Holidays are always a tough time to be away from home, no matter where you are or what you're doing.

Last year, I spent Thanksgiving in a chow-hall at Fort Jackson.  It was decorated, and we actually had real silverware.  The training officers wore their dress uniforms and served us generous portions of turkey and lobster.  It was the best meal the military ever fed me, we were allowed to take our time and have little trivial conversations, and it was the first time in my life I had lobster.

Christmas we were able to take Exodus (leave) for a week from training to be with our families.  I spent a day with my family, and the rest of the time shitfaced with my buddies pledging our allegiance to one another, destined to return for the final 3 weeks of training and receive the honor of Distinguished Honor Graduate, and the accompanying medals and fanfare.  How I passed the Uniralysis (piss test) is a blessing - what does the Army think a bunch of Joes are going to do when they return home for New Years Eve after being sober for over 2 months?

This year, I will be spending Thanksgiving at the private residence of a Marine officer, with a handful of the top Korea branch officers, as the token enlisted.  Everyone without families in Korea will be getting together to stuff ourselves and try to take the sting off the distance from home.

The unit celebrated by having a officer vs. enlisted football game in the place of physical training this morning.  The office had a 40-person Thanksgiving pot-luck, in which we deep-fried a few turkeys and ate a combination of traditional Turkey Day dishes and Korean foods.  I don't think our Korean counterparts quite understood what we were celebrating, and when one asked, I told her, "Killing all the Indians".  I don't think she understood my dry sarcasm any more than she understood why we chose a random Wednesday to eat like Gods and slack-off around the office.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful though.  I'm thankful not to be one of those poor bastards in the hot desert, eating an MRE.  But I'd still trade places with them in a heartbeat if it means another guy could spend the time with his family.

Holidays are difficult.  As much as we try to replicate the festivities with our military family, it only reminds us more of the families back home.  A plane ticket to the United States is about $1500 round-trip from Seoul, but I'd pay that and more for a single day with my parents and relatives on such a difficult reminder of the loneliness.  The loneliness of being surrounded by other miserable bastards who you are only united to by the mutual understanding that if 'lil Kim decides to incite a war, we're going to be the ones to hear each other's last utterance of, "Oh fuck, this sucks..."

The suicide rate in the Army increases eight-fold from Thanksgiving through Christmas.  Apparently the pathetic attempts to celebrate the holiday are too much a reminder of the loneliness for some Joe's to handle.  The reminders of the ex's with new guys feasting with their families; the memories of their mother's cooking; the prospect of spending the next holiday season in the desert; the kids back home who are going to develop recollections of the holidays being a time when Daddy wasn't around...

But the world goes on back in the States as if we were never there, and we do our best to pick one another's spirits up.  While we pay homage to the holidays, we subconsciously try to repress the occassion to just an extra day off work.

One thing I know for certain: they can take my rank and my pay, but I'm going to be wearing a Santa hat in place of my beret on the 25th of December.  Maybe I'll even go out and steal a nice little shrub from outside the General's office for a makeshift Christmas Tree in my barracks - complete with compass, glow-sticks, and spent ammunition as ornaments.

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas.