A lot more people have reason to be thankful this year

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol
  • United States Central Air Forces-Forward Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) --  When I was in Iraq in late October, out on a Basra street patrol with the British Army, we had an Iraqi interpreter with us named Ahmed.

Ahmed was a man is his late 30s who was partially bald and spoke broken English, but whenever he spoke it was easy enough to understand what he meant. During the patrol we had discussed many things, but one thing he said sticks with me today and will for a long time. He said, “Say thank you to Mr. Bush! We are free from Saddam Hussein and we thank him for it.”

Ahmed’s praise for the president was also meant for all the American people. Even though the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday is not celebrated in Iraq as it is in America, what he and the majority of Iraqis I visited with expressed to me during my trip was that they were thankful for freedom. It is obviously something they weren’t used to, but they know that at this time last year they weren’t free so their expression of thankfulness is evident everywhere you go in Iraq.

Ahmed’s words can also give us all reason to be thankful at home. On the frontlines of the global war on terrorism, the lives of American soldiers, Marines, airmen, and sailors are on the line to protect the freedom we enjoy at home. The U.S. military is an all-volunteer force and like me, they want to protect that precious right of freedom we as Americans have enjoyed for more than 225 years.

For the first time in my military career, and in my life for that matter, I will be deployed away from family and friends this Thanksgiving holiday. I am thankful to have wonderful people to come home to when I am done, but I am also thankful that I have had a chance to directly support an effort that brings freedom to people not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in other parts of the world as well.

But even when I am not deployed, I know serving at my home base and doing whatever I can to help others there also contributes to the overall effort. I am mostly thankful to be an American and to have the ability to give others a reason to be thankful.

A long time ago, my parents taught me that it is not what you can do for yourself that matters as much what you can do to help others. That virtue I received from my parents carries right with me to the frontlines of this war we are fighting.

On Sept. 11, 2001, I don’t know of a person who saw the events of that day who didn't stop for a moment, look at a nearby loved one or call a loved one, and say how much that person meant to him or her. That day brought to bear a good reason to be thankful for what we have, for who we are, and what we, as Americans, have helped others achieve.

Right after Sept. 11, 2001, we, along with our allies in the freedom-loving world, helped bring freedom to Afghanistan and we did it again this year to Iraq. In those two countries alone, there are more than 50 million people who are happy to be free of the brutal regimes that governed them before.

American lives have been lost along the way to bring freedom to those countries and I am thankful to those comrades of mine who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom -- their life. Their lives are not lost in vain because like those who paid the same price before them, they loved freedom and were thankful for it.

As Thanksgiving approaches here in my deployed location, I know we will have some type of observance at the dining facility. But most likely, for those of us who attend the feast, it won’t be food that is most on our minds.

We will be thinking of family and friends back home and also of where else we could be for the holiday. We will be giving thanks to our heroes on the homefront, and to the heroes on the battlefield. But most of all, we will probably be like Ahmed. We will give thanks for our freedom and we will be thankful we were a part of something that helped bring it to a whole lot more people this year.