Families, Elks Will Host CG Recruits on Christmas

CAPE MAY – More than 100 local families will be picking up recruits from the Cape May Coast Guard Training Center on Christmas Day, participating in the 35th annual Operation Fireside program.
Sponsored by Southern Shore Chapter of the American Red Cross, the program brings together families and recruits for the day, as recruits take a break from basic training and get a chance to enjoy home-cooked meals, calling family and friends, using social media and watching TV.
This Christmas, about 225 recruits will be spending the day with families and another 80 will spend much of the day with the Millville Elks Lodge 580 members.
“Normally we don’t have organizations hosting recruits on Christmas Day,” said Georgi Engels, who coordinates the program on behalf of the Red Cross, “but this year the Elks called to say they could take 80. We were delighted because we have about 80 recruits in their second week of training who will be hosted by them.”
“Christmas time can be an especially hard time for recruits,” said Capt. Todd Prestidge, commanding officer of Coast Guard Training Center Cape May. “For many of them, this is the first Christmas they have been away from their homes. To have an entire community of families willing to open their doors and allow our recruits a taste of a home-away-from-home just goes to show the caliber of folks in Cape May County. We are greatly appreciative of their support of our service.”
The service “discourages” any gift giving to recruits. “The recruits are being welcomed into a home whose family has generously invited the most junior members of our service to celebrate with them,” said Chief Warrant Officer John Edwards, Coast Guard external affairs officer.
“A recruit has limited space for the authorized items they have, and anything else would be contraband, so bringing back anything onto the base would not be encouraged or allowed,” he added.
Recruits who do not celebrate Christmas are able to stay on base if they wish and not participate in Operation Fireside, according to Edwards. “We make all possible arrangements to ensure our recruits are able to attend their religious services and observances on a daily basis, not just at Christmas. However, if they choose to spend the day with a family, they can.”
Recruits will be picked up at noon Christmas Day.
“We also have six families as back up,” Engels said. “At Thanksgiving, one of our groups didn’t show up, so the back-up families all got recruits for Thanksgiving.”
Mark Allen, a Cape May resident who spent 28 years in the military, has been hosting recruits at Thanksgiving and Christmas for six years. “Someone took me in for Thanksgiving one year when I was in the service, and it was the most meaningful Thanksgiving ever, except for the times I’ve hosted recruits,” he said. “It’s a give-back.”
When Allen picks up recruits, he gives them a tour of Cape May and the island, explaining where it’s positioned geographically, sharing some of its history, and sharing some of his own and family’s history. “We get out on the promenade and I explain how you can watch the sun rise and the sun set from here; there’s not many places in the world where you can see both. I show them the Chalfonte Hotel, where my son got his first cooking job. We go down to Sunset Beach to see the concrete ship, the SS Atlantus.
“We call it the ‘Captain Cape May’ tour because that’s my nickname,” he added.
Once home, Allen serves up what he calls “Breakfast B,” since the recruits typically eat breakfast at 6 a.m. “By 10 a.m. they are starving, so I make sure we have plenty of food ready.”
After “Breakfast B,” the recruits will typically spend time phoning home, taking a nap, having lunch, snacks and eventually dinner.
“After dinner, they will make at least one more round of phone calls, and then it’s dessert and back to the base. 
“One year I had a recruit ask me about leftovers,” he recalled. “I said that we had cookies, ice cream and all this other stuff left over so he made a huge sundae with everything. On the way back to base, he sat in the backseat of the car eating it.”
Allen said he was at the gym on base recently when the two recruits he hosted for Thanksgiving came up to him to say hello. “I’ve been invited to their graduation as well.
“The first year my girlfriend Gretchen (Whitman) helped me, she really had no background in anything military,” he said, “but by the time we took them back to the base, she had tears saying goodbye. That’s how fast you connect.
“I still write Christmas cards and stay in touch with some of them,” he said. “It’s a great thing to do. I almost think we get more out of it as hosts than they do, but I’m sure they’d disagree.”
To contact Karen Knight, email kknight@cmcherald.com.