Kansas City Star...
‘I’m thankful that Daddy’s home!’
For military families, a less complicated holiday
By Lee Hill Kavanaugh 

Photo: Allison Long 

Army Sgt. Jaime Garcia, who at 6-foot-6 towers over his wife, Stephanie, and 3-year-old daughter, Jasmine, is back home at Fort Riley, Kan., after nearly a year in Iraq. Garcia said one of the many things he missed was the day-to-day moments with his family. 

He watches from the doorway as the post school bus roars away. It’s time for their newest family ritual. 

Three little girls race down the sidewalk, jostling each other to hug daddy first. 

Army Sgt. Jaime Garcia waits for the tackles. He already has 3-year-old Jasmine wrapped around his leg. She’s the baby, wants him all to herself, but he’s six-foot-six so there’s enough for all. 

He grins at this scene, with its entanglements of arms and legs and hair bows. 

After nearly a year in Iraq with the 1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment, the sergeant knows he’s missed a lot of these moments: 

The spelling-word practices at the kitchen table with Ebbony, 10, Jenavie, 9, and Zoie, 8; their birthday cakes, the Christmas morning cacophony, all the tooth fairy visits. 

And last Thanksgiving, too — his leaving the green of Kansas for the brown of Baghdad was on Zoie’s birthday; her worst ever, she told her mom. 

At the Garcia home, like so many military families, holidays often come and go with faces missing, part of the high personal cost of serving the country. Homecomings and Thanksgivings can mean more when the nation is at war. 

Last year, the turkey seemed stringy to Stephanie Garcia, the dressing tasteless, and the place setting with the symbolically overturned plate could not be ignored. 

But this year…. 

It’s a ritual to ask around the table what everyone is thankful for. And the daughters already know. 

Their brown eyes shining, they chime, nearly together, elbowing each other in another I-said-it-first contest: 

“I’m thankful THAT DADDY’S HOME!” 

* * *

In nearby Manhattan, Kan., another soldier is getting to know his daughters, too. 

A shy smile spreads on his face as he sprawls on the living room floor. 

“You’ve got to see this,” says Staff Sgt. Joshua Bell, and he reaches for his acoustic guitar. 

“It’s a death-metal tune,” he says, strumming soft chords. “It sounds a lot better because it’s not amplified.” 

Two curious babies charge toward him in full throttle crawl-mode, reaching out tiny fingers and chubby hands because they want to strum those metal strings, too. 

They’re his twins, 7-month-old June and Josephine. 

The guitar makes them laugh, revealing two tiny teeth. Bell and his wife, Jessica, join in at this double baby duet, with its double toothiness, double-the-silly moment. 

Blessings for this family keeps coming in twos. 

Married just three years, the Bells have lived through two one-year deployments. (He served a third before he met his wife.) 

A gunnery sergeant in the same battalion as Garcia, Bell survived two enemy attacks: a roadside bomb in March and an early morning rocket barrage in June. Wounded both times, it meant harrowing phone calls from the military to Jessica informing her that although her husband was hurt, it wasn’t serious enough to send him back to the states. 

He was awarded two Purple Hearts and one Army Commendation medal with Valor because he kept his men safe by firing at the enemy during the ambush. His rugged face shows a few scars, souvenirs from Iraq. 

In the rocket attack, he had to crawl through his room’s ceiling. The explosions deafened him; he couldn’t hear the screams of his neighbors, men still even now in burn units. One of his closest buddies was killed … and Bell stops in his telling, to cry. 

His wife watches her husband closely, hearing details not shared with her before. 

“This has been a lot,” Jessica says, taking her husband’s hand. 

For both of them. 

“I was always crying.” 

A year without him, Jessica soloed through her high-risk pregnancy. She was given a misdiagnosis at one point that one of her babies wouldn’t survive. Her doctor apologized later, when an ultrasound showed otherwise. 

Josh didn’t get home on leave until two weeks after the healthy deliveries. 

But Jessica isn’t crying now. 

Thanksgiving this year is coming with all the trimmings. This is their first holiday together as a family, the first holiday with their twins. 

And their first attempt at cooking a 12-pound turkey. 

“I forgot you have to defrost it for several days,” laughs Jessica, who had planned to buy it the night before Thanksgiving. 

* * * 

At the Garcia house, the girls didn’t know that Daddy was in Iraq for the last year. 

He simply had gone to work “in the desert.” The older girls told the baby, Jasmine, that he was working “far, far away.” 

The word “war” was never spoken. And they either called or Skyped with him nearly every afternoon. 

In June, Stephanie suffered alone after the deadly rocket attack was reported on the news. All communications between soldiers and their families went silent, pending the notification to the families of the troops who were killed. 

Stephanie was so afraid. 

She sat on her porch step for almost two days, fearful of seeing the military chaplain arriving at her door. Finally, a quick call from her husband of 11 years let her know he was OK. 

“For me,” she says, “It was like I was on a boat, and Jaime was land. And he was getting smaller and smaller because I was drifting away from him. But I kept telling myself, ‘each day that passes is another day that he’s closer to us.’ I told myself that a lot.” 

Jaime listens as his wife talks, his hand playing with a band on his wrist. It bears seven names of the fallen in his unit. When asked about it, he changes the subject and teases one of girls around the table. 

The children will not hear about this, his eyes say. 

He tells them to do their chores and reminds them about his nickname. “Jefito, the boss man.” 

They laugh. And it’s time for bedtime, with more routines. 

“It’s the simple things I missed,” he says. “Like combing their hair, watching them grow. They’ve grown so much!” 

No more deployments for a long time, he tells them all. 

But the littlest still isn’t sure. Stephanie scoops her up and says in the language the 3-year-old will understand about her Daddy: 

“There’s no more far, far away work.” 

And Jasmine gives her Mommy a hug. 

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