Merry Christmas

My PSG flew out on leave last night. We have a lot of visitors - combat stress doing their usual run through our AO, physical therapy will be coming and the division psychiatrist......speaking of visitors the Chief of Staff of the Army is coming to one of our remote outposts around Xmas......should be presenting some valorous awards while he's there. Our medic's family who was KIA in november will receive a posthumous silver star. We put our other medics on that operation in for bronze stars w/"v" (valor). We have a group of amazing guys. It's both inspiring and humbling to be a part of this platoon.
 
Lt. Alex Pruden also wrote from Blessing:

 " Whew...made it to Christmas! Honestly, it would be easy to forget about if it wasn't for all of the wonderful support and packages that you all have sent over. Thanks to the deluge of shortbread cookies, candy canes, and Christmas lights we received in the last few mail drops, it's even beginning to look a little bit like Christmas (at least inside our buildings...outside we opted to keep our camouflage netting). The weather is also getting colder...sort of. Lows of about 30 degrees at night give way to highs of 65 degrees during the day. Frankly, those of us from the Southwest don't mind a bit, although some of the guys are definitely missing the white Christmas.

A lot of events have occurred in the last month that I haven't had time to go into detail about. The enemy has continued fighting into the winter months, and we've seen a good share of the fighting here at FOB Blessing......Again, from all of us here at FOB Blessing, we hope you have a merry Christmas......Please keep these men and all of America's servicemembers deployed overseas in your thoughts and prayers during the rest of the season. And most importantly, celebrate and enjoy the holidays!"

Giving

Lt. Alex Pruden wrote today from FOB Blessing:

" Back home, I guess the holiday season is in full swing. Thanksgiving is over, as is Black Friday and "Cyber Monday" (whatever that is). Although I'm glad that I am missing out on the Christmas shopping spectacle, I as well as everyone here will certainly miss the times of celebration with friends and family. But Christmas is about giving, and thanks to the gracious and generous support of Lynn Clark and her family, we were able to embrace the Christmas spirit a little bit by getting to be Santa Claus.

Lynn sent several boxes of toys, which we handed out to about 30 local orphans. Donning Santa hats, we went outside the gate and had the kids line up and cycle through the line, where they could pick a toy of their choice. Despite the overwhelming popularity and name recognition of Jon Cena, surprisingly the hottest item was the toy microphone. I guess they've been piping in the re-runs of "Middle East Idol". Jon Cena statues and action figures took a close second, with the chalk and chalkboards finishing third.

We enjoyed giving back to the community in a tangible way. Because of the amount of fighting that we do, it can be easy to adopt a hardened attitude against the people here. But looking into the eyes of these kids, I saw the future of Afghanistan. Their words, deeds, attitudes, and actions will shape this country long after we're gone and forgotten. In reality, a simple act of gift-giving may be one of the most significant contributions that we've made here so far. And as an added bonus, seeing smiles on all those faces brings a little bit of Christmas cheer to our hearts.

Thanks again to Lynn Clark for her donation and generosity. Without here the above would not have been possible."