It was going to be a lonely Christmas — the third consecutive one spent away from my Seattle home. There really wasn’t much choice; when a soldier takes that symbolic one step forward and promises “to bear true allegiance to the United States of America” from that day forward, he writes out a blank check payable to his country for everything he is, up to and including his life. I was a 21-year-old GI, spending his final Christmas away from friends and family.
Christmas Day was soon approaching, and it was going to be another duty day for me. There are several critical jobs in the military that cannot stop for 24 hours just because it is a holiday, and mine was one of them. Other than as festive a meal as the cooks could prepare, the only break in routine was the opportunity to attend Catholic Mass at the base chapel at my post in the beautiful Bavarian mountains.
It was a small post — intelligence-gathering sites often are — and there was but one chaplain assigned to it who provided guidance and religious services primarily to the Protestant servicemen on post. For the Catholic servicemen, the Army contracted with a German priest to come in every weekend. Since there was no chaplain’s assistant for him, I voluntarily and informally added those duties to my normal ones. Under my tutelage, the altar servers had been carefully coached in their additional duties for Christmas Mass.
Saving best for last
In those days, gifts arriving through the U.S. mail had to be listed on the customs form in detail; as a result, I knew exactly what my presents from family were to be. Beginning on Dec. 22, I began to open one present each day, saving the last for Christmas Day.
