Friday, December 16, 2005
A Christmas To Remember
It's that time of the year when folks like to think back on past holiday seasons. Some were good, some were great, some we'd just as soon forget. I once worked a fatal traffic accident on an iced-over road with blowing sleet on Christmas Day. It wasn't great.
The year that I thought would be the worst Christmas of my life was 1976. I was stationed with 23 other guys on a frozen mountaintop in eastern Turkey, a stone's throw in any direction from people that hated us: Soviets on the north, Iraq and Iran to our east, and Syria and Lebanon to our south. But at least we had a white Christmas. Well, to be fair, it was a white winter. It started snowing about Thanksgiving and didn't quit till Easter.
Christmas Eve, a bunch of us lonely GIs went out and started a snowball fight. Next thing we knew, we were attacked from behind by a squad of Turkish conscripts assigned to us for security. Man, did those guys kick our asses! They were completely fearless, or brainless.....I'm not sure which.
Once we reached a snowball armistice and retreated back across the treaty line, we started building a snowman. As you would expect from a bunch of very young, very female-deprived men, it soon turned from a snowman into an anatomically correct snowwoman. We gave her a mophead for hair, rocks for nipples (hey, it was really cold out), and mud for pubes. Unfortunately, the mud ran down her legs and made it look like she had a really bad case of crotchrot. Words can't describe it. Here it is:
One thing was for sure: She was the best lookin' woman for a hundred miles.
Our Turkish friends, seeing our work, were determined once again to one-up the infidel Americans and went right to work. They built a snowman for the ages. The thing must have been seven feet tall and looked like a body-builder. Just before they finished, they yammered back and forth in Turkish for a minute, then all hauled ass into the little trailer they used as a barracks. They were in there for several minutes, then emerged with two of them sporting significantly less hair than when they went in. These dudes had shaved their heads, just so the hair could be transplanted onto the snowman. Yes, the head, eyebrows, and mustache were all real human hair. We Americans looked back and forth as if to challenge one another to do the same. No takers. Not one American was willing to have his head shaved for the cause. We had lost again. But we all had a good international laugh, shook hands, and slapped one another's backs. We had a made a few new friends on Christmas Eve, and they didn't even know it was a holiday.
Fearless? Brainless? I don't really care. I just know when WW III breaks out, I want the Turks on my side.
Continued tomorrow!
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The year that I thought would be the worst Christmas of my life was 1976. I was stationed with 23 other guys on a frozen mountaintop in eastern Turkey, a stone's throw in any direction from people that hated us: Soviets on the north, Iraq and Iran to our east, and Syria and Lebanon to our south. But at least we had a white Christmas. Well, to be fair, it was a white winter. It started snowing about Thanksgiving and didn't quit till Easter.
Christmas Eve, a bunch of us lonely GIs went out and started a snowball fight. Next thing we knew, we were attacked from behind by a squad of Turkish conscripts assigned to us for security. Man, did those guys kick our asses! They were completely fearless, or brainless.....I'm not sure which.
Once we reached a snowball armistice and retreated back across the treaty line, we started building a snowman. As you would expect from a bunch of very young, very female-deprived men, it soon turned from a snowman into an anatomically correct snowwoman. We gave her a mophead for hair, rocks for nipples (hey, it was really cold out), and mud for pubes. Unfortunately, the mud ran down her legs and made it look like she had a really bad case of crotchrot. Words can't describe it. Here it is:
One thing was for sure: She was the best lookin' woman for a hundred miles.Our Turkish friends, seeing our work, were determined once again to one-up the infidel Americans and went right to work. They built a snowman for the ages. The thing must have been seven feet tall and looked like a body-builder. Just before they finished, they yammered back and forth in Turkish for a minute, then all hauled ass into the little trailer they used as a barracks. They were in there for several minutes, then emerged with two of them sporting significantly less hair than when they went in. These dudes had shaved their heads, just so the hair could be transplanted onto the snowman. Yes, the head, eyebrows, and mustache were all real human hair. We Americans looked back and forth as if to challenge one another to do the same. No takers. Not one American was willing to have his head shaved for the cause. We had lost again. But we all had a good international laugh, shook hands, and slapped one another's backs. We had a made a few new friends on Christmas Eve, and they didn't even know it was a holiday.
Fearless? Brainless? I don't really care. I just know when WW III breaks out, I want the Turks on my side.
Continued tomorrow!
