On Christmas Eve 2007, John Black stepped outside at the conclusion of midnight mass, took a deep breath of the cool, crisp air and for just a moment it felt like he was home for the holidays.   But Christmas in Kuwait City is much different than Christmas in Cullman.

One year ago, Cullman Electric Cooperative lineman John Black was better known as First Sergeant John Black, serving with the Alabama National Guard’s Company C, 1st Battalion 167th Infantry. After leaving in June 2007 for several months of training in Mississippi, Black and a force of approximately 200 troops spent nine months stationed in Kuwait City, Kuwait.

Black said soldiers become like family, which is nice during the holiday season, but it wasn’t the same as being with his wife, Sabrina, daughters Haleigh, 15, and Elizabeth, 9, or gathering with his seven siblings and their families at his mother’s house in Decatur on Christmas Eve.

“They do all they can to make it as much like home as possible, especially during the holidays, but it just doesn’t feel like Christmas or Thanksgiving because it’s temporary,” Black said. “In the chow hall, they’ll really fix it up nice with decorations, ice sculptures and you might see a little football on TV, but when you walk back outside, it’s back to work — another meeting, another mission.”

The unit performed 230 combat missions and traveled more than 1 million miles to escort supply and resupply convoys while in Iraq.

“When we got on the ground in Kuwait, we were way ahead of where they expected us to be,” Black said. “That was good and bad, because they saw our killer instinct and they wanted to gear that down a good bit because they were past that threat level in country by then. It was strictly security.”

The unit encountered nearly 50 Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and engaged in 40 small arms fire engagements while on escort duty, but the unit suffered no casualties.

“We ran from Kuwait City all the way to Mosul in the north, and the eastern and western regions as well, including Fallujah,” Black said. “They saw the whole country on the most dangerous road in the world at that time.

“The people we worked with took a liking to us real quick. They easily got comfortable with us and felt secure with us when we were on the road, knowing if anything went down they were positive it was going to be handled right.

“Overall, we were very fortunate and very blessed. The opportunities were great, and the results were good.”

Around Christmas, mail poured in from back home. Along with care packages and other gifts, Black said the troops especially enjoyed receiving boxes full of Christmas cards from school children from all across America.

“That was always pretty cool because those get really funny, the ones they make,” Black said. “They have some funny little quotes they come up with. You go through and try to find all the ones that have a return addresses so you can write them back, which gets to be a task, but we made sure to get it done.”

Black said the soldiers received so much stuff, they would box up the extras and give it to Iraqi children.  “You can be riding down the road and see nothing but sand, but if that convoy stops because of a breakdown or someone calls and says ‘hey, you’ve got to wait right here,’ in no time, you’d see those children everywhere,” Black said. “I don’t know where they would come from. We called them the sand children because it was like they lived underground or something. We would give that stuff to them.”

Communication back home is pretty good according to Black, as long as you remember the eight or nine hour time difference. During the holiday season he tried to call home during family gatherings when he could talk to everyone at once. After six months away from home, he said his daughters handled it pretty well.

“By that time, they were aware this is how it’s going to be,” Black said. “By then I had missed the first day of school and any holiday up to then. I couldn’t tell much difference. I guess they covered it up pretty well.”

Black returned home in May, and was back working at Cullman EC during the hottest days of summer. Having settled back into civilian life, he said he’s been too busy to think about what he’s looking forward to most this Christmas.

“As I think about it now, the feeling I usually get about a week before where it’s really hitting me in the heart that we’re in that season, I’ll get pretty happy inside. I’m looking forward to that.”