Dec17
A Different Christmas Poem
A Different Christmas Poem
The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light, I gazed round the
room and I cherished the sight. My wife was asleep, her head on my
chest, my daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white, transforming the yard to a
winter delight. The sparkling lights in the tree I believe, completed
the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep, secure and surrounded by
love I would sleep. In perfect contentment, or so it would seem, so I
slumbered, perhaps I started to dream…
The sound wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t too near, but I opened my eyes
when it tickled my ear. Perhaps just a cough, I didn’t quite know, then
the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear, and I crept to the door
just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
a lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old, perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the
cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled, standing watch over me,
and my wife and my child.
“What are you doing?” I asked without fear,
“Come in this moment, it’s freezing out here! Put down your pack, brush
the snow from your sleeve, you should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!”
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift, away from the cold and the
snow blown in drifts…
to the window that danced with a warm fire’s light.
Then he sighed and he said, “Its really all right,
I’m out here by choice. I’m here every night.
It’s my duty to stand at the front of the line,
that separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me, I’m proud to stand here like my fathers
before me.
My Gramps died at ‘ Pearl on a day in December,”
Then he sighed, “That’s a Christmas Gram always remembers.
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ‘ Nam ‘, and now it is my turn and
so, here I am.
I’ve not seen my own son in more than a while, but my
wife sends me pictures, he’s sure got her smile.”
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
the Red, White, and Blue… an American flag.
“I can live through the cold and the being alone,
away from my family, my house and my home.
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
or lay down my life with my sister and brother…
Who stand at the front against any and all,
to ensure for all time that this flag will not fall.”
Photo courtesy of the Glendale Arizona Fire Department, Santa’s Backup, 1917 Nash 3017 2-ton chassis
“So go back inside,” he said, “harbor no fright, your family is
waiting and I’ll be all right.”
“But isn’t there something I can do, at the least,
give you money,” I asked, “or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you’ve done,
for being away from your wife and your son.”
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
“Just tell us you love us, and never forget,
to fight for our rights back at home while we’re gone,
to stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
to know you remember we fought and we bled,
is payment enough,
and with that We will trust,
that we mattered to you as you mattered to us”
This is something you will never see in the news.
Here’s a tough, but heartwarming story, and a picture of John Gebhardt in Iraq.
His wife, Mindy, related that this little girl’s entire family was executed.
They intended to execute her also and shot her in the head, but they failed to kill her.
She was cared for by John’s hospital and is healing up, but has been crying and moaning.
The nurses said John is the only one she seems to calm down with,
so John spent four nights holding her while they both slept in that chair.
The girl is coming along with her healing.
John came home in early October.
Merry Christmas. Drive on, sir.
-mike