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Everything seems to blend together for Chace Holzheuser.
Two weeks ago, the Bryan native was in Afghanistan. Two days ago, he was in Fort Bragg, N.C. Today, he is celebrating Thanksgiving at home with his mother and a brother who might soon be deployed.
"It's awesome," said Holzheuser's mother, Karen Merdian. "I'm just so happy that they're both home for the holidays. I'm still speechless."
On Tuesday night, after a nine-month Army deployment that sent him from Mississippi to Louisiana and then to Afghanistan, Holzheuser arrived back in Bryan. He was greeted with yellow ribbons hanging from the trees along Glenn Oaks Drive near his home and a front-yard sign that read, "My Son. My Soldier. My Hero."
"She pointed them out and I saw some of the yellow ribbons, but I didn't see everything. I didn't see the extent of what she had done," the 21-year-old Army sergeant said Wednesday. "I didn't see that she had decked out the whole neighborhood. She said to go out and look out at the road, and then I saw everything. I thought it was pretty amazing that she actually went to every house and asked permission and got their signatures so she could do it. I'm sure that took a lot of work just going from house to house and all of that. I really appreciate it."
Holzheuser decided to join the military during his senior year at Bryan High School. His father and two grandfathers had served, and Holzheuser knew there was a strong possibility that he would be deployed.
In February, Holzheuser was sent to an undisclosed location in Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border, as part of the 451st Civil Affairs Battalion.
Some days -- such as the one when he learned that one of his best friends had died from a Taliban-fired rocket -- he wondered why he was there. But he never questioned his commitment to the Army.
"Sleeping on top of a rocky mountain with nothing between you and the rocks but your clothes -- and it's 20 degrees outside -- that's what I would call a bad day," he said. "But it all really has to do with the military brotherhood. When you're in situations like that -- it's not about Afghanistan or the Army -- it's about the people next to you and the people you love at home. That is what really keeps you going. Yeah, trying to find what enjoyment you can make -- watching movies -- that helps, but it's not what keeps you going."
Holzheuser's brother, Taylor, also followed the family tradition and enlisted in the Marines in an air-wing support role. He serves at the Fort Worth Naval Air Station.
"The family history of it was a big factor in my decision," Taylor Holzheuser said. "There's the educational benefits and the fact that you get to help people. You see a different side of it on TV. It's a whole different thing when you [get in the military]."
Taylor Holzheuser made the four-hour drive from Fort Worth on Wednesday to see his brother for the first time since Chase Holzheuser's deployment.
"Being in the military together now, we have a personal connection," Taylor Holzheuser said. "We both understand not being in contact for an extended period of time. More than anything, it's about exchanging stories from the last nine months."
Their mother said the past nine months had been nerve-racking.
"Everybody always tells me it will be all right," she said. "After that, I could only say, 'Not necessarily. He's right there in the action. He's not in a safe place. I don't know that he's going to be OK, that he's going to make it.'"
For now, though, she's assured that her son is safe at home. Chase Holzheuser said he would not be deployed for the next three years and plans to spend the holidays getting reacquainted with friends and family before starting his first semester of college.
