{"id":30629,"date":"2014-12-26T00:30:55","date_gmt":"2014-12-26T03:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=30629"},"modified":"2016-11-25T00:50:25","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T03:50:25","slug":"christmas-around-the-military-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/26\/christmas-around-the-military-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Around the Military (Video)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>US military leaders publicized their &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.defense.gov\/news\/newsarticle.aspx?id=123874\">holiday messages<\/a>&#8221; in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLhBDPNlKEaZt27puzze1SyKC-rpwQpY_q\">series of videos<\/a> just before Christmas. Outgoing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and his wife made a point of saying &#8220;Merry Christmas,&#8221; as well as including a still photo from a homosexual proposal during a homecoming ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Marty Dempsey and his family sang &#8220;Jingle Bells&#8221; and wished everyone a &#8220;Merry Christmas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James and her <!--more-->husband Frank Beatty focused more on the stress of the season than the joy, but still\u00a0wished everyone a &#8220;Happy Holidays.&#8221; General Mark Welsh, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and his wife gave a similar greeting, as did Secretary of the Army John McHugh and General Ray Odierno, Army Chief of Staff, and his wife Linda.<\/p>\n<p>The Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert and his wife, Darleen, opened his video with a Navy chorus singing &#8220;O Come All Ye Faithful,&#8221; and said &#8220;Merry Christmas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As if to prove there&#8217;s no pleasing everyone, one person replied:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Why are they wishing me a Happy Holidays, when the only Holidays I celebrate are in months other than December?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The US Coast Guard Cutter <em>Mackinaw<\/em> performed the role of Chicago&#8217;s annual <a href=\"http:\/\/www.military.com\/daily-news\/2014\/12\/22\/cg-cutter-mackinaw-acts-as-chicagos-christmas-tree-ship.html\">Christmas Tree Ship<\/a>, delivering Christmas trees in a tradition dating back a century.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The III MEF Marine Band performed its <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dvidshub.net\/news\/150966\/iii-mef-band-rocks-annual-christmas-concert\">annual Christmas concert<\/a> in Japan. Even though it played such scandalous tunes as &#8220;The First Noel,&#8221; Chris Rodda seemed to keep her <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/18\/chris-rodda-criticizes-usaf-band-because-isis\/\">Christmas bitterness<\/a> to herself.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The US Air Force continues to support <a href=\"http:\/\/www.defense.gov\/news\/newsarticle.aspx?id=123868\">Operation Christmas Drop<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.af.mil\/News\/ArticleDisplay\/tabid\/223\/Article\/558481\/yokota-brings-holiday-cheer-to-islanders.aspx\">Yokota<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.af.mil\/News\/ArticleDisplay\/tabid\/223\/Article\/558331\/operation-christmas-drop-supplies-islands-with-bundles-of-joy.aspx\">Guam<\/a>), which provides remote Pacific islanders with airdropped surprises every year at Christmas &#8212; as it has for more than six decades.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The 1ID helped get 7,000 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.defense.gov\/news\/newsarticle.aspx?id=123882\">Christmas presents to Baghdad<\/a> for deployed troops.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Troops deployed to Liberia joined with the locals in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dvidshub.net\/news\/151072\/jfc-ua-service-members-usher-holiday-season\">religious celebrations of the season<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christianfighterpilot.com\/images\/liberiatree.jpg\" width=\"450\" height=\"284\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Joint Forces \u2013 United Assistance holiday tree shines in front of the JFC-UA headquarters at the Barclay Training Center, Monrovia, Liberia, Dec. 23, 2014.<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US military leaders publicized their &#8220;holiday messages&#8221; in a series of videos just before Christmas. Outgoing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and his wife made a point of saying &#8220;Merry Christmas,&#8221; as well as including a still photo from a homosexual proposal during a homecoming ceremony. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Marty Dempsey and his family sang [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[134,88,108,4981,3856,820,219,4303,1181,442,52,1957,2647,3169,4980,2284,1958,2,36,1211,17,1756,10,171],"class_list":["post-30629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-air-force","tag-army","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-tree-ship","tag-chuck-hagel","tag-coast-guard","tag-dadt","tag-deborah-lee-james","tag-holiday","tag-homosexual","tag-iraq","tag-john-mchugh","tag-jonathan-greenert","tag-liberia","tag-mackinaw","tag-mark-welsh","tag-marty-dempsey","tag-military","tag-navy","tag-operation-christmas-drop","tag-religious-expression","tag-raymond-odierno","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}