Merry Christmas but…….

i hope everyone has a great Chrristmas, eats plenty of good food, visits with loved ones, and most importantly…..WATCH SOME FOOTBALL!!!!!! what’s not to like about Christmas, being a New Orleans native ANY holiday that revolves around food is win-sauce for me. i”ll be at the Honey-Comb Hideout for the Day and will either spend the day hunting for turkeys or surfing (depends on the weather…..TBH, i don’t feel like dealing with locals if i go surfing).  after that Lord Dark Scorpion will rain his wrath upon Skyrim.  today was a work day (fuck you Navy).

but you know what….holidays just don’t register with me. seriously, i’ve spent VERY few christmas’ or thanksgivings’ with family since joining the Navy. i typically volunteer to work on said days to allow families to spend the holiday together. but whatev’s…. more importantly…..

i REALLY hope each and every one of you reading this realizes there are tens of thousands of military servicemen sitting in the Desert, waiting in line for an hour to use a phone to call family or computer to videoconference, suffering shitty (hell….IF you have internet signal) IM’ing, eating SHITTY turkey/dressing/gravy lunch or dinner, bored out their minds or restless as all hell because they miss the hell out of their family and miss being even relatively CLOSE to home.

when i was in Kuwait (camp Ali Al Salem…..a TINY desert Army base in the middle of NOWHERE) i woke up at 10am. checked email and myspace, got dressed and went to the DFAC (dining facility) and was served (by a bunch of Bengali civilians) dry turkey, crunchy dressing, and watery nearly tasteless gravy. i threw it away and ended up eating at the Asian place. i had spicy beef and garlic rice. i stared blankly at the plate for 10 minutes. i was with my room-mate and good friend Billy, a tough little hombre from idaho. i was treating him to lunch (he couldn’t really afford to pay). we didn’t say a word to each other. the place was dead silent (and relatively packed). no one needed to speak, we all felt the same way. just 5 minutes with family, to feel that familiar warmth of glowing cheeriness. but you never speak of it. NEVER. you become a stone. we finally ate and went to the gym. i ran 7 miles that day (i never run that far), and played xbox to kill the time. the rest of my co-workers were watching movies at the clinic trying to forget that they wanted to be somewhere else. i ended up buying 2 near beers, and a bottle of nyquil. i got desert drunk, and passed out around 8-9pm.

i just wanted the day to be over.

so…..all i ask….is that you keep all this in mind as you eat good food, in a nice home, surrounded by people you love and care about. please don’t gloss over the sacrifice of MANY men and women who are (as you read this) in the shit that i just described. please.

and you know what….even on that Christmas, i WAS thankful. thankful i wasn’t getting shot at, and that i did have people back home who care for and love me.  stay up and Merry Christmas.

walking to the gym

my corner POS room in the desert. at least the shower trailer was close.

daddy’s office

even in the desert i WILL find a way to cook. making BBQ chicken for my guys, and enjoying a Cuban.

billy. one of the room-mate’s in Kuwait. kid’s a psycho, i’d NEVER want fight him.

chris. the other room mate. he’s aaaaah, “special”. lol. good kid though. he just got back from afghanistan. he called me, “uncle Eddie.” lol.

just so you know, there’s ALWAYS sand in your hooch. ALWAYS. my corner of heaven in the Kuwaiti Desert.

    missile struck Kuwaiti bunker. they kept it as is to show what the Iraqi’s are were capable of.