Thanksgiving came a little early for one Philadelphia family whose son will be deployed for the holidays.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Outside the Roccuzzo house on 12th Street in South Philadelphia, all the feelings of fall and patriotism are on full display.<\/p>\n
Inside, the dining room was bustling as a turkey dinner with all the trimmings was on the table for one special guest who won’t be able to be there in a few weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Santino Roccuzzo, 26, enlisted in the Navy seven years ago, spending months and most holidays away on the USS Abraham Lincoln. He is home for a 10-day leave but is set to head out next week for another deployment that will extend into 2026.<\/p>\n
“It’s something bigger than myself, I feel like I had a bigger purpose,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Military sacrifice runs in the family. Roccuzzo’s dad, Joe, served four years in the Air Force.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now his mom, Shawn Roccuzzo, once again balances both pride and heartache any day her son isn’t here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s totally a sacrifice every day. Some days it’s harder than others. Birthdays, we never see him for his birthday. He’s never here for my birthday,” Shawn Roccuzzo, Santino’s mom, said.<\/p>\n
For now, those here are focused on their time together, grateful for love that endures no matter the distance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’m here with my family, I spend time with them and that’s the most important part, spending time with them,” Santino Roccuzzo said, “because there’s not a lot of time that we have together.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thanksgiving came a little early for one Philadelphia family whose son will be deployed for the holidays.\u00a0 Outside…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":368525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,44599,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,148904],"class_list":{"0":"post-368524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-thanksgiving","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa","19":"tag-veterans-day"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115523802016922648","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}