I have found that the Christmases that don't look like Norman Rockwell's usually prove to be just as memorable as any others. Christmas 1967, which I spent near the DMZ in Vietnam, is one I remember vividly and fondly even after forty years.
We were awash in greeting cards, home-made cookies and candy, and little gifts which were sent to "a Marine in Vietnam" by total strangers. We had posters signed by school children all around the mess hall. The press would present those times as cruel ones for soldiers and Marines shunned and reviled by society, but we were actually very well-remembered, and not just by our own friends and families.
Christmas Eve we went to Midnight Mass in a large and lovely church in the countryside near Quang Tri, the roof of which was mostly missing. A Vietnamese priest, a French priest and a Lutheran chaplain concelebrated the Mass. Probably not even Pope John XXIII could have approved of that arrangement, but fortunately all concerned thought it better not to ask. We sang verses of "Silent Night" alternately in French, Vietnamese and English. We all sang "Adeste Fideles" in Latin, and each nationality sang one favorite Christmas carol in its own language during communion . The Marines sang "O Little Town of Bethlehem," and, my, did it sound amazing sung softly and a capella by three or four hundred men.
That Christmas there was a 48 hour truce, so we were given two beers each. (The Marines did not allow alcohol in the combat zones, so this was quite an unusual treat). On Christmas Day we (the regimental command group) loaded into a couple of Amtracs and went all over northern Quang Tri Province visiting the Marines at each location, and on Christmas night, instead of the usual command post operations, we played cards and board games. I only played bridge twice in Vietnam, and that was one of the times.
We were awash in greeting cards, home-made cookies and candy, and little gifts which were sent to "a Marine in Vietnam" by total strangers. We had posters signed by school children all around the mess hall. The press would present those times as cruel ones for soldiers and Marines shunned and reviled by society, but we were actually very well-remembered, and not just by our own friends and families.
Christmas Eve we went to Midnight Mass in a large and lovely church in the countryside near Quang Tri, the roof of which was mostly missing. A Vietnamese priest, a French priest and a Lutheran chaplain concelebrated the Mass. Probably not even Pope John XXIII could have approved of that arrangement, but fortunately all concerned thought it better not to ask. We sang verses of "Silent Night" alternately in French, Vietnamese and English. We all sang "Adeste Fideles" in Latin, and each nationality sang one favorite Christmas carol in its own language during communion . The Marines sang "O Little Town of Bethlehem," and, my, did it sound amazing sung softly and a capella by three or four hundred men.
That Christmas there was a 48 hour truce, so we were given two beers each. (The Marines did not allow alcohol in the combat zones, so this was quite an unusual treat). On Christmas Day we (the regimental command group) loaded into a couple of Amtracs and went all over northern Quang Tri Province visiting the Marines at each location, and on Christmas night, instead of the usual command post operations, we played cards and board games. I only played bridge twice in Vietnam, and that was one of the times.
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