View Full Version : First Christmas away from home while in the service...........
greenberetTFS
12-11-2009, 13:07
Augsburg,Germany 1956......... It was Christmas eve and I was determined to not have my dinner on post..... Requested leave that evening and decided to go to a place where I could get a meal and sleep for the night... Found one out side of town and had a wiener schnitzel with a fried egg(?) on the top for dinner... The place was busy and I was the only American in the dining room,however the German people were very kind to me and smiled at me often during my dinner... They had a special event that evening,a choir of little kids about 8 years old up to a maybe 12 years old would stop by to sing some Christmas carols..... When they arrived I listened to several carols however when they broke into Silent Night in German of course, this big tough 18 year old bad ass paratrooper started to have moist eyes and got up quickly to leave the table......It was my first time away from home on Christmas,but of course not my last...... I'll never forget that Christmas for the rest of my life..... :) Any one else care to share there first Christmas away from home?
Big Teddy :munchin
Standing in a tower at our site at Northpoint, scanning the sky with my spot light, searching for Santa....and yes, had he landed in our site, I would have opened up on him.
I realized it was worthless to fell sad or sorry for myself. I volunteered for the Army. I volunteered to come to Germany. I volunteered to be on a nuke site (strike 3), so why cry over spilled mike.
Enlisted 38 years ago, this month, right after Christmas...I swapped CQ Runner with a buddy who was married...spent most of the day in the playing spades with the 1SG (I was his driver) and a couple other guys...spent the next to last Christmas in the Army in Mogadishu...
Ambush Master
12-11-2009, 13:56
X-Mas:
1967, NMMI, made it home.
1968, USMA (Woo Poo) made it home and was assigned as the chaperone/escort for Fredrick and Edwin Borman, their dad (our neighbor) was entering Lunar Orbit and would read Scripture from that lofty perch as a part of our Mid-night Christmas Eve Church Service (St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, League City, Texas)!!
1969 Finished the then Phase I of The QC Pipeline and hitched a ride on a westbound Herc out of Pope. The Crew Bus took us from Dyes to the Abilene, Texas Airport and the 6 of us in-filled the facility!! When the Security Guard and Texas International Station Manager opened up, THERE WE WERE!!! We scared the crap out of them. Class A's, Bloused Boots, and Green Beret's (Without Flashes). The Manager GAVE US ALL, ROUND TRIP TICKETS to get home and back (Ya'just Gotta Love Texas!!)!!:D
1970 RVN, CCC (Kontum). My first Xmas away from home, I still have the Menu from the Huckleberry Inn Mess Hall, and I was just so few weeks away from this: http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=788
Being the FNG, I got hung with guard duty @ the squadron motor pool. I recall it was one of those lovely "brass monkey" prairie winter days, also the guard uniform was wearing those old OD parkas & field pants w/ liner (in addition to the LBE & steel pot)
The oddest thing was at the dinner meal, our Division CO came in, and sat down for a meal - with little old me. :eek: I remember thinking that was a pretty squared away gesture, but sort of wished the old guy had spent the day with his kids instead... a little hard to relax being a PV1 with a MG sitting across the table.
What I don't recall was any melancholy or homesickness... I was a soldier, and I felt like I was doing what soldiers do. Shortly after the holidays, we went on a winter REFORGER, and then got to spend Thanksgiving '86 in balmy Fort Irwin.
Call me a fool, but I do miss that stuff.
Thank You!! to all our troops serving currently! :lifter
mojaveman
12-11-2009, 14:03
My first Christmas away from home was spent at Patch Barracks which is the home of HQUSEUCOM and located in Stuttgart/Vaihingen. It was '81 and I was all of 18 years old. My Platoon Sergeant let me have the 24th off so that afternoon I went downtown to the Weinachtsmarkt on the Schlossplatz to drink some gluwein and listen to Christmas carols being sung in a foreign language. I then went back to the Kaserne and that evening celebrated with some of my cohorts.
I sometimes wish that I could go back in time and do it all over again.
1968, USMA (Woo Poo) made it home and was assigned as the chaperone/escort for Fredrick and Edwin Borman, their dad (our neighbor) was entering Lunar Orbit and would read Scripture from that lofty perch as a part of our Mid-night Christmas Eve Church Service (St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, League City, Texas)!!
I always love reading this story, Martin.
Ohhh to have been a fly on the wall.
1973 - RTA Camp Nong Takoo - took some ammo boxes and made a fireplace -painted it red and used white to make it look like bricks - placed a small Xmas tree on top and hung an OD sock stuffed with a Playboy magazine - too busy 'working on the railroad' to be too lonely. ;)
Richard
Streck-Fu
12-11-2009, 14:33
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) pier 12 Norfolk preparing for a Dec 26 departure to Desert Shield which became Desert Storm just after we transited the Suez Canal a matter of days later.
I was not 21 yet so no celebratory drinks for me...Those would come 48 days later and then again 45 days later.:p
Ret10Echo
12-11-2009, 14:38
1985....Wonju Korea. Bitter cold...the chow hall served up a pretty good meal and the Platoon did what platoons do. We were a pretty tight bunch.
ZonieDiver
12-11-2009, 14:55
1) Being told in December 1970 while in Co. H, SFTG for Weapons training that I was to be one of the few not granted leave over Christmas - even though I had taken no leave since entering the Army in January. A couple days before Christmas at around 5:00 p.m. I was called in to see the the 1SG and told to "go". I packed quickly, shared a cab to Raleigh-Durham airport with two other trainees. I was able to get on a TWA flight to St. Louis' Lambert Field with a reservation and then flew "stand-by" from there.On the flight to Kansas City, I was one of a few stand-bys to get on - military and college students.
Kansas City's airport was packed. The flight to Amarillo was pretty full. There were more than a dozen stand-bys, including me and two other Army types in uniform. The midnight departure of the flight approached, and the gate agent, a middle-aged man, was going off duty. When the new one came on, a younger guy, the older guy said, "We have all these stand-bys, but those three (pointing to the three of us sitting together) get on first. Got it?!?" And we did. I made it home for Christmas, after stops in Amarillo and Albuquerque. It felt good.
2) Christmas, 1971 at Ft. Kobbe, CZ. Those of us who didn't have leave loaded up a Duece and a Half with presents and drove over to a Panamanian village on the far side of Venado DZ, near the beach. We had one of the crankiest SSGs in the US Army - a short, round-bellied, Puerto Rican (he filled out the suit best) act as Santa Claus and pass out the presents to the kids.
That is when I first saw the magic that is SantaClaus. SSG Davila looked NOTHING like Santa - but the sparkle in those Panamanian kids' eyes said they believed he was. And, if only for that one day, he was.
Don't remember, it was Dec 1974.
Been out of the Q Course about a month, didn't take leave and was not in the field. I think I fell in love with the half day schedule.
Being in the brick three story barracks by the JFK Chapel we had a CQ & Runner in the Barracks, another CQ at Bn, a SDO, SDNCO & runner at Group plus the 17 or so folks at IMA/CMA Guard so I'm sure my idle time was filled. I do remember pulling all of them many times during the next few years.
LongWire
12-11-2009, 16:37
Dec 90, Basic Training, Sand Hill, Ft Benning Ga., No Christmas exodus due to Desert Shield and the call up of the IRR. Got to go to the Benning Main PX and Movie theater on Christmas Day. High Points for anyone in Basic Training no matter where you are.
DisplacedTrojan
12-11-2009, 19:19
OIF. Only one mission that day. But we got back early and played a game of risk with the Squadron XO and a bunch of guys from the three shop. The SXO was quoting Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. However, during his lectures on warfare and what have you... he left a back door open into his area. It was too tempting. He didn't last three turns. The look on his face was priceless.
Butting in long enough to say thank goodness I live in a country with men who will do this,,,,and do it for the right reasons.
God bless and thank you all!
Diesel submarine. Christmas 1963. JFK was dead and we had just left Yokosuka for a northern run. Northern Pacific playing tag with the Soviets. Running at 100ft on the batteries during the day and snorkel on main engines at night. (Days and nights were turned around to reduce noise levels.) 'Round noon (midnight?) the Radioman played some Christmas carols soft a gentle over the 1MC (loudspeaker). I was 18. My mom had died 3 years ago that night. Yeah, I rolled over into my pillow and sobbed a little. What the hell…you don't last long in submarines if you lie to people. On New Year's we were still on station (thanks to our relief slicking a bearing on their starboard shaft). Someone found a fifth of Canadian Club and that went pretty fast, then someone else managed to spill a little gilly (torpedo alcohol (and it wasn't "pink lady" either)) into the orange juice. We got underway from Yoko on the day JFK was shot and didn't get back until late February. Somehow we "expended for maintenance" 15 gallons of gilly on that cruise. There were other Christmas's. That was my first away from home. It's still my favorite holiday. Thanks for the thread.
Sinister
12-11-2009, 22:30
Ambush position in a gully avenue of approach east of Guard Post Ouelette, American sector, DMZ, Korea. Dressed in a whole buncha layers and Mickey Mouse boots, laying on an Ensolite pad.
No wind, it snowed 6 inches and I thought, "Ain't nobody coming over tonight."
The Christmas carols over the PSYOP PA speakers from the guard post were awesome in the quiet.
wiwarrior
12-12-2009, 04:06
Christmas 1992: Landing in Mogadishu and preped gear to get mission ready as soon as possible.
Bosnia/Butmir. 0730 over breakfast, was told it was going to be a light day, 0750 told the guys and ended up not having to lift a finger. Funny how a decent breakfast can change things with command. My guys thought i was the best (i didnt have anything to do with it, i didn't even try to play it that way). 1100, ran into some other folks from the other service(s)/JTF, they needed help at a local hospital where a bunch of kids were. I volunteered. My entire section ended up going. We wore uniforms and escorted Santa around the hospital as he passed out gifts to all the kids, majority being orphans. Lasted til 1700, came back, ate at DFAC, made some calls to the states. Great time by all.
Dec, '86, Guard Post Oulette, DMZ, Korea, also looking over my 60, LT need to test the claymores, one he forgot the test-kit, what a flash!!
Don't remember if it snowed, but sure do remember the cool, quite night after the flash.
Missed home, the first wife, and the way we do Christmas. The LT, he had a bad night, he got the LT Col to come up and say hi to us on Christmas day.
There where others, but this was my first.
BRAVO-SMASH
12-12-2009, 07:50
25DEC06 Iskandariyah Iraq. We where getting ready to head out to an IA CP/OP to do some area denial fire missions with the M224. While on the way out there, we got FRAGO to pull security for a MP patrol that just got hit with a nasty IED (which had a couple KIA) and escort them back to the FOB. The truck that was hit, its rear half was blown completely off. We ended up staying the rest of the night helping clean up the site. I had kept thinking to myself, how much it would suck for my son (whos birth I just missed) to have a father he has never meet. It was a very rough first Christmas away.
December 2000. On my first Remote, to Honduras. Spent Christmas Eve downtown with the orphanage we sponsored, and Christmas Day cooking Christmas Dinner in the O Club for everyone who wanted something other than Chow Hall food!!!:)
Even being away from my 2 year old daughter, and the love of my life, it was one of the best Christmases I can remember having.
1989 Sweating my ass off in panama, Giving Noriega his American X-mas gift. via 1/504 special delivery Just cause we could.
As I mentioned in my introduction, my first Christmas away from home was also my Best Christmas. My SF friends (old and new) took me tour skiing for a couple days in Bad Tölz.
Ivan (a Hawaiian in SF) was teaching his German wife (or girlfriend?) the wrong words for colors. She would point to something yellow, smile and say "blue!" Trying to keep a poker face through that was not easy. A German family took us in and made hot cocoa at 5AM with breakfast.
We had great moleskins and flexible bindings. It was priceless to see the people's faces on the ski lift for the first run of the day as we skied down on the fresh snow past them heading up. Somehow ski lifts have always seemed lame after that.
Most poignant moment in retrospect was a letter from Franz after he returned to Devens. He was worried that I had just put on a "brave front" as occasionally he noted I looked sad. I looked that way occasionally as I knew the trip couldn't last forever!
Living in the COSCOM Barracks attending the Q-Course 1984. Most everyone had split for the Holidays except a few of us privates who didn't have a life:D
BlackHills
12-13-2009, 09:20
I don't remember the first one. Other than knowing I was in the half that had leave over New Year's instead of Christmas (the BN was deploying to Okinawa in Feb) I'm drawing a blank.
My most memorable was 1989 in Bonn, Germany. I was friends with a local girl and she asked me to celebrate the holiday with her and her parents. I spent two days there with great people, good food and plenty of Glühwein.
Remington Raidr
12-13-2009, 09:59
Most people went home so I was sitting around with Chuck Julius of Rifle, CO. After sometime of reading comic books, I asked Chuck what he was chewing on. He produced a big plug of "Days-o-Work" chaw. We aint talking dip, son. Well, I'll try anything once (I have since modified this position :eek:). So, bout 30 mins later, I notice Chuck spit into a soda can. I asked what THAT was about. He smirked "well, ya aint been swolern than, have ya? I went from zero to violently ill in .0247 seconds. I was still a few months short of my 17th birthday. I have NEVER tried that again.
It was my 1st Christmas in the service. I had arrived in Augsburg, Germany from six months TDY to RVN. One of the other guys in my platoon was surprised by his parents who had come to Germany and wanted to take him away for the weekend. The problem was that he had guard duty that night. He offered $250 if anyone would take his guard. I figured that if he wanted to pay it and if I could get away with it (I was a corporal and exempt from GD) that I’d take the money and pull his duty. The guy paid me the money and I began to prepare for guard mount.
As luck would have it I was selected at guard mount as the colonel’s orderly and relieved from duty and sent back to the barracks. Upon arriving back at the barracks, I was asked if I would pull KP for another guy in my platoon. He had a date with his German girl friend and was desperate. I agreed and charged the guy another $250 to pull his duty. I arrived at the mess hall at 0430 hours and discovered that I was the first to get there. That meant that I could chose the job that I wanted. When the mess sergeant arrived an 0445 hours I told him that I would like to be the head count and he gave me the job.
I counted those entering the mess hall for the breakfast meal and at 0700 hours the mess sergeant decided that he had more than enough KP’s and he sent four of us back to the barracks.
That night I took a Taxi (paid for with a Kennedy Half Dollar) to a good German Restaurant and had a Wiener Schnitzel that cost 4 Marks. All in all a great Christmas and profitable as well. ( A private was only being paid $77.10 per month).