Tuesday SOL 11/29/16 - A Wonderful Thanksgiving Weekend

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving with a group of 40 men and women recruits from Great Lakes Naval Base along with our family.  What an awesome way to spend a special day!

This is the 2nd year that we have participated in this special event hosted by the Sue H. Dufern Memorial Servicemen's Fund.  Our son and daughter-in-law are involved with this fund (Sue was our DIL's aunt who passed away).  This was the 10th year that this Fund has hosted approximately 100 servicemen and women each year.  This year there were only 40 recruits available.

The bus picked them up at 9:30 and brought them to Lindy's Restaurant in Waconda.  They marched a couple of blocks to the restaurant and were totally unprepared for what awaited them.  The restaurant closes it's doors for the day to welcome these young people.  They arrived to a round of applause and good wishes.  Candy was placed on all tables, phones were made available for calls to family and friends, a traditional Thanksgiving feast was prepared, gifts were handed out, and lots of chatting and singing and just hanging out.

We talked and talked with each of them, sharing our military history and asking questions.  They were so thankful and happy - just to be free of the rigors of basic training.  This event made me have hope for our country and for these young people.  And ever so thankful for all that we have.  We are praying that each of these recruits will be safe as they graduate on Friday and then move on to their next schooling and to wherever they will be stationed.

The rest of the weekend, we enjoyed our family time and lots of food and more talk and playing.

It was an awesome weekend.