A Christmas Jingle in the Middle East

I was reminded again this week (by your jingle, of course) of an incident that occurred during my stint in the US Navy. I was deployed on the USS Truxtun CGN-35 (a guided missile cruiser) between August ’91 and January ’92. We had just spent 3 months in the Persian Gulf and of course were all away from our families for the holiday season.

I was fortunate that a shipmate of mine (Rodney Hale), who had just reported to the ship, was not only from Oklahoma but was actually from my hometown of Moore. We were both electricians and thus had the opportunity to stand watch together frequently. One late night just before Christmas, we were standing watch and discussing all of the things that we were missing out on by being away from home for the holidays.

Of course friends and family were talked about, but eventually the conversation turned to TV, music, etc. I mentioned the infamous BC Clark jingle, which of course both Rodney and I knew line for line. So there we were, in the Middle East during Christmas, singing the BC Clark jingle because it made us feel a little closer to home. I don’t know if anyone at BC Clark can truly appreciate what that means, but for our service men and women overseas, nothing is more important than the occasional opportunity to be reminded of home and everything that you associate with friends and family.

So while this may have started out as a simple advertising jingle, please know that it is much more than that. Thanks for this contribution to our holiday season (however inadvertent it may have been). By the way, you may be humored to know that within a couple of days, Rodney and I had many of our fellow shipmates also singing the BC Clark jingle while they were on watch. None of them were from Oklahoma, but they had at least been introduced to an Oklahoma holiday tradition.

Have a great Christmas season and God bless!

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