Hundreds of S.D. Marines Will Spend Thanksgiving with Host Families

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published November 22, 2006 at 12:10 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

Hundreds of families around San Diego and Orange Counties will have a pair of young Marines from Camp Pendleton to join them for Thanksgiving this year. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Hundreds of families around San Diego and Orange Counties will have a pair of young Marines from Camp Pendleton to join them for Thanksgiving this year. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Marines in the school of infantry whose families lives within a 100 miles of Camp Pendleton are allowed to be picked up and taken home for Thanksgiving. But 800 young marines who’ve come from further a field won't miss out. They’ll get picked up by a family they’ve never met and whisked away for eight hours of rest and relaxation plus a Thanksgiving feast. Dawn Baker of the Armed Services YMCA says for many, this is their first foray off base.

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Baker: They fly in to go to boot camp, they’re bused up to go to training at the school of infantry - most of the time this is the first experience they have of even seeing this part of southern California.

Baker says for many of the young men this is also the first holiday they have ever spent away from home. Many will be assigned to a unit before they see their families again. Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.