December 25, 2004 - John was in Vietnam. I had just gotten a letter from him, the only one I received during his two year hitch. It had a photograph enclosed. It showed an Armored Personnel Carrier with “Nixon’s Hired Guns” painted on the side. John wasn’t in the picture. The letter read, “Hi from Vietnam. Keep this picture for me. I’ll explain if I get home. Your brother, John.”

It was Christmas morning. Christmas celebrations had always been a problem for us. My father’s birthday was December 24th, a fact that had complicated our family’s celebration of the holiday. Emily’s mother had also been a Christmas Eve baby causing similar complications in her family. Both Leonard and Lucille each expected the family celebrations to revolve around them. Neither was used to sharing the attention. Each expected the family to focus exclusively on their respective birthday.

I had put my foot down. Our kids would be home by six on Christmas Eve, go to bed in their own beds at their normal bedtime and open their presents on Christmas Morning. If their Grandparents wanted to celebrate the holiday they were welcome to come to our house. I had hoped to resolve the continuing conflict and uncomplicated the holiday. It did not work. It just imported their Christmas time rivalry into our living room and intensified it as they vied for their grandchildren’s attention.

That year, 1970, was a particularly difficult Christmas. I was in my second year of law school and Emily in her first year of teaching and our budget was tight. I was 32, the same age my father had been when his brothers went off to war. I was clerking in the local States Attorney’s Office, helping to prosecute the campus protesters who had crossed the line into violence. At the same time Emily and I were joining the protesters in working against the war. John had written my mother that spring telling her to tell his brothers and sisters to work to get them home, that the US had no business in Vietnam.

Johnny is 10 years younger than I. He was spending his second Christmas in the service, far away from home. This time he was in a combat zone. We didn’t talk about it but he was a constant presence in our thoughts and in our quiet prayers. We prayed for Peace that did not come. We prayed that Johnny would make it home. We prayed that next Christmas he would be with us in person.

Christmas is for children. I find Christmas is in their wide-eyed expressions of wonder as they first see the elaborate tableau their parents have laid around the tree. Seeing those faces with that sense that a miraculous transformation had happened as they slept was the real joy of Christmas. That year that joy was tempered by our parents’ rivalry and the knowledge that half a world away my little brother was spending Christmas in harm’s way. In an envelope, inconspicuously under the tree, I put the picture he had sent me. It was my way of including my little brother.

My mother sat in the corner, her face frozen in that pursed lipped expression that told me that she was busily coping with emotions that she would not let reach the surface. She tried to watch her grandchildren but I knew she was seeing a little boy filled with the same wonder I saw on the faces of my children and wondering if she would ever see that boy again. There weren’t tears. My mother did shed tears. Emotions were private things you kept deep within and hidden.

Johnny came home the next spring, first to Fort Lewis and then to Illinois. My mother’s tears were held for the phone call he made from Washington. She kept her tone level and the conversation matter of fact. When they said goodbye and she handed the phone to his father she went to her bedroom, closed the door and spent half an hour with her tears. There were no scars of battle, at least no visible ones, but he was injured in ways we would never understand.