry unit in the Mekong Delta. There were just four Americans among 400 Vietnamese. Our Vietnamese counterparts tried to make us feel especially welcome on Christmas.? Still, there really is ?no place like home at Christmas time.?

In 1969, I was with a U.S. infantry unit in Vietnam.?Being with my fellow American soldiers made Christmas apart from Nancy, Tommy and Larry a bit more bearable.?Knowing they were safe at home in McMinnville, near family and friends, helped even more.

Fortunately, 1969 was the last time my soldier?s duties kept me away from my family on Christmas.?The old saying, ?Absence makes the heart grow fonder? was especially true during those Christmases I spent far from hearth and home. Absence also made me savor presence more than presents on Christmas day.

Of course, my absences from home on Christmas were not unique or even unusual.?Millions of American servicemen and women have endured the sorrows of separation from their families and loved ones on Christmas Day.?Indeed, many World War II families were separated for four consecutive Christmases.?The hardships of frequent separation from family and friends are part of the service and sacrifice common to American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and the Coast Guard.

Since 9/11, these hardships have fallen heavily on our Reserve forces as well, as members of our own ?Iron Troop? can amply attest.?Thankfully, they are safe at home now.?

However, thousands of our brave American men and women in uniform remain in harm?s way in Iraq and Afghanistan this Christmas.?Thousands more serve at home and abroad, all on our behalf.

Please enjoy this Christmas with your family and friends, but remember those whose service and sacrifice have kept our nation ?The Land of the Free? by also keeping it ?The Home of the Brave.??Merry Christmas!

Thomas B. Vaughn is a professor at Motlow College and co-host of the radio show ?Viewpoints,? which airs on WCPI 91.3 FM.