First Christmas away from home while in the service........... - Page 2

LarryW · 12-11-2009, 20:31

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.

stickey · 12-12-2009, 05:52

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.

albeham · 12-12-2009, 06:45

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.

afchic · 12-12-2009, 10:26

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.

7624U · 12-12-2009, 11:02

1989 Sweating my ass off in panama, Giving Noriega his American X-mas gift. via 1/504 special delivery Just cause we could.

98G · 12-13-2009, 08:23

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!

kgoerz · 12-13-2009, 09:13

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

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.

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

). 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.

f50lrrp · 12-14-2009, 12:53

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).