Pawnee Marine Dedicates Christmas Song To Families Separated By War

A Pawnee native serving overseas recorded a song for his wife back home - and for military families everywhere who are separated from a loved one this Christmas.

Master Sergeant Robert Allen wrote the song during a holiday season spent overseas in Iraq. This year, his wife and three kids are again without their favorite Marine as he serves in Afghanistan.

"My wife can't stand it at all when I leave, but she understands what I do," Allen said in an interview with the Department of Defense.

"He sent it to me as a Christmas gift and I cried, I was surprised," said Carla Allen, Robert Allen's wife

Allen's wife, Carla, and their three kids now live in Yuma, Arizona, where he's stationed. The lyrics about wearing a smile while he's gone got to her.

"He appreciated what I do as a military wife and that he understood that him being gone is hard," she said.

Robert started playing when Carla gave him her stepfather's old guitar. Carla's mother, who lives in Pawnee, says she wasn't surprised by her son-in-law's Christmas song.

"Very talented, very good, he's a good warrior," Denise Neet, Carla's mother.

Denise says Robert is passionate about his job, currently providing ground support for a NATO combat wing. But it doesn't come without sacrifice.

"Holidays are very hard on them overseas as well as the ones here back home," Neet said.

The Allen's children Aaron, Aidan and Lainie are being strong, but they and Carla are counting down the days until Robert returns.

"When the days are rough and things don't feel like they are going to get any better or he's never going to make it home, I have the video now," Carla said.

The son of an Air Force mechanic, Allen joined the Marines at age 22. He is one of thousands of men and women deployed this holiday season.

He hopes his Christmas song "will help people understand that though we're willing to do it," it's still heartbreaking."

"For a military that's willing and ready to leave their families to serve their fellow Americans, it's all those little things that are hardest to deal with when you leave home," he said.

More than 70,000 people have watched it online. Allen returns from Afghanistan in March.