JOINT BASE BALAD — The sight may have been out of the ordinary, but for some strange reason, seeing reindeer, sleighs and Santa Claus detained by U.S. Navy Customs agents did not surprise service members here Christmas Day.
This odd scene took place along the route of the inaugural Joint Base Balad Holiday Parade, sponsored by the U.S. Army’s 3rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), and displayed the sense of tradition U.S. servicemembers try to maintain while deployed to a war zone.
Airman 1st Class Monique Julien, an intelligence analyst with the 332nd Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron, organized and led the creation and display of the Panther’s Airman Advisory Council float, one of six floats in the parade.
“I think Rudolph is the ultimate wingman, so I thought I’d pull that in and make it ‘Rudolph Reindeer Games’ so we could just have fun with it,” said Julien, describing the theme of her float. “Everybody knows the whole story of how he had to step up to complete Santa’s mission, and that’s kind of what everybody does here at Balad.”
Julien, the PAAC treasurer and a native of Abilene, Texas, designed Rudolph, formerly a four-wheeled off-road utility vehicle, with several inspirational messages such as: “Every little thing is important” and “Put your hooves where your mouth is.”
And while Julien, who is deployed from Scott Air Force Base, Ill., had a vision of showing servicemembers how their jobs contribute to the global war on terrorism, others simply wanted to do something different for the holidays. Airman 1st Class Jessica Collins, a PAAC volunteer from the 55th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, helped by attaching decorations to the vehicle.
“We put this float together to represent what we can do out here,” said Collins, a native of California City, Calif., who is deployed from Shaw Air Force Base, S.C. “Even though we’re away from our families and it’s hard for the troops to be here during the holiday season, it’s always good to know that we can have fun out here.”
(By Senior Airman Thomas Trower, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs)