For U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Hernandez, the holidays remind him that he’s here and his buddies are overseas.
He thought about that as he and about 20 of his fellow recruiters gathered at the Golden Corral in Chattanooga on Thursday in what’s become an annual event.
Edsel Payne, 78, a spry, chatty Air Force veteran, brings them here every year between Veterans Day and Thanksgiving. He gets a room, buys them lunch and tells them “thank you.”
“I’m just a grouchy old man,” Payne said. “The reason I started was because of disparaging remarks being said about our military.”
He said he got angry and got out his wallet.
Hernandez and the other recruiters know Payne as a familiar face, someone who’s always checking up on them.
As his fellow recruiters loaded plates and sat to eat, the staff sergeant said he and his friends are always thinking about their military buddies, looking after their families while they’re deployed.
“You never forget your friends who are deployed,” Hernandez said. “You never do.”
Sgt. Kyle Edwards, a Marine, and Airman 1st Class Bryan Long each grabbed another plate of food and chimed in with thoughts about their friends.
“I’m thinking about them and their safety,” Edwards said. “Because I knew they were doing the same thing when I was overseas.”
Long said he’s going to check on the wife of a friend who recently got married and then deployed.
“It’s their first Christmas together, and they’re 7,000 miles apart,” he said.
Army Sgt. Andrew Richards was thinking about the people he’s signed up for military service who are now overseas.
“One guy, I put him in the reserves two years ago,” Richards said. “He’s coming back from overseas, and I’m going to pick him up from the airport and bring him back for the holidays.”
The men thanked Payne, as always. Restaurant manager Rodney Sweatte, himself a member of the Army National Guard, said it’s “awesome” to see what Payne does for the recruiters each year.
Sweatte has things on his mind, too. His unit will deploy in June.
“I hope everybody has a safe and happy holiday and that there is peace,” he said. “And there are people in my unit providing that peace.”