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The Llano Military News Group met this past week to begin planning for the Armed Forces Day Rally scheduled for Friday, May 14. Last year we had an awesome event to honor and acknowledge our active-duty service men and women and we’re hoping to make this year’s event spectacular! There are almost eighty men and women serving our country that grew up here in Llano County and went to school here. Many of their families still live here, and the Llano Military News Group has become a support group of sorts and a way to share information and build community support for our local service men and women.

Berit Aagaard Pace was in town the week of our meeting and was able to attend. Many of you may remember Berit – she worked as a nurse at the hospital and raised her family here in Llano. Her son Harald is in the Marine Corps and Berit wrote an article that we would like to share with you that really brings home the point that “service doesn’t end with the uniform”. Lives are touched and changed and many times totally turned inside out and upside down when you have a family member serving in the Armed Forces and her story touches on that. These are her words: Over and over we hear “Support our Troops! Support our men and women in uniform!” We all do. We must be grateful for their service and sacrifices; for their courage and giving up years of their lives so that we here at home can feel safe and secure. Precious little attention is given to the families left behind though; the wives, the sons and daughters.

The troops overseas, both men and women, are busy doing a job they have chosen, while the families at home are left alone not only with their constant worries for their loved ones far away; they also have to cope with the little inconveniences that seem to happen when daddy is away. The drain is plugged; the mower won’t start; the roof leaks, etc. Daddy is missed for ball games, for family reunions, birthdays, Christmas, the birth of a baby. My son, USMC Major Harald Aaraard and his family is no exception. He was at home for the birth of his twin boys, but left a week later and missed the first seven months of their lives.

When his youngest turned six in September, daddy had been gone for five of his six birthdays. His group of Marines was deployed to Iraq (again) in August, scheduled to return again in March. Power above determined that the Army was to replace the Marines in Iraq early, and that the Marines might be home for Christmas. Not knowing the exact date, and not being certain that their early return would really happen, my daughter-in-law chose not to tell the boys, but surprise them instead if and when the return was a reality. On December 20th she woke the boys and told them there was a special delivery from Santa at the airport and that they had to pick it up right away! Imagine the surprise and joy of the boys when they discovered daddy was home for the holidays! It was truly a blessed Christmas with so much to be thankful for. Berit Aagaard Pace Each and every family of our service men and women can tell you stories like the one above – the missed holidays, the happy homecomings, etc. But also each and every one of those families will also tell you how proud they are.

Each of these men and women give a lot of themselves in their service to our country and protecting our freedom to be and do as we wish here in the United States. They don’t ask for anything, but a sincere thank you is always appreciated. If you or your church, organization, business, etc. would like to send a note of thanks their way,please email llanomiltarynews@yahoo.com or call at 325-423-5010, they would love to hear from you!