Military Families Overseas at Thanksgiving

My childhood as a daughter of an Air Force officer provided me with inspiration for Unrest. I remember how important Thanksgiving was to military families overseas, and to me in Iran in 1978. In Unrest, the events surrounding Thanksgiving Day are some of the more interesting and tenuous parts of the book. This is not surprising, if you remember the timeline of the build up to the Iranian Revolution. Tensions in Tehran escalated with the advent of the day to be known forever as Black Friday--not the shopping sale holiday we have in the United States--but a protest gone devastatingly wrong at Jaleh Square. November 5th was also an important day of unrest all over Tehran. The build up to our own Thanksgiving Day back then was marked by disturbances that felt like black clouds brewing.

Other times, in our tenure overseas as a military family, Thanksgiving was a chance to give back to others. At RAF Upper Heyford, England, we invited two airmen over to our house for Thanksgiving dinner to give them a taste of "home". Military families were known to invite families of other cultures to experience our Thanksgiving tradition.

But for today, I put aside thoughts of the past as I watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and wait for my teenagers to shower for our present day Thanksgiving feast with family and a walk on the beach.

I'd like to wish all our military men and women and their families who serve our country so proudly here and overseas a truly wonderful "American" Thanksgiving. I wish those less fortunate a feast for the hearty. I wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving!