Killing and death take joy and the spirit of Christmas out of Christmas. From Camillo Mac Bica at antiwar.com:
I remember being far from home, family, and loved ones. Thrust into an alien and hostile land I didn’t even know existed. Christmas dinner choppered in to a desolate LZ. The space on the chopper where the cold turkey and warm beer had been, quickly filled with the still-warm bodies of comrades who had experienced their last Christmas.
I remember a Catholic priest, a Franciscan, offering Christmas mass on a makeshift altar of spent ammo boxes. Pragmatists all, we prayed for survival or at the least to die quickly. His sermon celebrating the birth of Christ, our “savior,” and the eternal joy and peace of heaven cut short by the urgency of war and his determination not to miss the last chopper out of hell.
I remember the body of a dead Viet Cong splayed upright, impaled in the layers of concertina wire, its barbs his crown of thorns, marking the no-man’s land surrounding the perimeter of a firebase north of Danang. Killed trying to breach the base’s defenses, his catatonic face frozen forever in a final exclamation of horror and pain. His decaying remains adorned by war-hardened holiday revelers, with Christmas decorations and a sign, soiled with blood and entrails, wishing all joy, happiness, and good will from the 26th Marines. As we passed and entered the base, few even took notice. I heard one young Marine; newly arrived in Country, whisper to no one in particular, “Ho, fucking ho, fucking ho.”
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 