How should we repay troops for the gifts they've given us?

It is said this is supposed to be a season of giving. So why am I always reminded that Christmas is a season of taking - especially when I see the greetings from troops stationed overseas?

Their greetings are a nice enough gesture. In the grit of their desert cammies, or under the glow of fluorescent bulbs on the mess deck, they wish us "Happy Holidays" as they realize they really won't be home for Christmas this year. I see that and know this is, indeed, a season of taking.

I only wish I could learn to take their gift with a little more grace. I don't. I want to, but I don't. Instead I find myself receiving this freedom, this security that they pay for with their workdays and their weekends and their Christmases as if it were a package of socks. A too-bright sweater. Tacky jewelry.

I can just see myself unwrapping this gift from our military members and telling everyone else around the tree that their gift is just too big. It's too expensive. It isn't the color I wanted. I can hear myself whining that I still have some freedom the soldiers gave me that I haven't used yet. Heavens, didn't those Coasties give me exactly the same thing last year?

Perhaps I would receive more easily if I felt I were giving these military members something of equal value in return. Yet I am too old to enlist. I am not a person anyone should trust with a weapon. I cannot begin to afford a gift card that would recompense a sailor for missing the birth of his child or a check that could make up for the loss of a limb to a Marine.

"It is sad to say that many families have benefited from those who sacrifice to serve, but have not served themselves - nor have other family members," wrote B.R. Brown of Virginia Beach. "Every family and generation has an obligation to themselves as well as society to give back - or to pay it forward."

When I called Brown to talk over what that giving back might look like, he pointed out that during his 22 years in the military he wanted the same gift he was giving - service.

"My thank you was knowing that my family was safe, that there were police and firemen and all the other public servants taking care of them."

Brown pointed to dozens of ways people give back without picking up arms and going overseas. He talked about the usual things like the Society for the Prevention of Animals, Special Olympics, soup kitchens and The Salvation Army. But he also reminded me that there are people who work for the city as parking lot attendants and librarians and tax collectors who really are public servants also working for the greater good.

"Every day we have one more person who is not of the mind-set to give back in some way. If we keep on with that we will get to a point where we will not enjoy the freedom and liberty we have."

I don't want to ever get to that point. I don't want to ever feel like I should not be giving and receiving in kind.

I hope that all of you who are overseas tonight, or who have ever spent a Christmas night in a rack on a ship, in a tent in the desert, in a barracks far, far from home will now consider your account paid in full.

For those of you who can look back on this year and find some kind of service you have performed, I hope you will sleep well and warm.

And for those of us who find ourselves less generous, less grateful, let us resolve to do something for our fellow man. Even if it is only so to avoid the guilt next year, let us gift and regift and gift again. Let us give in the same way in which we have received.

Jacey Eckhart, jacey87@mac.com that during his 22 years in the military he wanted the same gift he was giving - service.

"My thank you was knowing that my family was safe, that there were police and firemen and all the other public servants taking care of them."

Brown pointed to dozens of ways people give back without picking up arms and going overseas. He talked about the usual things like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Special Olympics, soup kitchens and The Salvation Army. But he also reminded me that there are people who work for the city as parking lot attendants and librarians and tax collectors who really are public servants also working for the greater good.

"Every day we have one more person who is not of the mind-set to give back in some way. If we keep on with that we will get to a point where we will not enjoy the freedom and liberty we have."

I don't want to ever get to that point. I don't want to ever feel like I should not be giving and receiving in kind.

I hope that all of you who are overseas tonight, or who have ever spent a Christmas night in a rack on a ship, in a tent in the desert, in a barracks far, far from home will now consider your account paid in full.

For those of you who can look back on this year and find some kind of service you have performed, I hope you will sleep well and warm.

And for those of us who find ourselves less generous, less grateful, let us resolve to do something for our fellow man. Even if it is only to avoid the guilt next year, let us gift and regift and gift again. Let us give in the same way in which we have received.

Jacey Eckhart, jacey87@mac.com