Throughout Christmas Eve night, clouds settled to earth
blanketing the active runway and across the valley to Hill 327, Freedom
Hill, home of the Hawk surface-to-air missile. The fog would teasingly
lift ... and settle ... and rise again, like mom shaking the white
tablecloth across the dinner table in slow motion. F4 Phantoms earned
their names and would rocket through bubbles of minimum-visibility --
fickled windows to the stars.
Near midnight, a lone chopper took off from somewhere
across the field, but the F4's were grounded for a few hours. On many
nights I had watched as million-candle-power parachute flares drifted
around the base perimeter, bathing the terrain in brilliant, ghostly
candlelight. But no flares would drift to earth this quiet night.
The base was still and quiet--then a single brilliant
parachute flared-nova directly over the runway. A galaxy-size halo,
diffused by the fog's water droplets, prismed it's white-yellow light
into a gigantic-ringed cross. The helicopter's rotors could be heard
mutely above, as its psy-ops loudspeakers began to play a Christmas
Carole.
As Bing Crosby's melodious voice gently crooned the familiar
words of Silent Night
