I was pretty lucky—extremely lucky—as I was only away for one Christmas and that was my second in the Navy. My ships was home-ported in Guam and we returned from a Korea, Japan, Philipines trip on Christmas Eve. I took a married with kids guy’s duty that night. We relieved late, so I got off the ship around 1200. A buddy of mine from dive school was also stationed on Guam in the Coast Guard—buoy tender—but we had missed each other our first few in-ports. Now, when my buddies fiancé found out that I had gotten orders to Guam, she broke up with him----a grudge from her visit to dive school--something about a beach bon-fire, a wrecked atv, skinny dipping, stolen clothing, and visiting grandparents—I don’t know, it didn’t seem all that bad to me.
Anyway—we hooked up and headed off to Barney’s Beach bar—there are photos of attempted wind surfing with Santa hats, drinks served in buckets---it was a good day