Holiday deployment memories...

Great question. MAJ Michael Seering and I (then a LTC) volunteered to pull guard duty on one of the towers at Camp Anaconda, Iraq on Christmas eve so that our enlisted Soldiers could have some time off. We sat out there on the midnight shift in the cold rain as dogs barked in the distance and we contemplated our likely responses to a possible, although unlikely, enemy attack. The enemy's preferred method of attack was mortars for Camp Anaconda. We are coming up on our 10 year anniversary of that event in a few days and we will surely catch up via phone to re-live that fond memory.

Thanksgiving , Christmas, and New Years in the Med. Turkey that taste like jet full and sweet potatoes that were mush and a glass of bug juice. but liberty on Christmas eve and day spent in Rome at the Vatican and new years eve on liberty in Naples hot times lots of fun and great friends! places most people will never see. we truly are the lucky ones.   

Last year, I was supposed to still be overseas for Christmas. I was pretty bummed, considering I had missed all the holidays the past year because I was in BMT. Then, late November, my leadership told me that I was going home a month early. My commander and first sergeant helped me out with working leave enroute to my home station, and long story short - rather than Skyping my family on Christmas Eve, I showed up on their front porch instead. Best Christmas ever. :)