I remember Christmas eve, '71.

I was part of a rag-tag Marine/Navy/Army/ARVN/Dia Phuong Quan group near Chu Lai.

Major Dixon was in charge of our group and really took advantage of his independence and lack of any close supervision. Long in tooth, he probably would never make light colonel, so he was taking advantage of every opportunity that he could find to grift and graft.

He'd routinely take one of our support helos and fly it into one of the nearby towns to spend the weekend with his girl. She was living high on the materiel he provided to the flourishing black market there.

It was cozy. The equipment, all supposedly for the ARVN and regional government, like generators and room air conditioners, would be flown in for him and he'd apparently reroute it for the most profit.

While we had airborne medevac and fire support on call, it burned us because we did not have the capacity to supply some of the outlying posts or any of our patrols adequately with only the one machine. Lacking his personal taxi, we couldn't bring in our own supplies either.

Whoever his boss was did not seem to care. After a couple of complaints were returned to him for action that resulted in bad efficiency reports and pop transfers for the complainants, nobody bothered anymore.

We lived in tents while he had a house built by the SeaBees, supposedly as an assembly, movie and recreational hall. Our movies were shown outside, rain or shine, and who had time for recreation?

For Christmas '71 he had a large aluminum tree with fake foliage flown in and set up in front of his office on the verandah. It had all kinds of lights and decorations with simulated presents underneath it. It was placed where he could see it through his office window.

A couple of days before Christmas, a chaplain and a quartet of USO entertainers flew in. We were instructed to attend the show, an all-hands evolution, or else. That morning, after the major's rah-rah speech, he urged us all to welcome our visitors. The chaplain held a Christmas service and a boring too-long inspirational talk. The USO entertainers led a Christmas Carol sing-a-long. The two guys weren't funny, and the two women should have stayed home. Naturally we applauded and whistled again like we meant it when our XO asked us to thank them for coming so far out to see us. We were glad it was over.

All this in front of that damned fake tree.

The chow hall laid out all the cookies they brought with them.

Afterward while our visitors flew back to their base, we went back to our quarters or on watch.

Christmas eve, I was chatting with a couple of the guys in the motor pool saying what we'd do back home next Christmas. The first inkling we were in trouble was a 122mm rocket exploding in the middle of the base. The siren went off and we were racing for the perimeter. We watched and some more artillery came in with a half dozen of the rockets. We took some sporadic fire for a bit. Then it was quiet after our cease firing was called.

It was the first attack we'd had since Thanksgiving, and it became a joke after the all-clear sounded. Nothing important had been hit. There were no casualties. It was apparently the NVA celebrating another of our holidays by trying to shake us up.

They did that.

The laugher was when my group walked by downtown and saw that one of the rockets had hit the major's office and wiped out that damned fake tree.

The first of us there whistled, cheered and laughed our heads off.