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In this episode of The 2030 Podcast Show, we discuss certain themes for our audience and our producers during this holiday season. Again, this is just a solo episode with myself, Sgt. Fred, as your narrator and solo podcaster. We hope to have Matt Cox with us after the Christmas holiday. We shall see. In the meantime, we shall proceed with some perspectives of the Christmas holidays 50 years ago and also in today’s modern era.

Christmas — 50 years ago

As you may know, I served in the US Army and was a combat veteran in the Vietnam War. As such, I am forced to remember (by intrusive thoughts, mainly — many people call them “flashbacks”) how a Christmas holiday season was impacted by my tour during the war, when Christmas was just an unknown and not even considered or thought of by the brass or by my other combat colleagues.

At the time of my tour in Vietnam, I was lucky in that my R-and-R time came up by lot, and I was allowed to take and spend 7 days in Sydney, Australia. I was able to re-focus away from the animosity, violence and fear and terror that the war caused and took a toll on me for just a brief while. During the time in Sydney, I was scared that I would now not be able to function as a hardened machine-gunner or grenadier when I returned to the infantry battalion and had to go back to the jungles of Vietnam to fight against the VC and the NVA. But that bit of relaxation was enough to get my focus off the war and try to see a bit of reality outside the war in a large city — something that many of us combat veterans would lose by being so entrenched in the jungles, rice paddies and mountains of the ‘Nam.

So my R-and-R was finally up (and, truthfully, I did not want to leave Australia — but the friends that I had met down there convinced me that going AWOL or deserting was not a good option for me, and that I should return to the war again after my week was up). And so I returned.

After landing back in the ‘Nam, I immediately was shuttled to the bush once again to be with my unit. Everything seemed like a dismal nightmare, a fog in my mind and I thought I was in a dream. And, yes, I became scared again about being there — and the fear haunted me terribly. One example was on Christmas eve, I was terrified while at my post on guard in the middle of the night. I thought I heard someone approaching me by means of the stream next to my position, and so I got so scared that I hurled a hand grenade out of my own fear.

Well, needless to say, we could not find any evidence of a  VC or NVA in the area, as they were trained to go upstream cautiously. In my opinion, I had not only frightened the personnel coming toward my position, but I had wounded one of them. It then hit me that I was acting foolishly by being so scared. As a matter of fact, one of my comrades came past me the next morning, as we were getting packed to go humping to our new position that he chuckled and said “Oooh, Charlie’s gonna get you — fresh from R&R…” — and you know, he was right about my fright and terror.

And the next night, we had to pull guard next to the South China Sea (because the enemy was infiltrating sappers from the sea).  We did not stay in the reinforced and elevated bunkers along the coast, where we could see the ocean, but instead, we were located in the sand a reasonable distance from them — we were ready to catch the sappers as they would crawl to destroy the bunkers. Then the enemy was detected and all hell was about to break loose — until a couple of Cobra gunships arrived and were directly above us — all this in drizzling rain in the middle of the night.

Well, the Cobras scared away the enemy back into the sea. But they saw our own movement, having dug into the sand in terrible foxholes. And they considered us the enemy, and they were ready to bring fire and rain down on us with mini-guns and rockets to destroy us. As the searchlights caught us in our fox hole, I myself could see the outline of the pilot ready to fire on us. But thanks to the intelligence of the co-pilot, they recognized us a “friendlies” and did not destroy us.

So much for one of my 4 incidents of experiencing dangers from friendly fire — and I thank that Cobra crew for saving our lives. Now the misery of the rain, the wet, and the cold from the December wet winds did not seem so bad, after all. We were still keeping alive. And then I considered later that it was Christmas and I was grateful for having survived yet another threat to my life from potential or actual friendly-fire.

Such was my Christmas holiday season 50 years ago. And it has pained me and haunted me all my life since that time for the past 5 decades.

Christmas holiday today — grateful to be alive, free and getting a 2nd chance

So this year, I celebrate the Christmas holidays …. yes, and I say “Christmas” to those who wish to erase that from our lexicon, because to me, it will always be Christmas, regardless of what the radical left will attempt to change in our vocabulary.

I celebrate Christmas with a great family dinner. And yes, our co-host, Matt Cox, will be traveling over here to celebrate with us. It will be good to see him once again. I hope that his work in his day-job will be easing up and delivering less overtime, so that we may now be getting back to publishing more joint episodes.

So, for me, Christmas has never been the same after the ‘Nam. In addition to that story I just recounted for you, there were other incidents that marred my enjoyment of what was once my “innocence” before the war.

However, for the sake of my family and friends, I am trying to change — to celebrate Christmas with them, for their sakes (since they cannot understand my feelings and reactions to my past traumas) and to deliver a good time for all in our get-togethers with all the family traditions.

So, too, I hope that for you, our audience and listeners, a good cheer of gratitude and Christmas holidays will be a blessing for your experience. And I hope that the radical left will be put out of circulation in our minds so that we can enjoy together a super season of family gatherings and celebration — regardless of what the gruesome Newsom and Bo-Jiden mandates say (and Fauci can go get raked, for all I care).

For this year, I would like to thank those who have delivered value to us at the 2030podcast.com show:

To them, as well as my co-host, Matt Cox and his family, I would like to thank them for their participation and attention — as well as to you, my audience. We are all grateful for our liberties, our freedom, and our right to free speech (and Zuckerberg and Dorsey and the like can all go to blazes).

Thank you for your attention, and MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR, AND BEST OF HOLIDAY CHEER TO YOU.

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