With the holidays coming up quickly, many families are separated from one another on the happiest days of the year. Military families have the hardest job of them all; celebrating the holidays without their loved ones and still trying to make it the best they can for everyone else.

Some people in the service get to come home for a few short weeks to fill their hearts up. Some even surprise their families, and the videos are shown all throughout YouTube that bring a tear to everyone’s eyes.

This year, Poland has a few students with their military families overseas that are coming home for the holidays, myself included.

Brandon Scott, 21, has been a Marine for almost 4 years now and will be coming home to join my family to celebrate Christmas. He has been deployed in Australia and Japan most of this year and is currently stationed in San Diego, CA. Most of our family has not seen him in quite a few months, so we are all getting together in little-old Poland, OH under the tree to celebrate his homecoming and the holidays.

Jared Eichert, 19, graduated in 2015 from PSHS and went straight into Army infantry. He is the brother to Tyler Eichert, junior, and Brendan Eichert, freshmen. He is currently stationed in Fort Campbell in Kentucky. He has gone through basic training and has been in for over a year now but will be with the army for a while because he signed a contract to do 3 tours.

When asked what Jared means to them, Tyler said, “He means the world to me. He’s my brother; he’s been through thick and thin with me.”

His family is very excited that he is getting to come home for the holidays, as they haven’t seen him in over a year.

As we all sit around our trees and open our abundance of presents, we should take time to think about all we have and the people who are there for us to protect us and keep us safe, as well as give us tons of laughs and memories throughout the years. We are all very fortunate to have the school we do and the people in it. From the staff of the Seminarian, Happy Holidays!