Holiday lessons from a drill weekend

This past weekend brought another round of Army National Guard shenanigans, the kind where you spend half the time training and the other half realizing you are, in fact, stronger than a kid who hasn’t even unpacked his ruck from AIT. I talked a brand-new private into trying one day of my bodybuilding routine from Barb, and I’d love to tell you the story ends with grace and humility. It does not. I outlifted him and then outran another soldier who still had that fresh-out-of-basic energy. But as satisfying as it is to terrorize teenagers in uniform, I want to shift to something a little deeper.

Some readers shared disappointment last week that I didn’t mention the anniversary of Dec. 7, 1941. That date marked the attack on Pearl Harbor and the moment the United States entered World War II. For those who felt overlooked, I understand why it mattered. I had planned to write about it closer to the holidays, when themes of service, sacrifice, and community feel especially present.

During drill, those themes were everywhere. Inside our halls sat piles of donated gifts: stockings, toys for children, presents for adults. All of it gathered to help service members and their families during the most financially stressful time of the year. Watching a community lift up its soldiers reminded me how different our stories are and how differently we all serve.

I have never been in a gunfight or seen combat like so many around me, but I understand the importance of standing beside each other. Service is not something anyone carries alone.

That truth hits closer to home when I think about my stepdad’s father and his own experience tied to the Pearl Harbor era. He was at Clark Field in the Philippines when it was bombed on December 8, 1941, only a few hours after Pearl Harbor. Major Aloysius Suttmann was an aircraft commander who tried to defend the field as it was destroyed around him. He was eventually captured. The Japanese believed they would take the Philippines in under a month, yet American forces held out for three. “They only lost because they ran out of food and ammunition,” my stepdad told me on the phone the other day.

My stepdad, Clement “Clem” Charles Suttmann, later compiled his father’s story into a book drawn from an eighteen-hour interview conducted in 1981. It offers a rare firsthand account of the Bataan campaign, the Bataan Death March, the POW camps in the Philippines and Japan, and ultimately Roshu Roki, twenty-five miles from Hiroshima, where Major Suttmann was held on August 6, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped. The power of the story does not come from the fact it is written down. It comes from the truth that it happened at all.

In one part of the interview, he reflects on the strength of his generation. He describes those who became the soldiers of World War II as men shaped by the Depression, raised with a deep respect for authority, and committed to doing what they were told even when fear was present. Their sense of duty, he believed, created one of the finest armies ever assembled.

As we move through this holiday season, I hold that reflection close. It reminds me that many soldiers are spending these weeks far from home. Some are deployed overseas. Some are stuck on base without leave. December has a way of making homesickness feel heavier.

If you are in the Christmas spirit and want to brighten a service member’s season, there are ways to send cards to those who cannot be home. Cards can be mailed to organizations such as Cards for Troops at 4899 Belfort Road, Suite 300, Jacksonville, Florida, 32256; Hugs for Soldiers at Duluth First United Methodist Church, 3208 Duluth Highway 120, Duluth, Georgia, 30096; Operation Postcard through the East Bay Blue Star Moms at P.O. Box 2537, San Ramon, California, 94583; or Support Our Troops, Care Goods, P.O. Box 696, Ayden, North Carolina, 28513. Even a simple card can offer a reminder that someone back home is thinking of them.

As we celebrate, may we remember those serving today, those who served before us, and the families waiting for their loved ones to walk back through their front door.