Lehi People
Lehi Veterans Voice: What the holidays feel like for soldiers: a note on duty, distance, and little rituals
Matthew M. Milicich, U.S. Army (Ret.) | Guest Writer
Most holiday movies promise a warm kitchen, a crowded table, and a last-minute dash to make it home. In a military deployment, the dash points in the opposite direction. The calendar says December, but the rhythm is mission, shift change, comms window, sleep.
If you’re lucky, there’s a plywood Christmas tree someone cut with a jigsaw, a strand of lights that only blinks when the generator cooperates, and a chaplain who finds a way to make a bare room feel like a chapel for fifteen minutes.
Distance from home shows up in small, specific ways. Mail arrives in uneven bundles: a package of cookies in January, a letter postmarked two weeks ago, a child’s crayon snowman with a lopsided smile. Time zones fight the phone calls; the family is eating dinner while you are checking a vehicle, or your midnight lands on their school pickup. You learn to hold time loosely, take the voice when you can, and let the missed moments go without blaming anyone.
Units make their own holidays. Somebody scrounges a tablecloth for the DFAC, somebody else writes names on paper ornaments, and the quiet comedian on night shift tapes a cardboard reindeer to the equipment cage. A platoon sergeant calls a quick formation to read the short list of things done right this week, then sends people to sleep. It may not look like much from the outside, but it is the real thing: a few minutes where the mission trades seats with mercy.
Faith, for many, becomes practical. Whatever your tradition, you notice the steady hands of medics who listen, cooks who add a scoop of something extra, and radio operators who never raise their voice when the net is busy. You notice the way moments of music carry: a hymn half remembered, a carol hummed in a motor pool, a playlist piped through a tinny speaker while someone cleans a weapon. It is not big, but it is enough to make a hard day bearable.
Happy holidays, everyone. Let’s take a moment to think about local soldiers who are away from their families during the holidays.
Author note: Born in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1965; moved to Oregon in 1975; joined the U.S. Army delayed entry program in January 1983; enlisted Oct. 3, 1983; served four years on active duty and 18½ years in the Texas Army National Guard; retired Jan. 23, 2006; has lived in Utah since April 2006.
