After six years, he's home for Christmas

Rick Seitz had traveled only for family vacations to Pennsylvania and Florida when, at 21, he fulfilled a pledge he'd made after the 2001 World Trade Center attacks and signed up with the U.S. Air Force.

Now 27, the staff sergeant has traveled to more countries in Asia, the Middle East and Europe than his parents can recall, completed two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and Tuesday night came home for the first time after a six-month stint in Iraq.

"It's unbelievable . . . the Town of Islip is amazing. There's really nothing you can say, to say thanks," said Seitz, just after he landed at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma to be greeted by a flag-waving throng of family, friends and veterans groups.

"Thank you all so much for your support. It means a lot," he told the crowd. Asked what he wanted to do most when he got home, he said, "Probably get a beer and a pizza."

Having their son Rick home for Christmas -- for the first time in six years -- is a big moment for the Seitz household of East Islip. Not that there haven't been seven Thanksgivings, countless birthdays, and what his father, Fred Seitz, called "other special family moments" when Fred, his wife, Sandy, and their two other sons, Daniel, 23, and Christopher, 18, wished he'd been there.

Those are moments that intersperse the constant worry, Sandy Seitz said ahead of her eldest son's arrival. "As a mom, I just use more hair dye," she said wistfully. "I think about the ones who are not coming home," she said Monday night. "It's very bittersweet because they are all our children."

Like many parents, the Seitzes struggled with their child's decision to join the military. When Rick's pronouncement came at age 18, they counseled him to wait until he was 21. "You grow a lot in those years and we hoped," said Sandy Seitz. But the young man was set.

" 'If it's not me, it has to be someone -- why not me?' he'd say," she recalled.

The day came and they were filled with dread. "It was time to let him go -- as much as we cried over that," Fred Seitz said.
Rick Seitz graduated from basic training July 2006. In June 2007 came his first deployment to Afghanistan, to his parents' knowledge the most dangerous of three stints in war zones. He was often outside Bagram Air Base, in armed combat with Taliban fighters. A second deployment from September 2009 saw him assigned to base anti-missile and mortar defense, sometimes withstanding several incoming attacks in one night.

Then in February after training as a sniper late last year, he was sent to Balad Air Base, about 50 miles northwest of Baghdad, where he served with an anti-sniper team and supervised security checkpoints.

The couple said the tiniest things came to take on huge significance: Fred Seitz would find himself anxiously checking at odd times of day or night his son's Facebook profile. "The little green dot would reassure me, 'oh good, he's online,' " he said.

Now, with 10 days together before Rick again returns to his Air Force base in Arizona, Sandy Seitz said she was acutely aware how much her son had grown. "He went away a boy, an innocent 21-year-old. Now he's worldly, he has a whole different perspective and a new appreciation of what it means to be home for Christmas."