Given that the lapses between my blog updates grow ever longer, as material continues to thin and obligations continue to thicken, this will likely be my last entry prior to heading home for Christmas. I am one of the fortunate souls whose accumulated time in country makes it practical to take R&R during this very special family holiday season.
I write this on 16 December, just four days prior to leaving and nine days prior to Christmas, but the holiday spirit remains difficult to summon here in the middle of Baghdad. There are decorations and trees popping up in different offices and cubicles, cards piling up rapidly from friends, family, and the thousands of authors of “Dear Military Member” correspondence who ship by the case. The Embassy has festive lights strung everywhere around the compound. The dining facility plays Christmas songs at every meal. Even the weather is trying to help, as it has grown both cool and damp, with the sun hanging low in the southern sky in a dull and near-constant haze.
Still, one day stretches into the next and the battle rhythm does not allow for the numerous festivities and frivolities that typically drive us breathlessly through December, desperately seeking to jam more and more goodwill into the days leading up to Christmas eve and the big exhale. The giddiness that rises and stays so close to the surface as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is whittled to the carcass is much more deeply buried here, anchored down by the surroundings, by the endless tasks, and by the simple fact that the overwhelming majority of folks cannot be home for Christmas.
I’m not suggesting the whole place is in some deep funk – it’s a lot more like business as usual with a vague sense that we’re missing something important. Even so, when Christmas day rolls around the calendars will be cleared, great food will be served in large quantities, cookies and candies will be gorged upon, gifts will be exchanged and, no doubt, more than a few Christmas carols will be sung. Sometime around 4 p.m. local time here, though, people will begin drifting off to be by themselves. They are looking for phones in a quiet place or maybe heading to their laptops in their CHU or carrying those laptops to where they can find a good WI-FI connection.
It will be Christmas morning in the U.S. and I guarantee that everyone here who can will electronically plug themselves into it, via phone or Skype. A million tears will be shed here that afternoon as the mass of moms and dads, sons and daughters, and grandmothers and grandfathers watch or listen, trying to emotionally touch loved ones they cannot physically reach.
I did not mean for this bit of writing to dampen your spirits, but do ask for some small considerations. I am surrounded by brilliant and dedicated professionals in the Department of Defense and the Department of State. Almost all of them asked to come here, so there can never be pity. But at some point in time on Christmas day, raise a glass and honor our absent companions, both those whose empty chairs will be filled again next year and those whose will forever remain empty.
Then get a good night’s sleep because then, as always, they've got your back.
Merry Christmas!
