Soldiers spend Thanksgiving with best substitution to family,It may not seem like there would be much difference between a military Thanksgiving and a civilian one. Many of the day’s traditions are the same -- turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, football. But if you look closely, it’s unlikely you’ll find a family resemblance amongst the faces gathered at the dinner table. For many military families, the closest they’ll get to the Thanksgiving s they knew growing up is a phone call. They’ll miss out on Grandma’s Pumpkin Pie or Aunt Mary’s Secret Stuffing because they don’t have the time or money to travel “home.” But they make up for it by surrounding themselves with the best resource a military family can have: good friends. Between two deployments and being stationed 1,000 miles from home, my husband hasn’t been with his extended family for Thanksgiving for 10 years. And so this year, his first as a civilian, that was his request: Thanksgiving with ...