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Father and son celebrate Christmas in Afghanistan

  • Published
  • By Senior Master Sgt. Gary J. Rihn
  • 455 AEW/PA
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan --  Holidays away from friends and family are a common thing for military members.

Occasionally though, those same family members manage to get together in unusual ways.

Such was the case recently in Afghanistan for U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Scott Hoffman and his son, Army First Lieutenant Timothy Hoffman.

Hoffman is the commander of the 455th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron at Bagram Airfield and an A-10 pilot. His son is an infantry officer with the 1-8 Cavalry at Kandahar, about 300 miles away. The younger Hoffman was able to find a flight into Bagram to visit his father for a day, celebrating a belated Christmas together.

Father and son spent some time tossing a baseball back and forth, despite the snow.
"This is only the second time in a year we've seen each other," said Lt. Col. Hoffman.

Time apart is nothing new for the Hoffman family. Lt. Hoffman's wife Sarah is also an Army 1st Lt. in the intelligence field. She recently returned home after a deployment of her own to Afghanistan.

While the three were deployed, they actually all supported each other.

"My wife would find the bad guys, we'd go out to get them, and my dad's guys would be overhead in their A-10s covering us. We loved seeing those Bagram A-10s when we needed a little help," said Lt. Hoffman.

Lt. Col. Hoffman noted the hardship on family members, when so many are deployed at the same time.

"The hardest part of all of this is on my wife Patti; her entire family was in Afghanistan for seven months," said Lt. Col. Hoffman.

After a day together, it was time for Lt. Hoffman to head back to Kandahar. He said of their time together, "After running all over RC-East, this is a great little break".

"It was great being able to spend even a little time together here," agreed Lt. Col. Hoffman.