Christmas is a time of year that can be exceptionally hard on families with loved ones in the armed forces. My father died over 23 years ago. One of the thing passed down to me was a box containing all of his memorabilia from when he served in the US Army Air Corps as a tail gunner in a B-17 during WWII. My father never talked of his experiences. The box contained a diary of the 36 combat missions. My family reads the following excerpt from his diary, as written, as we bow our heads in prayer before Christmas Eve dinner;
December 24, 1944
Today we flew our fourteenth combat mission. We bombed the Marshelling yards at Koblenz. The flak was light but accurate. We picked up two holes. When we got back to England there was ground fog all over except along the coast we landed at the coast. We ate at the base where we landed and waited until midnight for trucks to take us home. It took us four hours to travel sixty miles. It was so **** cold we could hardly feel ourselves after the first couple of hours. That’s how we spent our Christmas Eve. A bunch of tired, cold and dirty guys.
38/100 G. P. 8:00
We must have several hundred thousand sons, daughters, husbands, and wives deployed all over the world that will spend this holiday season away from loved ones. May we keep them in our prayers as we celebrate this Holiday Season.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! Jesus gave the world the gift of Himself, the gift the gives forever.
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