For some families with loved ones in the armed services, this
holiday season is filled with joy because their loved ones are
safely home.
For several Gilroy families this year, the happy celebrations on
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have nothing to do with extravagant
gifts or bountiful food on the table. It’s all about the simple
pleasure of being together.
For some families with loved ones in the armed services, this holiday season is filled with joy because their loved ones are safely home.
For several Gilroy families this year, the happy celebrations on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have nothing to do with extravagant gifts or bountiful food on the table. It’s all about the simple pleasure of being together.
“We know there are a lot of families not as lucky as we are. We’re just looking forward to being together,” said Ruth Dunn, mother of Marine Sgt. Lisa Dunn.
For the McCarthy, Santos and Ailes families, that sentiment will be replicated in their homes this holiday season. Dunn, Army Spc. Cory McCarthy, Air Force Airman E3 Amy Santos and Marine Jeremy Ailes are all home for Christmas.
All four families will spend the holidays with their sons and daughters who fought against Iraq in the second Gulf War.
The reunion will be temporary – and the bloody conflict may draw these Gilroy soldiers back to Iraq in future months – but the reunion for now brings an order to an often chaotic world … Saddam Hussein is behind bars, and these young Gilroyans will be opening presents and eating turkey.
Even though it’s the Christmas season, filled with shopping, holiday decorations and yuletide carols, it’s the spirit of Thanksgiving that resonates most inside these families. The four Gilroy soldiers had vastly different experiences while serving in the Middle East, but the feeling of gratefulness abounds and there is a renewed appreciation for the comforts of home life and holiday traditions.
“Any soldier gets a renewed appreciation of life when they return home,” McCarthy said. “It makes me want to start a family of my own, so I can appreciate family life even more.”
For now, McCarthy, 22, is focused on having a traditional Christmas at home with parents Mike and Carol McCarthy. McCarthy’s military family – the 173rd Airborne Brigade – was ambushed in Iraq in August. In the attack, McCarthy nearly had his right thumb blown off. Shrapnel from rocket-propelled grenades also broke bones in his hand and wrist.
“I’m feeling good. My index finger has full mobility, but the cold bothers me sometimes and I still need some operations for my thumb,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy will go back to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. Jan. 18 for the surgeries, but not before he and his buddies get a snow boarding trip in.
“My therapists and doctors are telling me not to do it, but my legs are healthy. I’ve been running,” McCarthy said. “As long as I don’t fall on my hand I’ll be fine.”
McCarthy was not the only Gilroyan to be fired upon in Iraq. Dunn met up with her fair share of firefights as well.
She drove the trucks that pulled Howitzers across hundreds of miles of Iraqi desert when troops made their way from northern Kuwait to Baghdad. Along the way, a member of Dunn’s convoy had an arm blown off and some troops were crushed by friendly vehicles driving through the sometimes blinding desert sands.
“This wasn’t just some overseas tour,” Dunn said. “This was my first time seeing combat like this.”
Dunn, who is on leave from her Camp Pendleton base north of San Diego, figures she will be called back early next year for another tour of duty in Iraq.
“Last Christmas was a lot harder because I didn’t know what I was going to see,” Dunn said. “This time I know what to expect.”
Amy Santos, 21, was living out Cory McCarthy’s short-term dream on Tuesday. She was out of town snow boarding with friends, but will return for Christmas Eve and Christmas to spend time with her parents. Her return can’t come soon enough.
“I think her little sister and her mom missed her the most while she was gone,” said Rick Santos, Amy’s dad. “I miss her, too, but for me, I’m just so darn proud of her.”
Santos served on a base in Iraq outside Baghdad which took nightly rounds of enemy fire. Rick Santos has the pictures of the “tent city” his daughter and fellow U.S. soldiers called home as well as a photo of the brick wall surrounding the base.
“It was just this wall between her and Iraqi soldiers,” Rick Santos said pointing to the photo of the base.
Santos said the family has picked Amy’s brain about all the things she saw and did while stationed in Iraq from July through December. Amy never left the base once she arrived, Santos said, but base-bound soldiers cannot lull themselves into a false sense of security since they’re often only a stone’s throw from rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire.
“People don’t realize there are Iraqi civilians working on these bases and they need to be escorted in and out,” Rick Santos said. “Soldiers are in their flap jackets and holding a rifle when they (escort the civilians). This is serious business.”
For the Santos family, war with Iraq is a double whammy. Amy’s cousin Jeremy Ailes is serving in Iraq with the U.S. Marines. The Ailes family could not be reached for comment, but Rick Santos said Jeremy was with the family for Christmas.
Listening to news reports from Iraq is unsettling for families with loved ones there, Rick Santos says. As of Monday, 464 U.S. troops have been killed in combat in Iraq. More than 200 of the deaths occurred after major combat had ended May 1.
That harsh reality during this festive time drills home for the Santoses, the Dunns, the McCarthys and the Aileses how much of a blessing family and a good old-fashioned Christmas can be.
“We feel extremely fortunate that Amy is home safe and even more fortunate that she got leave and could be home for Christmas,” Santos said.
