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Date Posted: Thu, March 29 2007, 9:21:52
Author: dave wright
Author Host/IP: email.ci.grants-pass.or.us / 68.185.0.17
Subject: Re: Christmas Away From Home
In reply to: Jim Parkinson 's message, "Christmas Away From Home" on Sat, March 24 2007, 7:00:32

I'd been walking point every third day for the past few weeks. It was hot and dry, not like Christmas at all. We lost one or two men on each succeeding mission, walks through the jungle were endless and everyone was exhausted, tense and irritable.

It didn't make sense that people at home were scurrying about getting last minute gifts, preparing sumptuous family feasts and gathering together, enjoying each other's company in warmth and peace.

We came back to Lai Khe for a short stand down. A huge package was waiting for me. Through a hole ripped in the corner (I'm sure others wanted to see what is was before it got to me) there it was. A live, fully decorated Christmas tree my fiancée had sent as a special gift.

It wasn't Christmas here. There were no tender sentiments of the season. Young men, now killers, were hardened against getting too close to one another. We became somber, each man turned inward to bear his loneliness in isolation. Joy was a lifetime away. There was no bridge over the dread of death and those souls already lost.

The gaily decorated tree was a symbol of everything Vietnam was not. Reality was different here. It was another universe where things from home didn't fit. Some got drunk, some loaded. I was still an FNG, a cherry that had never smoked dope and didn't think getting drunk at Christmas would be fun. I didn't fit in. In my mind and theirs, I wasn't a part of the brotherhood yet. I couldn't bring myself to risk putting up the tree. It seems foolish now, but then, it was too personal to expose to the ugliness of war.

We were back in the jungle for New Year's Eve. There was still a holiday truce when we were ambushed and lost a point man from the third platoon on New Year's day. Nothing had changed.

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