Christmas in the Arabian Desert 1990

The informal Christmas service at Log Base Alpha, Saudi Arabia must be over.

A small group of soldiers are Christmas caroling through the outpost. Their voices echo the words from We Three Kings of Orient Are just outside the work tent in the bright star light.

I briefly consider rolling off the hated cot to go outside and encourage the holiday cheer but my stomach is racked with spasms. Closing my eyes, I imagine the three wise men riding their camels across the Arabian Peninsula laden with valuable gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Who were these wise men? Perhaps the Zoroastrians, the earliest astrologers, from Iran, Babylon or Afghanistan following the brightest star in the sky to find the biblical King of Kings in a humble manger in Jeruselam.

In my delirium, I try to piece together the bible story from the perspective of the desert.

Or were the wise men really Kings or Arabian tribal leaders taking gifts to a Jewish child hundreds of years before the beliefs of Mohammed and the Q'uran swept the region.

These three travelers might have ridden on the Arabian trade route that existing thousands of years before Christ? Frankincense and myrrh, so valued for perfume, incense and embalming, would be available in Arabia as both come from the sap of trees that grow in the harsh Middle Eastern climate.

The Christmas carols continue outside. I open my eyes and rest my gaze on the one foot tall artifical tree sitting on stacked boxes of our dehydrated Christmas meals. My mother sent this tree, our single holiday decoration, in the first care package. The tree decorations are tiny candy canes, delicate white angels, and doll size drums ... must have taken mom a long time to place all the tiny decorations on the branches.

My family is at home opening their presents and sharing the holiday meal but I am really too sick to care that there will be no presents this year.

The cracker packet is sitting open next to me on the sleeping bag and the large water bottle next to the cot. My lips are cracked but I can't bring myself to touch either.

The carolers move on to the next tent and their voices fade into the night.

Pa rum pa pum pum
Rum pa pum
Rum pa pum