In early December 1982, my Patrol Squadron Seventeen (VP-17) P-3 Orion flight crew was sent on detachment from Naval Air Station Barbers Point, Hawaii, to Guam for three weeks. This was a significant detachment because it was my first time out as the full-time mission commander. Upon arriving at Naval Air Station Agana, we were given two days to get settled in and then sent on to Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa to provide support for the overworked squadron that was deployed there.

Our crew was immediately put to work operating with U. S. and South Korean surface forces in an exercise while the resident squadron, VP-9, was busy with a Soviet Bloc submarine. After the exercise concluded, my crew was given the opportunity to go against the submarine. As it transited south, we ended up working it out of Naval Air Station Cubi Point, which was located in the Subic Bay Naval Complex in the Republic of the Philippines.

Our crew had been flying for two weeks with minimum rest, and the fatigue and damp climate took their toll. First my radio operator and then the radar operator got sick. Then I came down with a head cold and ear infection, and with two of our critical crew members grounded, the crew was out of commission for tactical flights. The three of us couldn't fly at all, so the squadron recalled the remainder of the crew with the aircraft back to Guam and left us to fend for ourselves.

My wife had sent a small Christmas Tree about two feet tall that could be pulled out of the box and set up with all decorations attached. It flew with us during the Christmas season, sitting on the galley table in the back of the plane. I kept it with me in the Philippines, and it was on my bedside table in the Bachelor Officers' Quarters. I called it my "deployment tree."

So I spent Christmas Eve and Day in my room trying to get well. To top it all off, we had an earthquake on Christmas morning, and I watched my deployment tree dance across the table during the tremors. A couple of days later, the flight surgeon cleared us to fly back to Agana as passengers. We returned to Naval Air Station Barbers Point on Jan. 10.

This was one of the loneliest Christmases that I had ever spent, but the homecoming and late celebration was just as sweet as all the others.

You know, I still set up the "deployment tree" every Christmas. Christmas just wouldn't seem the same without it.

T&D Correspondent Larry P. Jordan can be reached by phone at 803-874-3276. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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