If you've read this blog before, you may be aware of our annual Thanksgiving soldiers.  It seems like every Thanksgiving brings us more joy than the one before, just being hosts to these heroes.  Today was no exception.  We had four soldiers (if my car was bigger, it would have been more!), and we enjoyed them one and all. 

Corey, Jesus, Ken and Mike were all a delight.  Getting to know them was such a treat.  Corey and Ken were the first two (we were limited to two soldiers, until they determined that there were enough to go around to all the families who wanted to open their homes to them).  After the usual speeches by the brigade commanders and the chaplain, they began by separating the families by their last names.  The commander's speech included a reference to America's embracing other peoples of other countries to make their lives better.  As I introduced myself to Corey and Ken, Ken told me that he was one of those people from another country we'd embraced.  He was the winner of a lottery to migrate from his homeland of Kenya.  Ken and Corey were about to graduate from training as battlefield medics!  Both of these two heroes come from banking backgrounds.  Corey and Ken were gracious enough to agree to wait around to see if we could get two more soldiers.  We were lucky enough to add Jesus and Mike to our group. 

Corey, from Brooklyn, was originally from Jamaica and is a college graduate with a degree in biology.  He wanted to choose his own MOS as enlisted, instead of taking advantage of his degree and entering as an officer, where they would assign him his field.  He negotiated a very attractive enlistment package, and entered boot as an E-4.  He said he loved the hands-on demands of his training as battlefield medic, a job fraught with dangers, but one he looks forward to fulfilling in Iraq.  He told us that he may opt to go to OCS (Officer Candidate School) after a year or two.  He said they were always reminding him that he could be an officer, and it got to be quite annoying to keep telling them "I know that"! 

Ken and his wife have been in America for 8 months, and here he was in our military!  He joined the Army to be immersed in the culture, and to assimilate more quickly.  Would that all immigrants desired to assimilate that quickly!  Ken was a bank teller in Nairobi, Kenya.  His intimate knowledge of the internet is how he learned about the lottery.  He was in literal hog heaven with my wireless laptop, catching up with all of his family and friends in Kenya via message boards.  As I think of these two brilliant young men, I seethe over the recent remarks made by John Kerry.  Talk about "out of touch"!  grrrrr  Ironically, Ken's wife awaits him in Massachusetts, Senator sKerry's state.  Once at my home, I showed Ken some artifacts we have from Africa.  One of them is a carved wooden bust of a beautiful woman whose bone structure with high cheek bones, narrow features, reminded me of Ken.  He confirmed she was indeed of Kenyan origin.  Another figure he identified as being Ethiopian.  What a wealth of information from our guests!

Jesus, from McAllen, TX via Monterrey, Mexico is fresh out of high school, and has been studying hard to become a pharmaceutical aide (hope I got that right!).  Jesus and hubby had a fascinating discussion on the border control issue.  Hubby said he had a tremendous understanding of the problems his native country faces.  I'd heard of the perils of being a woman in Mexico City, just to drive in a car was dangerous.  An entire industry of creating lifelike mannequins has grown up there, as women buy them to ride in cars with them, presumably to ward off possible kidnappings.  I'd understood they were kidnapped for ransom, Jesus says not always for ransom, but to become sex slaves.  He also said he'd never go near Mexico City.  He said the school system in Mexico rushed a student, accelerating the learning process, so much so that when he came to America in his freshman year of high school, he was literally at the eleventh grade equivalent.  He made the point to my husband that many students in Mexico got frustrated at the pace, and the drop out rates were much higher there.  Jesus is quite brilliant, and had kept up, but most did not. 

Mike is from Arkansas, and was just going into his training to learn radiology, a vocation that will give him the opportunity to give his two children a great future. Mike's brothers had begun their military careers at 18, he didn't start his until he was 36!  Talk about a brave man!  Mike and hubby had long talks about their shared hunting backgrounds.  Hubby got out his gun collection, a quite extensive one, and all the soldiers (three of whom had only recently held a gun for the first time!) were entranced.  From the historic antiques to the present day squirrel gun, a pistol with a precision scope, Mike was fascinated.  Mike is a great communicator, and we enjoyed the many stories of hunts he'd been on with dad and grandad.  Of course, as with all bird hunters, hubby's collection of goose and duck calls came out with the guns.

It was at this juncture that we "lost" Corey and Ken.  I could see the confusion and consternation on their faces.  They did not come from backgrounds that would have taught them about duck and geese calling...they learned quite alot about it from hubby's demonstration!  

In fact it was a learning day for us all, a day in which we all learned from each other.  With three immigrants, Ken Corey and Jesus, we natural born Americans were reminded why legal immigration keeps America strong.  They remind us of all the opportunities this country has to offer. Native born Mike was taking advantage of the training the military offered, a chance to branch out from his rural roots.  Too frequently we native born Americans take our country for granted.  The 232nd and 264th Medical brigade personnel take part in Mission Thanksgiving, brought together four men in two different training courses, two battle buddies from each, who had never met one another.  They seemed to enjoy their shared Army experiences, all laughing about their reactions to different boot camp experiences, including being "gassed".  Coming from such varied backgrounds and beginnings, they learned from each other, while at the same time, having so much in common.  As we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Corey shared how he'd attended the parade, located just a short jaunt from his home in the Brooklyn (or did he say the Bronx?...can't remember for sure, never having been to either one).  The whole day was one of sharing and mutual learning.

As military life would have it, and the day of Thanksgiving came to an end, I drove the soldiers back to the post.  Mike and Jesus said their good-byes to Ken and Corey, then remarked to me as we got back in the car, that they may never see them again.  When I dropped off Jesus and Mike and began the ride home alone, it was with hopes and prayers that these four remarkable men would stay in touch as they promised.  They all said we'd made them feel like they were "at home".  It would be sad to never see them again, but nothing could take away the joy we'd shared this Thanksgiving Day.