Thanksgiving Gratitude for Our Military and Our Way of Life

Day after Thanksgiving 2014: The top photo on the front page of The Wall Street Journal is headlined: “Thanksgiving Cheer for Troops Far From Home” and the caption reads: “HOLIDAY IN AFGHANISTAN: Military members celebrate Thanksgiving Day at the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul.”

And while our troops in that part of the world may be the ones we hear about the most, there are American troops and their families stationed all over the world, some in nicer places than others.

Sometimes we Americans may forget about the real meaning of Thanksgiving and gratitude. A poignant reminder of the meaning of this day is in the film THE BLIND SIDE. The teen boy who will eventually be adopted by the family sits alone at the dining room table eating the takeout meal because he has seen a picture of the famous Norman Rockwell painting of a Thanksgiving family dinner.

When the mother of the family sees what this stranger is doing, she gets her husband and two children to leave off eating in front of the TV and join the “guest” at the dining room table.

If you are following the news of Russia’s encroachment on the Ukraine, you may be reminded of the news stories from the years when the Iron Curtain prevented people from reaching freedom in the West. The stories of people who died trying to cross from East Berlin to West Berlin and the other accounts of people’s desire for freedom.

I have written a Cold War memoir that recounts the period from September 1970 to May 1972 when my husband and I were stationed with the U.S. Army in Munich. Mitch was an officer with the 18th Military Intelligence Battalion and I eventually got a security clearance and worked as a civilian for the 66th Military Intelligence Group.

Now there is talk that a second Cold War is about to happen.

(You can read the entire memoir for free on Wattpad at http://budurl.com/TAintro)

This Thanksgiving weekend, while people are busy shopping, we should be grateful that we live in a democracy, and we should remember that a strong democracy requires protectors.

We should give thanks to the men and women and their families who serve now or have served in the past.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks, including TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO PUBLISH AND MARKET YOUR BOOK IN THE AGE OF AMAZON and the romantic suspense spy thriller CIA FALL GUY, as well as newly written books not yet published. She can be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com