Christmas and other such stuff...

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Well, it's almost Christmas. Three days and a wake up, as they say. Thought I'd take a minute and relay a quick story about one of my favorite Holiday memories.
I want to say it was Christmas 2001. I was in the Army, stationed at Fort Riley in Kansas. It was my second Christmas away from my family, as I didn't have the cash to really afford a plane ticket home. The first one kinda sucked. I spent it alone in my barracks eating microwave burritos and playing PlayStation. Pretty much everybody else got to go home or wherever for the holidays so the place was pretty much empty about that time. Also, my mom would send my Christmas presents to me WAY early to make sure I got them. Did I wait to open them like I said I would? A clue: NO.
Anyways, it was Christmastime and there was me and the new guys to the unit that didn't have the leave saved up yet to get home or whatever. It was right about then that I decided on a plan. I went around and gathered them all up and brought them up to my room. Me and three or four guys spent Christmas Eve eating Dominos Pizza, watching movies and getting drunk off our asses on cheap beer and whatever else we could scrounge up. We also passed around the goodies that our families had sent us.
I ended up best friends with two of the guys, Paul Falk and Thomas Sweet. Me and Falk ended up getting out at the same time in the summer of 2002. Falk's doing alright I guess. We still talk online now and again. Sweet committed suicide in Iraq in 2004 or 2005 I think. I still get mad if I let myself think about it for too long. It's not as bad as it used to be, like I used to get so absolutely pissed off that I couldn't see. I guess I kinda vented a little bit in parts of the book. It helped.
Sorry to be such a downer at this time of the year. I promise my next post will have something funny in it. Just, you know...if you're the praying sort take a second and remember our Soldiers, Airmen, Marines and Sailors that are far from home right now.