Summary: In his 2009 Thanksgiving message, President Barack Obama calls the nation’s attention to the men and women in uniform who are away from home sacrificing time with family. He also talks about health care reform, the Recovery Act, and job creation. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 26, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iraq had lost more than half of its Christian population of some 1 million in an exodus that began after the 1991 Gulf War and escalated dramatically after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.