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Then, good news: The day before Christmas, a mission was going east, to Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, California. It was leaving at 10 p.m., so we’d miss Christmas Eve, but by crossing the international dateline, we would be home on Christmas Day to deliver the goodies we had bought in Japan—if we could hitch a ride from Norton to Seattle.
As we headed for the airplane, we passed through an empty terminal, where we spotted a seven-foot, fully decorated, live Christmas tree. “Wouldn’t that look great in the cargo bay,” I thought. “We could linger at the tree with our coffee and look forward to playing Santa Claus.” While the loadmaster made final checks of cargo placement, I found a spot for the tree, with its garlands of fake holly and strands of gold and silver balls.