Anderson…Bender…Collins…” the sergeant’s voice drones on as I wait in anticipation. “Kasper…Larimer…Mannford…” I feel that sinking feeling in my stomach that accompanies the skipping of my name once again. No mail for Kinens today. It’s been a dry run for many days. I suddenly feel utterly alone even though I am surrounded by 40 to 50 men.

I am at Fort Knox Kentucky, the year is 1968 and I am in Basic Training. All of us have been wrenched away from homes and everything familiar. For most of us, away from loved ones for the first time in our lives, receiving mail is the saving grace connecting us with life and those whom we love with a painful certainty. Distance indeed does make the heart grow fonder…even as it brings it ever closer to the breaking point. Perhaps tomorrow’s mail call will finally end this streak of emptiness.

And then it comes. No, they come, letters from my parents, my brother and a close college friend. What a gift a plain white envelope with my name on it! The sweetness is overwhelming, as I eagerly tear open the letters one by one and devour the words as a starving man would ravish a long awaited dinner.
For the next few minutes I travel back to Kalamazoo, Michigan and feel normal once again. I can see and smell my mother’s kitchen where the windows have steamed over from the heat of baking cookies for Christmas. My father sits at the head of the table the ever present newspaper shrouding his face. It’s good to be back home again. What a comfort. What a pleasure.

My long anticipated magic is broken by the sergeant’s voice as he barks, “Mail call is over girls, everyone get back in formation, or drop and give me 20!” The punishment for hesitating because you received too much mail is to pay the sergeant and delight the other troops with pushups. It’s worth the price! Who would have thought a simple letter could be so treasured, could be so life affirming?

Less than 8 months later I am sitting on my bed, in my room in Quin Nohn, Republic of Vietnam. It is December 20, 1968. The temperature is a “cool” 87 degrees. The little post office opens at 3:30 P.M. every day. We walk to the window and ask for our mail. I wonder if there is anything there for me. “Kinens…you’re in luck - package time for you!” I am handed a rather large, box, and as I take it I wonder what could be inside. The return address is my parents’.

Back in my room I open the box to find a 2‘ tall artificial Christmas tree! They might as well have sent me a million dollars! In this faraway place a touch of the familiar is truly life transformational. In the evening, I sit by myself and stare at the tree. In my mind I hear the congregation on Christmas Eve and I join in the singing of familiar Christmas carols. After church I am in my parents’ house at a table filled with delicious home-made foods from my mother’s hand. After dinner we recite our little Latvian verses as the price for the presents my father always hands out to everyone … suddenly the silence is broken by the wailing of the sirens outside and the crackle of the PA system shouting, “Red alert! Red alert!”

I grab my M-60 machine gun, my flak jacket, ammo and helmet and together with my colleagues, run for bunker #4, my station where I am expected to ward off any attacks on our perimeter. As I sit weapon ready, eyes trained on distant objects in the ink black night I wonder if I will ever see my family and friends again. The gnawing loneliness returns and taunts me like a bad dream.
This then, is Christmas in Vietnam…and in Afghanistan….and in Iraq…and a thousand other places where American soldiers served and serve.

This Christmas, before we worship in our beautiful church, gather in our warm and cozy homes, and enjoy our abundant meals and surround ourselves with family and friends, perhaps we can take the time to write a letter to someone sitting in a bunker or in a mountain hutch, or strapped in an Armored Personnel Carrier.

May I suggest a member of Advent? How about a mother of two beautiful daughters, who will spend this Christmas without her? Her name is Deanna Harris Czarnecki, her address is: 372nd. ENG BDE, FOB Sharana, APO AE 09311. Or you may e-mail her at: Deanna.czarnecki@afghan.swa.army.mil.

I have never seen a Christmas tree as beautiful as that little 2’ tree I received so long ago and still carry in my heart. May God embrace and bless you dear people of Advent this Christmas and always!

Pastor Kinens, Aina and our girls.