"I'll Be Home for Christmas"....

[Hell Hath No Fury]

I am sitting here at work, making bows for a client's wreath. My radio is tuned to a local station that plays wall to wall holiday songs this time of year. The past few days I have been increasingly aware and saddened when they play a rendition of "I'll Be Home For Christmas".

For those of you who do not know the history of that song and what it meant to a country at war:

"In 1943, this song joined "White Christmas" to become one of America's most popular Christmas songs. The recording by Bing Crosby shot to the top ten of the record charts that year and became a holiday musical tradition in the United States. The idea of being home for Christmas originated in World War I when soldiers at first thought that the war would be quick and they would return by Christmastime. This inevitably did not happen, hence the line "if only in my dreams

snip...

It touched a tender place in the hearts of Americans, both soldiers and civilians, who were then in the depths of World War II, and it earned Crosby his fifth gold record. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" became the most requested song at Christmas U.S.O. shows in both Europe and the Pacific and Yank, the GI magazine, said Crosby accomplished more for military morale than anyone else of that era."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'll_Be_Home_for_Christmas


Here we are, 67 fucking years later and there are 10s of thousands of American servicemen and women in war zones who will only be home for Christmas "in their dreams", and thousands more who will never celebrate another Christmas.

The fact that their sacrifices are for two (or it is three or four now?) shitty, pointless "wars" makes hearing that song even harder to bare. :(

[Glassunion]

1. True... Very sad...

If they do get leave, there are ways to help.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=9682916

[Hell Hath No Fury]

3. Fantastic link!

Thanks for that -- H

[Glassunion]

4. We've never spent so much money on Christmas.

And yet, we did not spend a dime...

It is amazing all the cool shit you can do with points or miles when you put your mind to it.

[monmouth]

2. One of the first songs I learned to sing as a child..I'm so old, "Rudolph the

Red Nosed Reindeer" had not yet been written....sigh.

[eleny]

5. {{{monmouth}}}

[monmouth]

6. Hi eleny, love your little Santa...n/t