Soldiers Night Before Christmas Sound File

The Most Precious Gift

DETROIT -- My father died today.

While sorting out so many tear-filled emotions, my comfort lies in my unending admiration for what he did with the most precious gift: life.

Strange as it may sound, these words you are reading now should not exist. I, my brother and two sisters should not exist either. My father’s death, by any earthly measure, should have come 58 years ago. A twist of fate worthy of a best-selling novel allowed him to show us all what one can and should do with a gift of this magnitude.

The Korean War called for James J. Meloni Jr. Not exactly looking for it and not seeing himself the typical soldier, my father enlisted in the Army Security Agency. Fresh out of art school, he tested well as a Morse code intercept operator. This job required sitting in a radio truck with a typewriter and earphones transcribing enemy communications. While he did not carry a gun, this job was no less dangerous. That truck would sit as close as possible to enemy lines.

Stationed at Fort Devens [Massachusetts] he did not know one of his fellow soldiers had viral hepatitis. On the day his orders told him and his group to ship out to the Chosin Reservoir, [one of the bloodiest and hard fought battles of the war] he instead was rushed to the base hospital. He too contracted the deadly disease. He spent several months in quarantine. The men he trained with spent the next several months fighting for their country and all lost their lives in the process.

So what does one do after cheating death? My dad finished his tour [in Germany] married the love of his life [my mother Anne] and set off to make his place in the world with a boundless sense of appreciation and a serious commitment to giving back, leadership and most importantly teaching.

While a skilled artist, he was not so good he could pay the bills when we children came along. He went into advertising. In 1961, he was selling the first business computers. Simultaneously he entered Boston University and earned an MBA in night school through ROTC.

He served 13 years in the Army Reserve, studying military strategy at, of all places, Harvard. [Something he never discussed until pressed on his death bed.] He used the strategic thought he learned there in business. He became a successful ad campaign manager, won awards, and in the 1970’s even received a phone call to run Hewlett Packard’s growing computer advertising program in Chicago.

Stockings For Soldiers

I know its far from christmas ...but?

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house Not a creature was stirring, except father's mouse. The computer was humming, the icons were hopping, As father did last-minute Internet shopping.

The stockings were hung next the modem with care In the hope that Santa would bring new software. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, With visions of computer games filling their heads.

Dark Forces for Billy, Doom II for Dan, Carmen Sandiego for Pamela Ann. The letters to Santa had been sent out by mum, To santa@toyshop.northpole.com--

Which now had been re-routed to Washington State Where Santa's workshop had been moved by Bill Gates. All the elves and the reindeer had had to skedaddle To flashy new quarters in suburban Seattle.

After living a life that was simple and spare, Santa now finds he's a new billionaire, With a shiny red Porsche in place of his sleigh, And a house on Lake Washington just down the way > From where Bill has his mansion. The old fellow preens In black Gucci boots and red Calvin Klein jeans. The elves have stock options and desks with a view, Where they write computer code for Johnny and Sue.

No more dolls or tin soldiers or little toy drums Will be under the tree, only compact disk roms With the Microsoft label. So spin up your drive, >From now on Christmas runs only on Win98/95.

More rapid than eagles the competitors came, And Bill whistled, and shouted, and called them by name. "Now, ADOBE! now, CLARIS! now, INTUIT! too, Now, APPLE! and NETSCAPE! you're all of you through,

It's Microsoft's SANTA that the kids can't resist, It's the ultimate software with a traditional twist - Recommended by no less than the jolly old elf, And on the package, a picture of Santa himself.

Get 'em young, keep 'em long, is Microsoft's theme, And a merger with Santa is a marketer's dream. To the top of the NASDAQ! To the top of the Dow! Now dash away! dash away! dash away - wow!"

And mum in her 'kerchief and me in my cap, Had just settled down for a long winter's nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, The whirr and the hum of our satellite platter, As it turned toward that new Christmas star in the sky, The SANTALITE owned by the Microsoft guy. As I sprang from my bed and was turning around, My computer turned on with a Jingle-Bells sound.

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