A Very Desert Christmas (standard:non fiction, 977 words)
Author: pjlawton	Added: Apr 25 2003	Views/Reads: 3237/2060	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Being away from home is especially hard at Christmas, sometimes little things can made it easier. Desert Shield/Storm 1990

A Very Desert Christmas 

By P.J. Lawton 

Everyone has a special Christmas, one that will remain forever in his or
her memory.  Some will remember a special gift, or maybe when all the 
family was able to get together.  Others will remember that first 
Christmas when their child begins to understand and is no longer afraid 
of the Mall Santa Claus.  My special Christmas memory is a little 
different. You could say that it had to do with my family, my expended 
family that is, and what I like to consider as a Very Desert Christmas. 


My military unit shipped out and arrived in Saudi Arabia for Operation
Desert Shield on October 3rd, 1990.  After a week spent waiting for all 
our equipment to arrive we moved forward to our desert position. Most 
of us were not to see a town or village for over six months. The 
battalion consisted of five companies; four were regular Army and one 
National Guard comprising approximately 780 men.  Since we were a 
combat unit, no women were assigned. 

After about a month some of our mail finally began to catch up with us. 
A few soldiers began to receive mail pretty regularly, while others 
hardly seemed to get any at all. To help the situation, around the end 
of November we started to receive 'Any Soldier' mail from folks back 
home.  As Platoon Sergeant of the battalion headquarters platoon, the 
mail was one of my responsibilities.  Knowing the importance of mail to 
morale, I tried to insure that the 'Any Soldier' mail was distributed 
equally and encouraged those who received little mail to read and 
answer several letters. 

In December we started to receive a large quantity of 'Any Soldier'
packages.  As Christmas got closer, we were receiving as many as 50 to 
75 packages each day.  One of my soldiers came to me with what I 
thought to be a magnificent idea.  His idea was simple; hold the 'Any 
Soldier' packages and not distribute them until Christmas Eve.  This 
way we could insure that all soldiers and especially those without 
families would get something for Christmas. By Christmas Eve we had 
accumulated several hundred packages, almost enough to fill a small 
tent. 

About three days before Christmas, I had received a package from my wife
and daughter that contained a small three-foot Christmas tree, fully 
decorated.  I set it up in the common area of our tent so that all 
could enjoy it. Some soldiers in my platoon had received packages from 
home and started putting them under the tree to wait for Christmas Eve. 
 This way all could enjoy the opening of gifts; even they hadn't 
received any of their own. 

Christmas Eve morning started like many others had, really cold with the
usual, almost daily, dust storm.  From the looks of our area of 
operation, one wouldn't know it was almost Christmas.  Since we were 
'visitors' to this Moslem country it had been determined that we should 
not have any decorations that might offend our 'hosts'.  Putting up any 
outside decorations, especially religious ones were unauthorized. Of 
course that didn't stop us from decorating as best we inside our living 
areas. 

After the daily mail run, I sent word to all unit First Sergeants' to
come and pick up the mail and packages for their units.  To insure even 
distribution, I had five areas set up outside the mail tent, one for 
each company.  Each 'Any Soldier' package had a customs tag indicating 
what was inside. To ensure that they were distributed fairly, I had the 
mail handler's divide the packages into even piles purely at random 
without reading the labels.  By the time we had dispersed them, there 
were many packages of all shapes and sizes in each pile. 

I don't know how the other companies distributed the packages; however,
ours was done this way.  I sent for the Platoon Sergeants and divided 
the packages from our Company's pile equally among them.   Each Platoon 
Sergeant could then decide how to have his own Platoon's Christmas 
party. The soldiers of my platoon placed their packages around our tiny 
Christmas tree. 

After dinner we had our Christmas celebration. One of the soldiers had


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