Editor’s note: This was originally published on Nov. 25, 1999.
For Idahoans who served in Kosovo last summer, today is a different kind of Thanksgiving. They’re thankful for things they used to take for granted.
Ada County paramedic Leigh Buzzini is thankful for grocery stores and gas stations.
Idaho Air National Guard pilot John Newland is thankful for people he didn’t know a year ago.
For Red Cross worker Jennifer Peavey, the best holiday gift no longer comes in a package. It’s time with the people who are important in her life.
And Senior Airman Oliver Taylor is thankful just to be home.
The Idahoans were subjects in a series of Statesman reports from Albania, Sicily and England during the war in Kosovo. Buzzini was working near the Kosovo-Albania border, treating sick and injured war victims. Newland was in Sicily, where a Gowen Field Air National Guard unit was basing missions to Kosovo. Peavey spent four months in Albania and Kosovo, providing humanitarian aid. Taylor, a Mountain Home minister in his off-duty hours, provided spiritual support for air crews flying missions from England.
Buzzini’s three weeks in the war zone “changed me. It opened my eyes to what was going on in that part of the world. I didn’t think it was as bad as people were saying until I got there and it was worse. It made me realize how important family was because I saw so many families whose sons and fathers were imprisoned or killed and the wives and mothers and daughters were on their own. It made me appreciate my family in Boise more.
“It also made me thankful for little things like stores where we don’t have to go to one place for the vegetables and another for the meat and another for the medical supplies. I’m grateful now for little things like gas stations and nutritious food and clean water, things we take for granted and shouldn’t.”
At a Danish refugee camp in northern Albania, Buzzini befriended a Kosovar woman named Sofi. Sofi was 32 and had seven children. The Serbs had burned her home; her soldier husband was missing in action. Buzzini and other Americans saved her 2-month-old baby, who almost died of dehydration. The day Buzzini left, Sofi tearfully handed her the baby and asked her to take him to America.
“It was hard to tell her no, but I couldn’t take a banana out of the country, let alone a baby. It was so sad. To see a mother willing to give up her child so it could have a better life somewhere else makes you realize how fortunate we are in this country.”
For Newland, the defining moment of his deployment to Sicily was the final moment.
“I brought one of the airplanes back, and it was so moving just to fly those last few miles and see the Boise Valley again, “ he said. “It was so wonderful to be home.”
A Statesman photograph of Newland’s wife and sons, taken as he was leaving Boise in May, led to an outpouring of community support. In Sicily he received hundreds of cards and email messages from Idahoans who wanted him to know his sacrifice was appreciated.
“I’m grateful for every one of those people, “ he said.
Peavey, who returned from Albania in October, says she’ll “still be learning from the experience when I’m 50. It changed the way I look at life.”
Peavey visited ravaged Kosovo villages, making sure war victims were receiving humanitarian aid. She went to towns where “the whole town was rubble. You’d look out the window and everything around you was destroyed. In one village, I saw a woman who was in tears, but more in shock. When I came up to her, she gave me a hug. I didn’t know what was going on until my translator told me she’d just identified the charred body of her son. It was the only intact body in the village.
“Two weeks after I came home, a friend died. Since then, a number of people I know have been sick and in the hospital. I look at that very differently now. I see it in a positive way. At least here we have the opportunity to say goodbye to our families and are in a caring environment, whereas those people lost so much so suddenly.”
Asked what she’s most grateful for today, the Red Cross public relations director spoke of the importance of human relations.
“Coming from a war-torn country where there’s no commercialism and nothing to buy, the commercialism in the U.S. immediately strikes you, “ she said. “There’s a sign on every corner, every bus, every bumper advertising something. But this holiday season, it’s the little things I appreciate, like a friend calling and asking me to go to dinner, or little bits of communication with friends and family.
“I haven’t even thought about buying Christmas gifts for anyone. I just want to spend time with them and appreciate their stories. After something like Kosovo, you look differently at the people who have been part of your life forever.”
While Peavey and Buzzini were helping war victims in the Balkans, Taylor was ministering to combat troops in England. An airman and computer specialist with Air Force’s 22nd Air Refueling Squadron, he spends off-duty hours as associate pastor of Mountain Home’s Abundant Life Christian Fellowship. For 78 days, flight crews shared their troubles with him as they headed into battle. These days, his concerns are more down to earth.
“I’ve been to quite a few places in the Air Force and have seen people without homes or enough to eat,” he said. “My trips overseas have made me realize how good we have it here in the U.S. Unfortunately, most of the time Americans act as if we aren’t thankful. Maybe more of us should have the chance to go to other countries and experience how the people live there.”
Taylor is thankful just to be home.
“Any time you’re away from home and family, you’re thankful to be back. It’s a blessing whenever you can come back alive and in one piece.
“Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday, “ he continued. “It’s great to come together with family members and eat, but we should also remember those who don’t have the opportunity. A lot of people don’t have families. A lot of people don’t have food.”
For Taylor, those aren’t empty words. He’ll be spending the greater part of the holiday at his church, feeding the needy.
“When you sit down to eat your Thanksgiving dinner today, take time out to pray for those who have nothing to eat, “ he said. “Be thinking about what you can do in your community to help the less fortunate, not just on Thanksgiving but all year long.”
