A Very Merry Military Christmas

(ROCKWALL, TX — Dec. 14, 2016) One Christmas several years ago, we were broke. I don’t mean the we-aren’t-going-to-have-as-big-of-Christmas-broke, I mean the complete lack of any money. The no presents, no Santa, no-Christmas-kind-of-broke. I don’t remember the reason whether it was a string of medical bills or a load of untimely repairs; all I remember is how helpless and low I felt as I had worked and scraped and pinched every penny I could, to only end up in the same Sisyphean place. We needed a Christmas miracle.

A friend from church approached me wanting to talk. Behind closed doors he shared how each year his family became Santa for someone and he felt like my family could use a hand. Being too embarrassed, I had told nobody of our plight, but what was I to do with the offer? Refuse? Save face for the sake of pride?

Long story short, our boys woke up on Christmas morning to huge velvet sacks on the den floor. Tanks, planes, and soldiers poured out of the top. The boys had a military Christmas, gifts of traditional heroes, and Angie and I wept experiencing both the magic of Santa and the true meaning of Christmas.

This year we’ll have presents; it won’t be massive, but we’ll have them, and it will once again have a military theme. Yet this time, instead of plastic soldiers with their little rifles, mine-sweepers, and artillery, we will have a real live U.S. Marine around the tree. Back in September my middle son left for Parris Island, South Carolina, as a recruit for the United States Marine Corps. Since then, our only contact has been through old-fashioned letter writing in which somebody in our household has addressed an envelope every week. Each day the mail delivery is asked about, and periodically a letter shows with the famous picture of the flag raising at Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima in the bottom left corner. We open it and read about training, drill, and the constant demands of the DI’s. Between that and reports from other’s letters we have pieced together that he’s excelling, having passed his shooting tests, physical endurance tests, and the dreaded gas chamber. As long as he makes it through the final 54 hours of grueling battle maneuvers and endurance called the Crucible, he will graduate about a week before Christmas Day. We have already planned our travel and before we know it, we’ll be standing before the parade deck to watch our boy in the uniform that embodies the Marine Corp’s values of honor, commitment, and courage.

Then we’ll bring him back to Memphis, to the family Christmas Eve party that is packed with aunts, uncles, cousins, and all their children. We’ll spend Christmas Day feasting with more family, and we’ll all be together again. Presents will just be an extra blessing, and Angie and I will once again experience what we felt so long ago when Santa showed with a sack of soldiers, only ours will be a Marine.

By Scott Gill of Rockwall, teacher, coach and author of Goliath Catfish. Follow Scott’s blog at puptentpapa.blogspot.com and read his “Front Porch Ramblings” at BlueRibbonNews.com.