Posted on 11/23/2017 9:46:45 AM PST by US Navy Vet
Where were you on your first Thanksgiving and Christmas in the Military?
The real thrill was seeing people, not all dressed in green at the chapel. I incidentally saw my senior MTIs family. Boy did he have a gracious and good looking wife with a most wonderful smile.
Oh, and my first Christmas I was back at Kelly getting ready for 3 months in Greenland doing a major upgrade of the tropospheric scatter radios up and down the Dew Line (Dye 1 through Dye 4 + Sonderstrom).
First Thanksgiving I was at Ft Knox in either Motor Officer course or M60A2 Transition course. 1974. First Christmas I was on leave before going to Germany. Next 3 Christmas and Thanksgiving were in Kirch-Gowns with 3AD.
The ROK.
Just outside of Xuan Loc, RVN with the 9th Inf, 3/5 Cav, ‘67.
Had a great meal, Turkeys delivered by helicopter but the trimmings AND rolls was done by our field cooks who traveled with us 24/7.
Lackland AFB for basic in ‘61.
Keesler AFB, MS RADAR school. The next two were in Berlin and the last one in Fortuna AFS, ND.
I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
NAS Dallas
I was lucky...just finished boot camp and flew straight home for Thanksgiving!
Unknowingly said the”F” word at max volume while relating a boot camp story, and wondered for a second why 30 members of my family were just staring open mouthed at me!
Home on leave having just completed Navy boot camp. Timed it that way. Hit my first duty station after on 12/31
Lowry AFB, Denver. School was a loooong time and by the time Thanksgiving came around the few of us in school were best of friends and spent it together.
Both were at The Basic School, Quantico, in 1968. The next were in I Corps, RVN.
You were on leave for both Thanksgiving and Christmas?
It was in 1968 and I think I was in the middle of Radio “C” school in San Diego. Nothing pops up as memorable so I probably had watch duty. In fact, I have about no memories of any of the four.
Do you remember unrepping with USS Mars (AFS 1)? If you did I was on it.
1966 - Infantry OCS Ft. Benning, GA for Thanksgiving. I seem to remember having enough time off for Christmas to go home to TX, but that was a long time ago to remember.
1967 - Thanksgiving in II Corps and Christmas in I Corps.
What year, this could be one heck of a coincidence.
Uhwarrie National Forest doing Robin Sage.
Think I got a C Ration that day.
Actually, I was in boot camp. I went Oct 12, and that first Thanksgiving, I was still in RTC Orlando. A week or so later, mail call had letter(s) and pictures from my mom. Of course, the ham, turkey, dressing et al. were prominent in the Polaroid pictures. Made me so mad, since we had crap to eat (I mean, it WAS boot camp).
Still have the picture, and love it.
Thanksgiving was Mosul, Christmas was Baghdad (2007).
Had patrols to do on Thanksgiving, but the food was amazing. No mission on Christmas, but we moved from the airport FOBs to an East Baghdad FOB for a mission the next day just south of Sadr City. The food was amazing there, too, but the FOB got hit by mortar fire regularly, so we had to eat in our body armor.
I do remember driving through Baghdad early in the morning and seeing a group of Iraqi Christians lining up to go into a church downtown at about 0500. It was pretty amazing—those people could easily have been killed for that act by any number of terrorist groups.
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