Thank You! To the Hero's at Home

I am with in days of leaving Iraq and heading home. As you can imagine I am thrilled to be reuniting with my family. Being away from them, my OBX home, friends, and the Church I love, for the past 16 months, has been one of the most challenging and difficult times of my life. I never imagined it would be so difficult and the experience has exponentially increased my appreciation, respect and admiration for the men and women who serve our Country.

Many of the young hero's here have been through multiple deployments and their dedication to our way of life is extremely impressive as are their skills and leadership.

While serving with them I have also learned how important it is to be a hero at home. That is one who supports our soldiers with prayers, letters, emails, care packages, family support and so forth. It can not be understated how valuable it is to the welfare of our deployed loved ones to receive a kind & encouraging word, dry socks, fattening snacks, DVDs or a toothbrush. Not long ago I opened up a fresh tooth brush and smiled when I realized what was inscribed on the side of it; "Jeffrey D Jacobson DDS" along with a number I recognized as local to my home.

Dr. Jacobson is not my Dentist, and I am not even sure how he knew I was in Iraq, but he sent a care package full of tooth brushes, toothpaste and floss for me and the soldiers I serve with.

This simple act of kindness is received here as a remarkable act of caring and support.

I have included a picture I thought Dr. Jacobson might appreciate of his act in action. While the tooth brush never saw combat action the recipients of his kindness did and they are all very appreciative of the support they get from home.

So to Dr. Jacobson, and all who have taken the time to show they care, Thank you from the bottom of my heart and may God bless you and your family always. I wish I could list you all, but that would be a tough task. So many of you have supported us during this war effort and to us you represent the hero's at home.

A Surprise from Iraq...7,000 miles away

My daughter Emily's 12th birthday was Sept 15. Big deal for an 11 year old girl! Twelve is the end of being a "Tween" and she is now working on becoming a teenager...oh my!  That is very hard to say. In 364 more days our little girl will be a teenager!

Anyway, back to the surprise from Iraq. While Emily was eagerly anticipating her birthday little did we know that her dad was planning one of the biggest (and best) birthday surprises ever. Over a month ago he had written one of his very good friends, Billy, from our church and asked him if he would surprise Emily on her birthday at school by bringing her a very special lunch. If you know Emily then you know that McDonald's Cheeseburger Kids Meals are one of her most favorite things to eat, and having a Happy Meal delivered to your Middle School, in front of all your friends, well that is just frosting on the cake...having it come from your dad who planned this all the way from Iraq, there are no words to describe it. Billy, who has consistently written Dale and asked if there was anything he could do for him here, said yes and he and Dale began coordinating the drop off of the Happy Meal. Now this was supposed to be a surprise for Emily,  but Dale also wanted to keep it from me too.

Dale wanted Emily to come home from school and tell me how wonderful, special, amazing, and fantastic her dad was...okay, I made that part up. He didn't tell me because he wanted to make sure that Emily did not find out about this at all (Note to Dale- I am very good at keeping secrets).

On with the story. One day at church Billy was asking Em and I all kinds of things about Happy Meals and what time she had lunch at school. Emily and I both wondered why in the world Billy would want to know about Em's lunch and what she liked to eat at McD's. When I got home from church I immediately IM'd Dale and told him about this strange conversation with Billy. For a minute or two Dale played along with this. He had "no idea"and he wondered what would "possess" Billy to ask such questions. Then the boy caved! He spilled the beans and told me everything. What a cool idea I thought!

As it got closer to Ems big day, I went in to the school to make sure it was okay if Billy came to school to bring Emily a Cheeseburger Happy Meal on her birthday. First I talked to the school counselor who said it was a great idea and she said that she thought it was so special that Dale would do this for his little girl from so far away and she knew it would mean so much to Emily. So we had all the details set in place. September 15th was right around the corner. Billy and I were going to meet at school at noon and he was going to wait in the cafeteria for Emily to come in and give her the Happy Meal.

Dale had made a sign that said "Happy Birthday Emily. Daddy loves you" and he was going to hold it and have a soldier take a picture and Billy would turn that into a card. Dale sent me a copy of the picture and the sign. It was great, but Dale was not even holding the sign. He was near it, but while he has been gone we have been sending packages and letters to some of the soldiers and Em has become Pen Pals with a few of them. When Dale said he wanted his picture taken they immediately took the sign because they wanted to wish Em a Happy Birthday as well.

Back to the day...I met Billy and he had the meal all set and ready and he and his wife, Martha Marie, bought Emily the most beautiful balloon bouquet I had ever seen. It was so big that I could barely see around the balloons to walk to the cafeteria. Most of the 6th grade teachers knew about the surprise and we all waited for Em to finish PE and come to the cafeteria. I hid in the corner because I didn't want her to see me. I wanted her to see what her dad had done for her. She comes out of the gym and there Billy is, all smiles, wishing Em a Happy Birthday from Iraq. Surprised...oh my goodness..Em was in shock! She got pretty emotional when she opened the card from her dad and saw him with his military buddies wishing her a happy birthday. I admit it made me pretty emotional too and Martha Marie even looked like she was a bit choked up. I even noticed a few teachers wiping their eyes. It was the best gift ever!

When Emily got home she could not stop talking about it. She said that almost every single 6th grader had wished her a Happy Birthday and by the end of the day the whole school had heard about it. Emily wrote her dad an email when she got home from school to thank him and tell him how special that was. She said it not only made her day, but it made her "life" and it was the best Cheeseburger Happy Meal she had ever eaten becasue it was all the way from Iraq with Love From Her Dad!

Lessons from the Desert

Hey Guys! My time here is getting short. I can't say that I hate to leave, but I can claim to have made enough new and great friends to be somewhat sad to have to part company. I have we sleep so well at night. They sacrifice so much for so little. I am proud to have been with them and to have experienced a tiny bit of what they go through.
The other day I witnessed a promotion ceremony. It is not the first I have witnessed, but something finally struck me about the significance placed on this promotion. Not that the soldiers getting promoted were anymore significant than the last, but the standing room only audience which was there to celebrate the accomplishments of one of their own.
So often in life we focus on ourselves and what we get or don't get. A good day is not measured by the accomplishments of others, but by our own success or failures. If we fail to live up to our standards or someone rains on our parade and we have a bad day everyone has a bad day. Kind of like the old saying that "when Mommas not happy, nobody's happy". Perhaps better put, if I have a bad day I could care less who has a good day.
This kind of thinking is not only self serving, but it is also self destructive. Furthermore, it is very un-Christ like. In 1st Thessalonian 5:16-18 Gods word tells us "To rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks; for this is Gods will for your life in Christ Jesus".
Why would this be Gods will for your life if it were not good and true? The answer is it wouldn't be. God does not want to hurt us or for us to hurt which is why this is His desire for your life. He wants you to have joy and peace, but not only when good fortune is coming to you. You see the more I live the more I learn that there are always wonderful things going on around us that are cause for us to celebrate. They may not directly affect us, but why can't we celebrate the joy of others? Now that sounds pretty Christ like doesn't it? Celebrate the joy of others.
Try this; next time you feel really down, you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, the dog wants to go out earlier than normal, it's raining and the umbrella is at the office, you lost your job, the car breaks down, Stop!, and think of someone else who just got a promotion, or in these times a job, think of the new Mother and Father, the graduation, baptism, the brutal chemo treatments that are going well, and smile. God has given us reason to celebrate everyday, we just have to look beyond ourselves to see it, and perhaps more importantly, to experience it. When you do, you will rejoice! Then pray and give thanks that God is on the throne and Christ overcame death and the cross so you don't have to carry the burdened.
God bless you and keep you. See you soon!