As I watched this year’s Army-Navy football game, I could not help but recall my own service in the U.S. Army long ago. I especially remembered being away from home in Long Binh, Vietnam, during the 1967 Christmas season, and in the Be’er Sheva Valley of Israel the following year.
The Christmas holidays can be a very lonely time for someone in the military, regardless of location if the service member is not at home. Friends and family are missed more than ever.
In Vietnam, we set up a small artificial tree in our “hootch,” and gave each other gifts. We tried to cheer each other up as best we could. Most of us received packages from home. A friend from California sent me a large box containing six coffee cans. Each can was filled with cookies she had made, and every cookie was wrapped in cellophane with a red bow on top.
On Christmas Day, Bob Hope showed up at a large amphitheater our Army engineers had built complete with sandbags to sit on. It was a memorable show in Long Binh.
In the Israeli desert there was no Bob Hope, no show, no Christmas tree, only rocks and sand. We could not even tell our folks where we were, because everything we did was classified.
We learned that the birth of Christ was primarily celebrated around Jerusalem where most of the Christians in Israel lived. The rest of the country was mainly populated by adherents of the Jewish and Muslim religions. Christmas was just another day, but I did receive an Israeli army beret from my fellow soldiers.
If you know someone who is serving in the military, please do everything you can to make their Christmas holidays special. Remind them that you care.
Luciano S. Martinez, Murray
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