cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
24 December 1968, Lai Khe: It was the strangest Christmas Eve I had ever experienced. It began like most of the other days I had spent in Vietnam. A cold shower followed by a cold water shave, then putting on fatigues and boots, walking to the mess hall for breakfast and then down to the office.
It was a dull gray and hazy day so that I could imagine that it was, in fact, December There was nothing to tell you that today was any different from any other except the continuous Christmas music being poured out by the jocks at AFVN. It was hard to tell which song agonized troops the most; Elvis's Blue Christmas or Johnny Mathis's I'll be Home for Christmas.
Willy, Wayne and I plotted out our next Duty First show. Then I did my afternoon gig at K-L-I-K, adding still more Christmas music to the Vietnamese airwaves.
In between I found time to continue my feud with Sgt. Jay Smith over the swivel chair. It was childish, I knew, but I just couldn't let go of it. On 15 November, the day I arrived, I located an empty desk. Behind it sat a metal folding chair. I looked around. The other writers, photographers and clerks all had folding chairs, the draftsman had a stool. Lieutenants Soderholm, Nicolla and McEwen had swivel chairs. And then there was the swivel chair sitting behind Smith's empty desk.
I made the swap. Tough shit and RHIP (Rank Has Its Privileges).
I told myself that it wasn't a reaction based on mere whim. I needed a swivel chair when I was back working at my desk so that I could scoot around all the script sheets we laid out.
The duel had been going on for a month now. In saner moments I realized that Smith and I should have been able to work something out. Our days in base camp overlapped once or twice a week at most. There was no reason that we couldn't share the chair except that I hadn't started out with compromise as a goal. Off to a bad start, the thing just kept escalating into a test of will and rank.
I came back to the office after dinner, made sure the swivel chair was behind my desk, and decided that it was time to open the box I had received from Uncle Cliff and Aunt Rose. It was at least a yard tall and more than a foot square. It was fairly hefty and clearly marked, "Open on Christmas Eve."
I pried the top of the box open and stared in. It was stuffed with newspaper. I pulled that out until my hand rested on something prickly. I reached in and grasped what appeared to be the top and discovered a miniature Christmas tree. A string of tiny lights had been carefully strung around the branches. Green, red, orange, and yellow sour balls were attached in lieu of glass ornaments.
It was wonderful. I sat it down on top of my desk to the cheers of everyone else in the office. We fluffed out the branches and located an extension cord. Willy plugged it in and the tree blazed away.
There was a letter from Uncle Cliff inside the box.
Dear Woody,
I hope this finds you well. We thought about what to send you and then I remembered the little tree Rose mailed to me back in '44. Our division (75th) was one of the first ones hit by the German offense on the 16th. My battalion had just come off the front line, all tired and dirty and pretty much shook up. We sat around our tent and everyone was scared, homesick, remembering, wondering what everyone was doing back in the US and then I got this package. I opened it up and there was a little Christmas tree. Rose threw in a small set of lights figuring I'd find some way to get them to work. My buddies and I went to work on it and soon had it blazing away. I hope you can find a way to share this tree with your buddies to let them know that folks back here are thinking and praying for all of you.
Merry Christmas and may next year find you back with us.
Love,
Cliff and Rose
I remembered him talking about that tree at family gatherings, the perfect timing of its arrival, how they stole a battery from the motor pool to get the lights to work, how Aunt Rose had packed the box with plain popcorn to keep it from breaking on the boat trip and how they gobbled down the popcorn even though it was more than a month old.
A week later he was wounded and the tree followed him to the hospital. His tree helped him through the darkest moments of his life, constantly reminding him that he was loved and missed by his wife and family back home.
An achy lump came to my throat along with a sudden knowledge that I was being missed as the families gathered back in Dayton.
Major Chick got wind of the tree and came over to admire it. "Do you mind if we put it in the off-duty room?" he asked.
I knew Uncle Cliff would want it there, so I unplugged the tree and turned it over to him.
While I was setting the tree up in the main tent Smith took the chair from my desk. I came back to work and our game began again. I looked around, saw Smith and picked up a folding chair and got back to my desk work. A few minutes later Smith was called into the main office and I grabbed the swivel chair.
By now most of the others had quit off for the day and were knocking down beers at the enlisted men's club. Smith came back from his meeting, spied the missing chair and decided to bring this thing to an end. "Sir, that's my chair. I was here in the office long before you got here, it's my chair!"
"Sergeant, I don't care how long you've been here. There are only four swivel chairs in the office and they belong to the officers."
We went on like that for several minutes before I played my trump card. "Sergeant, I don't give a shit what you think or how long you've been here. It's my chair and if you want to take this up with Major Chick then let's go see him now and get it over with."
Smith turned on his heel, blasted out the door, giving it an extra slam as he exited, heading for his hooch.
I returned to writing scripts and letters home.
Night settled about the base camp. Specialist Brian Huckaby's family had sent us a string of outdoor lights. We strung these around the tent. Other families had contributed cardboard cut-outs of Santa, reindeer and sleigh, candy canes and mounds of snow.
I set my camera up to take a picture of it all. The lights did their best to add color to the flat, olive green drabness of the tent. A string of three starlight shells burst from the perimeter and hung in the night sky above us. Bright gold, they drifted in the wind and seemed to beckon us like the star which guided the Wise Men.
Willy entered the tent, "Hey, Lieutenant, Wayne and I are going over to the chapel in Third Brigade area for candlelight service. Why don't you join us?"
The chapel was nothing more than a GP medium over a concrete pad. As I recall it was not protected by the usual buffer walls of sand filled wooden ammunition boxes. The side flaps were rolled up so that the top and the poles were visible. We were each handed a small candle as we entered.
We sat together, and listened to the Christmas message. The lights were turned off and a single candle blazed on the alter. The Chaplin lit his candle from it and then lit the candle of a soldier in the first row who passed the light on to the man on his left. The warm glow spread slowly through the tent until it glowed like the illumination rounds we had seen earlier. We sang Christmas carols and prayed.
From the perimeter came the chatter of small arms. Two loud pops followed as our outposts fired off illumination rounds. The small arms fire intensified, close enough that we could hear the pops of the friendly M-16s and the cracks of the enemy's AK-47s. A few seconds passed and then came the distinctive thud, thud, thud, thud, thud -- thud, thud, thud, thud, thud -- of the big fifty caliber machine gun.
Here we were, celebrating the arrival of the Prince of Peace, and just outside the perimeter a small fire fight was storming. Was war stronger than Christmas?
I took it to heart.
I thought about my luck, that I was well within the perimeter and that others were risking their necks so that I could enjoy this ceremony. I thought about my family and wished that I could let go of my confusion and anger about them. I realized that for all our differences we were family and we cared about each other. I thought of my good fortune to have Willy and Wayne, good friends, to share these days with and to help me through this experience. Finally, I thought about Sergeant Jay Smith.
We left the candle lit tent and shuffled along the dark paths back to the office. I went to my desk to see if I had put everything away. There was Smith, all alone, writing a letter home. I went over to my desk and grabbed the swivel chair and began pushing it toward his desk, noticing along the way that he was determined not to acknowledge my presence.
"Jay, I'm sorry. Here's the desk chair. It's yours. I didn't mean to pull rank that way. I just got mad and let it take control. I don't want to spend this particular night feeling that way."
Jay was caught completely by surprise. His face contorted in confusion and then he smiled. "Thanks, Lieutenant."
Jay stuck out his hand and we shook. I turned and walked out of the tent heading for O club and a night cap of scotch.
I held the tumbler in my hand, enjoying the amber color. I thought about the past month and how my emotions built without my realizing it. I thought of all the family Christmas's past, remembered prized gifts, remembered the wonderful days afterwards when my friends and I would run from house to house comparing bounties and playing the games we'd just received or trying out the new basketball in Foster's driveway.
It had been a wonderful childhood and I was never more aware of that fact.
I now recognized the importance of this season with a depth I could not have obtained without living through the experience. I murmured a toast to Dad, Uncle Ray, Uncle Bill and the soul of Uncle Bobby, those veteran heroes of my youth, and then to Uncle Cliff, his Tannenbaum, the rest of my family and the Christ child. Maybe the war would go on, but at least for this night I could let go of my anger.
It was a dull gray and hazy day so that I could imagine that it was, in fact, December There was nothing to tell you that today was any different from any other except the continuous Christmas music being poured out by the jocks at AFVN. It was hard to tell which song agonized troops the most; Elvis's Blue Christmas or Johnny Mathis's I'll be Home for Christmas.
Willy, Wayne and I plotted out our next Duty First show. Then I did my afternoon gig at K-L-I-K, adding still more Christmas music to the Vietnamese airwaves.
In between I found time to continue my feud with Sgt. Jay Smith over the swivel chair. It was childish, I knew, but I just couldn't let go of it. On 15 November, the day I arrived, I located an empty desk. Behind it sat a metal folding chair. I looked around. The other writers, photographers and clerks all had folding chairs, the draftsman had a stool. Lieutenants Soderholm, Nicolla and McEwen had swivel chairs. And then there was the swivel chair sitting behind Smith's empty desk.
I made the swap. Tough shit and RHIP (Rank Has Its Privileges).
I told myself that it wasn't a reaction based on mere whim. I needed a swivel chair when I was back working at my desk so that I could scoot around all the script sheets we laid out.
The duel had been going on for a month now. In saner moments I realized that Smith and I should have been able to work something out. Our days in base camp overlapped once or twice a week at most. There was no reason that we couldn't share the chair except that I hadn't started out with compromise as a goal. Off to a bad start, the thing just kept escalating into a test of will and rank.
I came back to the office after dinner, made sure the swivel chair was behind my desk, and decided that it was time to open the box I had received from Uncle Cliff and Aunt Rose. It was at least a yard tall and more than a foot square. It was fairly hefty and clearly marked, "Open on Christmas Eve."
I pried the top of the box open and stared in. It was stuffed with newspaper. I pulled that out until my hand rested on something prickly. I reached in and grasped what appeared to be the top and discovered a miniature Christmas tree. A string of tiny lights had been carefully strung around the branches. Green, red, orange, and yellow sour balls were attached in lieu of glass ornaments.
It was wonderful. I sat it down on top of my desk to the cheers of everyone else in the office. We fluffed out the branches and located an extension cord. Willy plugged it in and the tree blazed away.
There was a letter from Uncle Cliff inside the box.
Dear Woody,
I hope this finds you well. We thought about what to send you and then I remembered the little tree Rose mailed to me back in '44. Our division (75th) was one of the first ones hit by the German offense on the 16th. My battalion had just come off the front line, all tired and dirty and pretty much shook up. We sat around our tent and everyone was scared, homesick, remembering, wondering what everyone was doing back in the US and then I got this package. I opened it up and there was a little Christmas tree. Rose threw in a small set of lights figuring I'd find some way to get them to work. My buddies and I went to work on it and soon had it blazing away. I hope you can find a way to share this tree with your buddies to let them know that folks back here are thinking and praying for all of you.
Merry Christmas and may next year find you back with us.
Love,
Cliff and Rose
I remembered him talking about that tree at family gatherings, the perfect timing of its arrival, how they stole a battery from the motor pool to get the lights to work, how Aunt Rose had packed the box with plain popcorn to keep it from breaking on the boat trip and how they gobbled down the popcorn even though it was more than a month old.
A week later he was wounded and the tree followed him to the hospital. His tree helped him through the darkest moments of his life, constantly reminding him that he was loved and missed by his wife and family back home.
An achy lump came to my throat along with a sudden knowledge that I was being missed as the families gathered back in Dayton.
Major Chick got wind of the tree and came over to admire it. "Do you mind if we put it in the off-duty room?" he asked.
I knew Uncle Cliff would want it there, so I unplugged the tree and turned it over to him.
While I was setting the tree up in the main tent Smith took the chair from my desk. I came back to work and our game began again. I looked around, saw Smith and picked up a folding chair and got back to my desk work. A few minutes later Smith was called into the main office and I grabbed the swivel chair.
By now most of the others had quit off for the day and were knocking down beers at the enlisted men's club. Smith came back from his meeting, spied the missing chair and decided to bring this thing to an end. "Sir, that's my chair. I was here in the office long before you got here, it's my chair!"
"Sergeant, I don't care how long you've been here. There are only four swivel chairs in the office and they belong to the officers."
We went on like that for several minutes before I played my trump card. "Sergeant, I don't give a shit what you think or how long you've been here. It's my chair and if you want to take this up with Major Chick then let's go see him now and get it over with."
Smith turned on his heel, blasted out the door, giving it an extra slam as he exited, heading for his hooch.
I returned to writing scripts and letters home.
Night settled about the base camp. Specialist Brian Huckaby's family had sent us a string of outdoor lights. We strung these around the tent. Other families had contributed cardboard cut-outs of Santa, reindeer and sleigh, candy canes and mounds of snow.
I set my camera up to take a picture of it all. The lights did their best to add color to the flat, olive green drabness of the tent. A string of three starlight shells burst from the perimeter and hung in the night sky above us. Bright gold, they drifted in the wind and seemed to beckon us like the star which guided the Wise Men.
Willy entered the tent, "Hey, Lieutenant, Wayne and I are going over to the chapel in Third Brigade area for candlelight service. Why don't you join us?"
The chapel was nothing more than a GP medium over a concrete pad. As I recall it was not protected by the usual buffer walls of sand filled wooden ammunition boxes. The side flaps were rolled up so that the top and the poles were visible. We were each handed a small candle as we entered.
We sat together, and listened to the Christmas message. The lights were turned off and a single candle blazed on the alter. The Chaplin lit his candle from it and then lit the candle of a soldier in the first row who passed the light on to the man on his left. The warm glow spread slowly through the tent until it glowed like the illumination rounds we had seen earlier. We sang Christmas carols and prayed.
From the perimeter came the chatter of small arms. Two loud pops followed as our outposts fired off illumination rounds. The small arms fire intensified, close enough that we could hear the pops of the friendly M-16s and the cracks of the enemy's AK-47s. A few seconds passed and then came the distinctive thud, thud, thud, thud, thud -- thud, thud, thud, thud, thud -- of the big fifty caliber machine gun.
Here we were, celebrating the arrival of the Prince of Peace, and just outside the perimeter a small fire fight was storming. Was war stronger than Christmas?
I took it to heart.
I thought about my luck, that I was well within the perimeter and that others were risking their necks so that I could enjoy this ceremony. I thought about my family and wished that I could let go of my confusion and anger about them. I realized that for all our differences we were family and we cared about each other. I thought of my good fortune to have Willy and Wayne, good friends, to share these days with and to help me through this experience. Finally, I thought about Sergeant Jay Smith.
We left the candle lit tent and shuffled along the dark paths back to the office. I went to my desk to see if I had put everything away. There was Smith, all alone, writing a letter home. I went over to my desk and grabbed the swivel chair and began pushing it toward his desk, noticing along the way that he was determined not to acknowledge my presence.
"Jay, I'm sorry. Here's the desk chair. It's yours. I didn't mean to pull rank that way. I just got mad and let it take control. I don't want to spend this particular night feeling that way."
Jay was caught completely by surprise. His face contorted in confusion and then he smiled. "Thanks, Lieutenant."
Jay stuck out his hand and we shook. I turned and walked out of the tent heading for O club and a night cap of scotch.
I held the tumbler in my hand, enjoying the amber color. I thought about the past month and how my emotions built without my realizing it. I thought of all the family Christmas's past, remembered prized gifts, remembered the wonderful days afterwards when my friends and I would run from house to house comparing bounties and playing the games we'd just received or trying out the new basketball in Foster's driveway.
It had been a wonderful childhood and I was never more aware of that fact.
I now recognized the importance of this season with a depth I could not have obtained without living through the experience. I murmured a toast to Dad, Uncle Ray, Uncle Bill and the soul of Uncle Bobby, those veteran heroes of my youth, and then to Uncle Cliff, his Tannenbaum, the rest of my family and the Christ child. Maybe the war would go on, but at least for this night I could let go of my anger.
Last edited:
