I remember one particular Thanksgiving, when I did what I had to do.
The year was 1970. The place was the training area, near Fort Polk, LA, called Peason Ridge. My Army infantry AIT company was camped out in the woods, complete with tents & sleeping bags.
At aprox 0300 hours, we had to take down out tents, and pack all the stuff we were not gonna tote, into trucks. They told us it was 22°.
From there, we had to move thru the woods & get in position to attack a mock Vietnamese village, at dawn. It was complete with mock booby traps, a tunnel complex, and some guys acting as enemy soldiers.
After the attack, and only because it was Thanksgiving, they took us back to our barracks, at Fort Polk, & gave us a few hours off, that afternoon. They even allowed visitors to come on base. My girlfriend(now wife) drove down in my '69 GTO, along with another guy's girlfriend. We couldn't leave the base. But we did have a nice picnic lunch, in a nearby wooded area.
For those who were never in the military, and had to be away from family & loved ones, on holidays, I suppose it's hard to understand how much something like that few hours meant to us. It's been almost 50 years. But, it's something I'll never forget.
