Overseas Americans to send holiday greetings

  • Published
  • By Christine June
  • U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany --  The Army and Air Force Hometown News Service from San Antonio will have a camera team in the KMC starting Monday to record holiday greetings for broadcast on local Stateside television and radio stations. 

The camera team will be here for five days at three different locations throughout the KMC tapping Hometown News Holiday Greetings to send to relatives in all 50 states and U.S. territories. 

Active duty, government civilians, retirees, Department of Defense Dependent School teachers and family members stationed in the KMC and surrounding areas are eligible to send holiday greetings back home. 

Sgt. José A. Alvarez, U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern Directorate of Human Resources administrative clerk, did his first holiday greeting two years ago, which led to a funny story that can be told during holiday family gatherings for years to come. 

"I was on the phone with my sister in Tampa, Fla., and she was seeing all these greetings from Soldiers on the T.V.," said Sergeant Alvarez. "She said to me, 'I wish my brother would've done something like that,' and before I could answer her, I popped up on the screen. She just freaked out, and started screaming on the phone."

What to wear
Active-duty members must be in uniform. Civilians should be in appropriate attire. The hometown news team recommends for families not to wear white, pink or stripe-colored shirts to the holiday tapings.

What to bring
Participants should bring address books along, because the more information people can provide to the hometown news crew the better the chance the greeting will air. They will need information like names, addresses (including zip codes) and phone numbers.

What to say
Participants need to say five things within the greeting: who they are, where they are, who the greeting is going to, where they are and some sort of holiday message. The most common greeting is: "Hi, I'm Staff Sgt. John Hill, currently stationed here in Kaiserslautern, Germany. I want to wish my incredible wife Millie and wonderful daughter Autumn in New York City the best Christmas ever. I love you. I miss you and hope to see you soon." 

Family members must be accompanied by their sponsor, unless the sponsor is deployed. If the military member is deployed, that needs to be said in the greeting as well. A civilian family member, a husband or wife, can make a greeting if the military family member is deployed, TDY or in the hospital, but they have to mention the deployment of the active-duty member. 

In other words, if the wife is in Afghanistan and the husband is here, he can make a holiday greeting for the folks in the States, mentioning that his wife is deployed to Afghanistan, and he can also make a greeting to his wife deployed to Afghanistan, provided she's going to be there during the holidays.

How many
There is no limit on how many greetings one family can send to the states as long as they live in different zip codes. However, the greetings must be sent to relatives. By the hometown news definition, a relative is by law and by blood. Fiancés are not relatives.

The process
When customers come to tape holiday greetings, they will fill out a form for every greeting they plan to do. A member of the hometown news crew verifies the information on the forms and gives them a small briefing. 

When the customers' turn comes up, one of the crewmembers will escort them to the camera, give them another brief and place microphones on them. The camera operator lines them up and records the greeting in "5, 4, 3, 2...."

When and where
· Ramstein - 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and Tuesday at the Base Exchange in the area facing the movie theater and gas station 

· Landstuhl - Wednesday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center; time to be determined 

· Vogelweh - Thursday and Sept. 15 at the Base Exchange; time to be determined