Christmas Past...

Alright…so here we go… Christmas Past…at least the Army ones anyway…here’s a quick re-cap for some of you…

Left for the basic training and Fort Knox in August of ’99 shortly after both turning 18 and graduating high school…went on to school at Fort Meade, Md. to learn how to be a “military journalist” before heading off for my first duty station which was none other than lovely Fort Bliss, Tx. all the way down in El Paso (yes, that’s sarcasm)…left there on my way to Wiesbaden, Germany in 2001…left Germany for Kuwait (my third trip no less) in late February/ early March of ’03…hit Iraq in May (a couple days before Mom’s birthday)…got back to Germany in February ’04…became retarded around June right before I reenlisted for three years under the premise that I would be going to stay at Fort Knox for a while…showed up here in Seoul in August of ’05 – so much for Fort Knox...

So heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere we go…

Christmas ’99 – This is a time early on in a young military career that should send off all kinds of flares and warning signals telling you that things are not always as they seem...after recently getting out of basic training, I’m up at Fort Meade in Md. only about 2 and a half hours from home, which was nice…anyway – come Christmas-time the Drill Sgt’s start enforcing upon everyone that YOU WILL GO HOME YOU BASTARDS…and that if you didn’t – they would do things to you that would make hell seem like a Baskin Robins Shop on a warm Sunday afternoon…oh we left folks…and why wouldn’t we – hell we were told we “had to” AND we’d get to go home and away from these crazy bastards for a while…little did we know that it would be a LONG TIME before we would be able to take leave again…taking that much leave, you see, put us all “in the hole” as they say, and we technically “owed” leave days to the Army because of our “forced” vacation…anyway that’s another story for another time…tricky tricky those drill sgt’s…

Well, I can’t remember how I got home – my father no doubt picked me up and brought me south to my mom’s house in the neighborhood…I probably don’t remember much of any of this because of the shock that was occurring throughout my system at seeing things “outside” of what had been my environment for the last five months…anyway, got home kinda late…happiness abounded and all was wonderful…things quieted down and I went off into the night in search of the homies…

Got home very late, or very early – depending on your point of view…and proceeded to pass out…knock, knock, knock…knocK, knOCK, KNOCK…

And suddenly something is a happening…my mom – in the darkness of my room – was asking me if I would go with her somewhere…what…will you ride with me she asks…and I’m thinking I’m either in a dream or she is…so I kinda say loudly WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT…will you ride with me to go pick up your bother…pick him up? WHAT are you TALKING ABOUT?...

…from the Police Station, she said softly…as she turned to go get him…

Christmas ’00 – I’m at Fort Bliss in the middle of El Paso, or North Jaurez (mexico) as I call it…I’m fairly certain that everyone went home to family and I stayed back at Bliss…it was my choice…I had pushed for, and been given, the opportunity to redesign the post newspaper which hadn’t been done in quite some time as I recall…so I spent the non-holiday days working with our civilian publisher and layout designer extraordinaire Val…and with our powers combined - we managed to create a very clean, airy, flowing design which I think everyone was pleased with when it debuted headlining (and scooping everyone else) the new Army slogan – ‘An Army of One’…ahhh good times…anyway – for Christmas I remember getting a sweet drawing of a drunkin’ Santa searching for his deer (and I’m certain something else with it) from Aaron and Dawn – ‘The Thackers’ – which I actually still have and laugh at from time to time…and on Christmas day I think it was around 65 or 70 degrees and I went out and played a little basketball against myself – I won! Ha!...

Christmas ’01 – I got to Germany right around the middle of December…BAD MOVE…I’m 19 in a new country – blah, blah – and so my NCO picks me up at the airport gets me to the unit…I “meet the first sgt.” and get a room…I’m a “senior specialist” so I’m upstairs with my own room – sweeeeet!...then pooof…everyone’s gone…everyone went home back to the states – including my NCO…

So I’m new in Germany, by myself in a room, in a practically empty building, AND my heat is out…not sweeeet…BUT, I call my homeboy – my old roommate from Fort Meade who happens to be married and living with his wife down in Heidelberg…he comes and gets me and I’m gonna spend the holidays with him and his peeps down there…a day and a half later – a day before Christmas – we’re sitting in the barracks room of some dude on leave that he knew – my buddy’s wife had kicked him out…awesome…so on Christmas we enjoyed ham sandwiches and mustard (‘cause we forgot to get mayonnaise) and drank a couple 40oz. Beers while playing NCAA Football on Playstation2...

Christmas ’02 – I went to a club in Germany (yes a club was open on Christmas Eve…and yes I of all non-clubbin’ people went to it) and we stayed out ‘til it closed… and my buddy got laid with my friend’s friend… and I let a girl (my friend) from Wuerzburg that wanted to get with ME sleep in my bed while I took the couch like a “gentleman” because I was oblivious to the fact that she was smitten with the Finch…I’m so lame…

Christmas ’03 – This was the day that I was supposed to get medi-vac’d out of Iraq and back to the Hospital in Germany…I was apparently dying which honestly sucked as I recall…I showed up at the hospital almost a week prior (thanks to the lovely Angela) after being sick for a couple days…at this point I couldn’t get up and I was very scared which was a shockingly new symptom…I got to the hospital around 9 or 10 p.m. and had a blood pressure of something in the neighborhood of 30 over 70…not quite sure what that means but from the way the doctors and what not reacted, I think I had just about had it…spent the next several days on an IV, high fever, constant blood tests, chills, medicine time, high fever, a little sleep, chills (they called this cyclic fevers which also, apparently, is a bad thing – I could honestly look at the clock and KNOW when the bastard 103 fever was gonna hit two or three times a day…very scary stuff folks…WahOOO!) the worst part was – besides the fact that NO ONE knew what was wrong with me – that I didn’t want anyone to call my mom ‘cause I didn’t want to freak her out…which worked out because one day my fever missed it’s appointment and I began to get my strength back (much thanks to the lovely Angela) and low and behold they released me on Christmas Day…I still sucked for about a week or so but at least I wasn’t still dying in the hospital…

And if you haven’t read the blog from yesterday – go ahead and get your fill of Christmas ’04…

And for the record – I’d like to say that this is in no way an attempt for sympathy or a way for me to whine and bitch about whatever…I’ve been thinking about the last couple Christmas’s for a week or two now and I just felt like reminiscing a bit…that and I needed to write...that and I wanted some sympathy… and to whine a little bit…shut up…