Home for the holidays (they hope)
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By Peter Hirschfeld Vermont Press Bureau - Published: October 27, 2009
COLCHESTER – They'll be home for Christmas – if only Vermonters can cobble together enough money to fly them here.
About half of the approximately 1,500 Vermont National Guard soldiers heading to Afghanistan next January will spend their final weeks of pre-deployment training at a military facility in Indiana. The Army will give them eight days of holiday leave – but no airline ticket to get back to the Green Mountains.
With roundtrip airfare to Burlington International Airport running near $1,500, many guardsmen and women say they'll have to forego a final chance to spend Christmas with their families before heading out to Afghanistan.
Enter "Operation Holiday Homecoming," a charitable venture launched Monday by Senate President Peter Shumlin that will seek to raise more than $300,000 to charter a flight home for the Vermont soldiers. Eric Bloom, a sergeant first-class with six young daughters, said the effort could spare soldiers like him from a bleak holiday away from family.
"It's a time that everybody sits together, has dinner together. It's just a bonding time for a lot of families," Bloom, 34, said outside the Guard's Camp Johnson headquarters Monday. "It just would make such a huge difference and really relieve some of that stress."
Olivia Bloom, 4, and Kamryn Bloom, 2, fidgeted in their stroller seats as their father, a fulltime guardsmen from Waterbury, stood shoulder-to-shoulder Monday with fellow guardsmen also slated to deploy. When the training and deployment schedules arrived, Bloom said, soldiers immediately noticed that Christmas would be sandwiched into the Indiana training. When they attempted to secure flights home for a final visit with family before the deployment, he said, many learned it would be a financial impossibility. "If it's not something I can do as a sergeant first-class, then imagine how impossible it is for a private," Bloom said.
Even with all the logistical and emotional hurdles that come with a yearlong deployment into a dangerous war zone, Bloom said the Christmas issue in particular carried enormous stress.
"For me it's that chance to spend quality time with my family that normally doesn't happen throughout the year. And for obvious reasons, it's even more important this year," Bloom said. "To not have that, if it doesn't happen, it's certainly going to be less than positive for the soldiers."
Shumlin, a Windham County Democrat, said Monday that he's already secured more than $100,000 toward the effort. Major contributions from real estate magnates Tony and Ernest Pomerleau and philanthropist Lois McClure, among others, have helped get Operation Holiday Homecoming a third of the way to its $315,000 goal.
Shumlin said it's now up to the rest of Vermont residents to give whatever they can to help give soldiers the Christmas respite they deserve. Negotiations are still under way between Shumlin's office and a private charter service, but he believes he can secure flights for less than $400 per soldier.
"It's our duty as Vermonters to stand behind our troops and an opportunity as Vermonters to show them we care," Shumlin said. "You can make a difference and show our troops that you care."
Brigadier General Jonathan Farnham was among the dozen or so Guard personnel flanking Shumlin and two fellow senators during a Monday afternoon press conference outside the Guard's Family Readiness facility. Farnham said a successful fund-raising effort would make an enormous difference in the lives of deploying soldiers.
"As everybody knows, the families that are about to go through the deployment experience have enough on their minds right now," Farnham said. "And this is another example of Vermonters stepping forward to help and take away some of the stress on their plates. It's one less issue soldiers need to be worried about."
Farnham said he is not concerned that the high price tag for the charter flights, and the fundraising capacity needed to achieve it, will deflect resources from other Guard charities formed to help deploying soldiers and their families.
"I don't think anyone will get left behind vis-à-vis this fundraising effort," he said.
Shumlin said he's donated $2,000 to Operation Holiday Homecoming, which will be run through the Vermont National Guard Charitable Foundation. Sens. Vince Illuzzi and Robert Carris, also on hand for Monday's announcement, have also made donations.
"If it wasn't for Operation Holiday Homecoming, I could be looking at two Christmas holidays in a row without my wife and children," Bloom said. "I can't tell you how much this means to me and my family. To be able to see my little girl's faces on Christmas morning will help me through the hard times that I know are ahead."
Bloom's wife, Bernadette, said they've told their children that their father won't be home for Christmas this year, lest the fundraising efforts fall short and her husband is forced to spend the holiday in Indiana.
She said his presence at Christmas – the last time she would see him for a year – would help set a more positive tone for what will be a trying year ahead.
"It's just that last push of family before he's gone," she said. "And to know he would still be in the U.S. and not spend Christmas here – it would almost be worse than if he was in Afghanistan, knowing he was just out of reach."
People interested in donating to the cause can visit the Vermont National Guard Charitable Foundation Web site at www.supportvermontguard.org, or send checks directly to: Vt. National Guard Charitable Foundation, Operation Holiday Homecoming, PO Box 683, Essex Junction, Vermont 05453.