As Christmas Eve merges with Christmas Day, many thousands of Americans, most of them between the ages of 18 and 23, will be on watch in Arkansas, around the country and around the world. They'll be on duty at Little Rock Air Force Base and near the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. They'll be with special operations forces in Syria and East Africa. They'll be operating navy and coast guard ships in the Pacific and the Atlantic. Many of the gifts we'll open on Dec. 24-25 came to the U.S. via shipping lanes these sailors keep open.
On Christmas 1966, Bud Strope was west of Da Nang in South Vietnam. He remembers walking all night and climbing a mountain. He remembers being ambushed by North Vietnamese forces. He remembers blowing up a tree with a mine to make room for a helicopter to medevac wounded Marines. He remembers buying rice from villagers that had black specks that turned out to be bugs, which he ate. Christmas was "just another day."
On Christmas Day 1967, helicopter pilot Mike Bryant, a Siloam Springs resident who graduated from JBU after returning from Vietnam, flew a chaplain to a company of Marines commanded by Doug Chamberlain, who had finished at JBU a few years before. "There was a truce that would end at 6 p.m. that evening," Mike says. "We felt safe in shutting down and having a visit. Needless to say, the bad guys broke the truce early, and it was back to business."
By Christmas 1969, Jack Parente had accumulated three Purple Hearts and was given a chance for a second R&R outside Vietnam. He went to Taiwan, where a woman who turned out to the U.S. ambassador's wife invited him and another soldier to Christmas dinner. His tour in Vietnam ended a couple weeks later. He says he's grateful to the ambassador and his wife for giving him "a chance to remember what it meant to act like a civilized person before returning home to my family."
On Dec. 25, 1970, Marty Corcoran was on the Cambodian border. There had been Howitzer missions the evening before, but Christmas Day was quiet. "We had a hot meal choppered in--turkey with potatoes, green beans and pumpkin pie," he says. "A lot of our guys got 'care packages' from home. Everyone was sharing their mom's cookies. That afternoon I got my Christmas present: I got 'promoted' and got my own Howitzer for the remainder of my tour. Just another day in the 'Nam.'"
Jack Billups remembers soldiers in the field putting up Christmas symbols sent from home, but mostly the day passed unmarked. It was a time for personal reflection.
Forrest Lindsey's Christmas in 1966 was a little different. A truce with the North Vietnamese was in place, he says, and "our officers relaxed the rules a bit and allowed us to have alcohol: All sorts of different whiskeys, gin, vodka--all mixed with orange-flavored Kool-Aid in a large pot. Everyone got silly, stupid drunk and the memories are not something we would likely want anyone to hear about. Fortunately, nobody called for artillery support that night and the hangovers on Christmas day were awful."
Different as these Christmas experiences were, these veterans all share the experience of intense combat.
There's a lot of empty sentimentality about military service. But it isn't sentimental to be grateful to the veterans who gave up much more than a Christmas at home to help give South Vietnam (or Iraq or Afghanistan) a chance.
And it isn't sentimental to think of the twenty-year-olds who, as I write, are checking IDs at base gates, or giving signals on aircraft carrier flight decks, or making preparations in Air Force chow halls, or guarding U.S. embassies, or navigating submarines, or training with allies. Or just being there, on watch.
-- Preston Jones oversees the "War & Life" project, where discussions with Strope, Parente, Corcoran, Bryant, Billups and Lindsey are posted. Contact [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.