NewsNation National Correspondent Robert Sherman has found himself on the frontlines of some of the world’s biggest stories: from Ukraine to Israel and across the United States. He shares what he’s seeing on the ground. Subscribe to his newsletter, Frontlines with Robert Sherman, here.

(NewsNation) —  I grew up walking along the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio. I’ve watched the waves roll in during summer storms and stared out over the frozen water in winter — and never once did I stop to think, “I’m grateful I don’t see warships on the horizon.”

I didn’t know that was something a person could be grateful for.

Then I covered Ukraine and the Middle East — and everything changed.

This past Thanksgiving was the first I’ve celebrated in three years. Most of my time since 2022 has been spent in Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, the Baltic states and other tense corners of the world. Sitting at the dinner table with my parents, who have watched me stand up from holidays and walk out of weddings to cover whatever calamity struck next, felt different this year.

For dessert, I skipped the cookies and instead served myself a slice of humble pie. It took 29 years for it to fully sink in how much I’d taken for granted.

I was 25 the first time I went to Ukraine. Before the flight, I was convinced I understood the world — armed with a good college thesis, a few dense books and, if I’m honest, more TikToks than I’d like to admit. One day in Ukraine taught me I had a lot to learn. One day in the Middle East taught me I didn’t know much of anything.

Everywhere I go — Hungary, Latvia, Morocco, Qatar, Brazil, India, South Korea — I get one or two questions answered, and 10 new ones take their place. But the one thing I’ve gained is an overwhelming gratitude for being an American, because I had no idea how much I had to be grateful for.

So yes, I’m grateful that Lake Erie has no enemy warships. Ukrainians living on the Black Sea would give anything to say the same.

I’m grateful we were snowed in on Thanksgiving. Israelis from the southern kibbutzim would trade places in a heartbeat.

I’m grateful when the snowplows in Cleveland can’t keep up, and the streets turn into an icy slip-and-slide. It certainly beats entire blocks of Gaza lying in rubble.

I’m grateful the Cleveland Browns seem determined to break our hearts — and then break ground on a new stadium outside the city limits in 2026. I’d rather be us than the Estonians who spent this summer digging anti-tank trenches along their border with Russia. The odds of an invasion here are zero. I never thought to give thanks for that.

And I’m grateful in a way I’ve previously never understood for the American service members stationed all over the world. I met a young ensign aboard the USS Laboon, a destroyer in the Red Sea. He had an actual bed on the other end of the ship, but he chose to sleep on a cot he built out of steel boxes beside the destroyer’s 5-inch gun. His obsession was shaving tenths of a second off its reload time. That fraction of a second, he believed, could save his shipmates’ lives. I carry that with me.

His dedication — and the dedication of thousands like him — kept threats I didn’t even know existed away from our shores. My years of blissful ignorance were built on their sacrifice.

In the last three years, I’ve reported from across Eastern Europe and the Middle East. I’ve met families who walked 30 miles in the freezing dark because home was no longer safe. I’ve seen Israelis in the Istanbul airport beg for a seat on a plane, not knowing whether they’d ever return. I’ve spoken with Palestinians in Gaza who no longer know whether the street they were born on still exists. I detail much of this in my newly released book “Lessons from the Front,“ which has just become a bestseller.

All of these experiences shattered my assumptions. They humbled every opinion I thought was unshakable. They forced me to audit every worldview I’ve ever held.

I’m not coming back to the United States with answers; I don’t have any. But I do know this: Americans have more to be grateful for than we will ever fully comprehend. We are one day away — one unexpected headline away — from waking up in a very different world.

This year, I’m grateful for home. For safety. For the ordinary routines that billions of people would give anything to have. And this Christmas, I’ll happily raid the refrigerator for another slice of humble pie — the best pie in the world.