A Thanksgiving to remember for a multisoldier family

As of Monday, their parents, Francisco Ruiz and Rosalia, did not know that their children had nominated them for the Army's Freedom Team Salute. The award, which recognizes the sacrifices of all members of military families, was due to be presented Friday. The children have decorated the plaque with their own medals.

"I came to be part of this, but also to take it back to my students in Los Angeles, to tell them this story of this family," says Juan Vasquez, an English teacher at Grant High School in Los Angeles and the only son who didn't join the military. "I just think it really shows the patriotism within the family itself."

Raucous homecomings, like the one Monday at Fort Campbell, have become a familiar sight. Fighting fatigue and shaking off desert dust, soldiers hold their formation until, anticlimactically, they're allowed to stand down. The band stops playing and the mingling begins, the kissing, the reunions, the intimate whispers.

Rosanna, wearing fatigues and her hair in a tight bun, kept her composure, but her father wept after squeezing through the throngs to embrace his returned daughter.

For military families in a time of war, these are brief respites. For the Vasquezes, it has seemed that as soon as one came back, another one left.

Brown has been to Iraq multiple times. Martin is a veteran of the military campaign in Afghanistan.

This year, three of them served in Iraq simultaneously, only a helicopter's ride apart. But only Francisco, a medic, and Rosanna, a doctor's assistant, met once to exchange medical supplies. "For one reason or another, people are always in different places," says Juan Vasquez.

Brown says he's been away from home for more than half of the life of his 6-year-old daughter, Elisa. But that will soon change. He retires in two weeks. "I'm done," he says.

The value of this week's get-together is not lost on the Vasquezes, who say they manage to stay close despite the distances through e-mails, phone calls, and jotted notes.

At times, they were able to get parts of the family together, even though it's spread out between San Antonio; Fresno, Calif.; Gardena, Calif.; and Clarksville, Tenn. When their mother, Rosalia, was not well in 2003, the children would come and go, sometimes missing each other by minutes, says Francisco Ruiz, their father.

"It's a reminder for them that they are blessed to be together and they take advantage of each moment together," says Sonia Vasquez, Martin's wife. "They are spread apart, but they are close still."

All in all, including another sister, Gabriela, and assorted husbands, wives, nieces, and nephews, there will be 17 for Thanksgiving Thursday. Family members say it's likely to be one long grace.

"It will be the best Thanksgiving ever," says Rosanna.

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