I deployed to The Green Zone during a cease-fire. I worked in the emergency room of Ibn Sina Hospital, famously known as Baghdad ER. After a month of living with a thin cloud of fleeting safety over our heads, we did not expect Thanksgiving Day 2007 would be the day the cease-fire ended.

This was my first holiday at war. Though three years prior, my father broke Thanksgiving bread with his troops in this same country. I knew the warm meal in the dining facility was much more than many soldiers got...