Back from Iraq for Thanksgiving

Paula and I had a great and unexpected blessing this Thanksgiving: our son Jed and his entire 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Division returned early from their deployment in Baghdad. Originally scheduled for a fifteen-month stint ending this coming February, this early return was wonderful news.

Trinity Church hosted a community Thanksgiving Eve service this year with three other churches, but I left it in the capable hands of Sheila Dunn (minister of visitation) as we drove to Ft. Campbell, KY to welcome Jed's plane.

It was an amazing experience. At 9:30am, Sunday, Nov. 23, a chartered airliner landed at the base airfield to the cheers of several hundred sign-waving family and friends. (Anyone who knows Paula will not be surprised that our sign was the biggest.) A brass band played. A general gave a wisely short speech. The joy in the air was electric.

Jed had been gone ten months, serving as a 2nd Lieutenant Cavalry Scout, leading patrols in what we later learned was the most active sector in all Iraq in terms of IED attacks. Paula and I had driven down to see him off, and on the drive back home we felt God showed us how we should pray for him. Among other things, we felt we were supposed to envision Jed walking off the plane on his return, healthy, whole, sound and strong. That mental image served as a focus for our prayers and our faith.

Sure enough, that's what we saw on that wonderful sunny Sunday morning. Jed was limping a little, from an ankle sprained while throwing a football around (it had been seriously weakened during a combat mission some weeks before), but he wasn't injured. Furthermore, none of his men were wounded. Praise the Lord for answered prayer!

We had thought we might have to cook Thanksgiving dinner in a hotel room, but the troops were given a four-day pass. So Wednesday around noon, after finishing part of his mandatory re-integration training, Jed piled into the car with us and we drove straight through twelve hours to Annapolis, where we had a wonderful weekend of family and food before Jed had to catch an early airplane back on Sunday morning.

Many people question the war in Iraq, and I'm not going to get into that argument. What I want to focus on is the pride in seeing Jed do what he felt he had to do, and the joy in seeing him return safe and sound. God is faithful and God is good!

It was surely a Thanksgiving to remember, and I pray everyone who reads this has an equally blessed holiday season.