Posted on 12/15/2005 9:29:14 PM PST by GodBlessUSA
I forgot you have a house full coming. It will be so fun seeing everyone you have not seen in a while and all together too. It will be a wonderful party, I'm sure. No stressing, LOL, you will do a fantastic job! :)
Thank you for the Christmas carols, GBUSA!
...and God bless you and your family this Christmas season and throughout the new year!
PAL
Thank You so very much PAL
I wish you and your loved ones a Blessed Christmas and New year. :)
Freema, thank you for sending us the information and very poignant poem from Sgt. Murray's heart, and thank you so much, GeeBee, for the beautiful way you jumped in and put it together, and on such short notice.
Also love this Christmas music and I'm saving some to my desktop so that I will have them on my harddrive and won't have to wait for *buffering*! Listening to Greensleeves right now - and the little kitty looks like he's playing piano to the beat!
|
This is beautiful Billie. I'm so happy to be included here at the Finest. Thank you so much for everything.
I don't think it's quite old hat yet though. LOL :)
i have downloaded them as well so that i can listen to them either on my computer or my hi fi
|
| GeeBee |
I really enjoyed "Greensleeves," Gracie. It's a classic, just like you!
Thank you! See you Monday, gotta go for the day!
Gotta go for the day, Billie, see you Monday! Enjoy the weekend!
PAL
freema, we are indebted to you for sharing this story, so typical of the hearts of our American protectors and heroes.
If you did not know, I am a USMC veteran of the Korean Conflict, instructing women recruits in classroom subjects at Parris Island.
My first Christmas there was in 1952, aboard a base where graduating recruits were usually flown directly to the West Coast and ships to take them to combat in Korea. A few Marines stationed on base I had dated, some afterward sent to Korea, and it *always* was heartwrenching when I heard from my classroom near the airfield (since relocated) those flights taking off to go to combat.
That Christmas I spent on base - the next as a young married woman in nearby Beaufort, followed by Rochester, NY, Chincoteague, Virginia, 2 more back in Rochester; and then 4 in Florida with my two little boys and parents.
In October 1961, I married a Korean Conflict Marine veteran who had reentered the Air Force. The boys and I were placed on a flight from Florida to join him in Rapid City, South Dakota (Ellsworth AFB) at 10 p.m. on December 23rd. (It turned out to be the very last time I spoke with /saw my mother).
We went to Atlanta, and transferred to a flight to Chicago's O'Hare Airport - the first time in 3 days flights could land there because of blizzards!
We had to sit there in a cold hangar until 0400 when the next leg to Minneapolis/St. Paul was to depart...it after boarding sat on the runway an hour because another plane had skidded into and was stuck on the path our flight had to use for takeoff.
As a consequence, we missed the connecting flight to Rapid City, and spent the day until the next flight out in the M/St.Paul terminal. Imagine how sleep-deprived I was by then, after packing and traveling for two days! I was blessed with two wonderful boys, 6 and 7, who were extremely well-behaved, and I could let them roam within sight of me while I was rather zonked in and out, sitting upright.
Finally boarding the United flight to Rapid City, it was nearly empty, and two wonderful stewardesses took charge of Steve and Kevin so I could sleep. They took them into the cabin, gave then wings to wear, fed them - truly flying angels with a capital A!!
We thus on Christmas Eve circled Rapid City to land, the heavy snow beneath quite lovely, and my husband and a good friend were there to greet us. He had secured an upstairs apartment, and he and Dennis had set up and decorated a small tree - our first - and had presents beneath. In two hours, it was our first Christmas as a family.
On Christmas Day, we had dinner at the mess hall on base.
In the next year, as many here know, we had a daughter on September 30th, and 2 weeks later the Cuban Missile Crisis put our life in real jeopardy, Ellsworth AFB the #2 target should Russia let missiles fly and world war commence..
The next event followed quickly - orders for Fairbanks, Alaska, leaving the night after Christmas Day 1962! For the boys' sake and because it was our daughter's first Christmas, we Christmas Eve got a full-sized tree for them, taking it down the 26th. The boys (then 7 and 8) were impressed that we would be leaving the night of the 26th, driving through Canada around the top of the Rockies and over the Alaska Highway, and above the base south of Fairbanks is North Pole, Alaska..:))
We celebrated New Years Day 1963 with a midday dinner at the historic hotel at Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway.
We had 3 Christmases in Fairbanks, and then went to Myrtle Beach AFB, SC, ariving 1 July 1066.
The second Christmas there was a very lonely one for me, Bernie having left for Southeast Asia on October 7th, 1967.
This was before email and we could not afford long distance calls, and I typed long letters to him every day.
I taught that year at the base school (grades 1-8) where the boys were in the 7th and 8th grades, with all male teachers - a real plus! (Jennifer, 5, was in kindergarten)
We went to spend Christmas Day 1967 in Summerton, SC with my two sisters and their families, so the children had a lot of cousins to enjoy the day.
Bernie returned from Southeast Asia on October 7th, 1968 and we moved 2 days later on our anniversary (in heavy rain) to Charleston AFB, SC, where we had a really sparse Christmas (small doll for Jennifer and a Life board game for the boys and us; extra Gaines burger for the dog), on half pay for 6 months, and after absorbing the extra costs of the move - no base quarters - our last one in military service.
We were, however, TOGETHER, and that was all that counted!
Rather than go back for another year to Southeast Asia, as orders were soon to be cut, with the boys in high school, he left service 1 July 1969 and went into retail management, as I did (later 19 years in and around medicine), in Florida, and thereafter other states. (North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina again - then we retired here to South Carolina in 1995.)
It was never a hardship thing for me, with Christmases far from my Florida 'home'..."home" is wherever God would send me, I determined at a very early age, and Christmas is to be celebrated every day of every month of every year....it is even more so now, not dependent upon glitter and gifts and 'things' - -
Bottom Line: we have been given The Ultimate Gift!
The pleasure is all mine!
We don't have them where I am, and I don't know if they exist anymore. I grew up in the north and LOVED to go there as a child. Condi's remark is in reference to the Civil Rights sit-ins here in North Carolina during the 1960's...
http://www.hampsteadchamber.com/A%20Southern%20Primer/woolworths.htm
Thank YOU, Billie!!
What a wonderful retrospective on military Christmases, something that I rarely pause to think about (even though I spent two Christmases 'in the Corps').
I made a couple big trips with small children, and it was NUTS!!! However...
speaking of the Cuban Missle Crisis!! My rector was in the Navy at Guantanamo Bay with a wife and three small children during the Bay of Pigs. The family was loaded on a destroyer with nothing really but the clothes on their back, arriving in cold Norfolk three days later.
It's good to think specifically about the extraordinary things families 'experience' to give a real perspective to civilians' lives. Thank you for sharing yours!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
