And so This is Christmas…

I really enjoy Christmastime and 2018 was among the best. One of the memories is more actually a collection of Christmases Past that are bittersweet. These are the Christmastimes spent in lands far far away inhabited by people who want to kill you. I am among the lucky, who got to come home. Some tables in America have a permanent place setting that is empty. We as a grateful nation are forever in their debt and they must never be forgotten.

Never to be Forgotten

I wasn’t very far from Bethlehem during Christmas of ‘93. The Chaplain held a midnight mass for the troops in Saudi Arabia. Following tradition of the UK Army there was a huge bonfire. The fire canceled the harsh desert winter cold air if you stood close enough and the bagpiper played a familiar melody but the song’s title, to me was unknown.

Another Christmas, ten years later, I learned that "The Minstrel Boy" is the title of the old patriotic Irish song.

"His father's sword he hath gilded on.... "

This time the pipes were played by a sergeant who acquired his talent as a boy in the Philadelphia Police and Fire Department's Pipe and Drums. The place was Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, not too far from Valley Forge. The temperature was below zero yet to some extent, the sound of the pipes negated the bitter chill. About 85 years earlier, Grandpa stood for role call at the Gap. In 1918 he lied about his age, enlisted in the National Guard and was readying to fight in The Great War.

1999 found me in Tuzla, Bosnia a picturesque country of Hansel and Gretel houses that endured a grotesque genocide where 200,000 were slaughtered in concentration camps.

Christmas ‘07 was at Camp Taji, in the suburbs of Baghdad. Delicious lobster and steak was on the menu. I learned that the locals refer to lobster as “The Mother of all Shrimp.”

Following a festive family Christmas lunch in ‘10, I was at Washington D.C.’s 40th Street Station bound for Fort Dix, New Jersey. As the train neared Trenton from the window of my comfortable Amtrak car I saw the Delaware River below the rail-bridge. My wandering thoughts did not go directly to General Washington but to the farm-boy / citizen warriors with feet wrapped in rags leaving streaks of red blood in the snow. Had those boys not crossed the river and taken enemy by surprise then I would not have been outbound for Tikrit to take my turn on the picket.

"To the Defense of the new Nation"

Back in ‘11, over night a half a foot to fresh fallen snow covered the valley of the stark Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan. The Polish commander at Bagram Army Airfield, hosted the NATO forces for a traditional Christmas Dinner..

So now there is a Conga Line invasion force of 15,000 mostly military aged men banging on our country’s southern door demanding entry. These are the same bad hombres who crashed through gates and hurdled rocks and bottles at the Mexican police who pretended to stop them. These are the same bad hombres who use women and children as “media / propaganda props.” These are the same bad hombres who are MS 13 gangsters, moslem terrorists and your regular generic boomerang illegals who have been deported several times before.

Border Patrol Official: Caravan Migrants Pushed Women and Children to Front of Clash While Assaulting Officers

These bad hombres need to go home and make Honduras Great Again because mi casa es mi casa.

President Trump, Vice President Pence Lay Wreath at Arlington National Cemetery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ0GI20Q0II

Video Shows Migrants Throwing Rocks At Mexican Helicopter

https://www.dailycaller.com/2018/11/02/migrant-caravan-throwing-rocks-mexican-helicopter/