For residents of dozens of islands in the Pacific, Christmas comes a little bit early every year, and children scan the skies not for a sleigh, but for U.S. Air Force planes, dropping holiday packages by parachute.
Operation Christmas Drop, as it's called, delivers needed supplies — food, tools, medical supplies — to people living in some of the most remote places on the globe, as well as toys, books and other holiday gifts. The operation just wrapped its 71st year, making it the Defense Department's longest-running humanitarian airlift operation.
Andersen Air Force Base in Guam is the base camp for Christmas Drop. Participating C-130 aircraft and crews convene there, and service members and volunteers from the community gather every year to decorate packaging and build bundles from the tons of donations that pour in — 209 bundles this year, weighing more than 75,000 pounds total.
Indo-Pacific partner nations have also joined the operation in recent years; this year U.S. troops worked with counterparts from Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. For participating service members, Christmas Drop serves as valuable training in airlifting supplies to austere locations.
But as the "Love From Above" catchphrase associated with the operation suggests, it's much more than that too.
"It seems like as you get older, Christmas kinda loses its luster a little bit, but for the Pacific Islanders out here, the magic of Christmas is very real," one Air Force participant said.
"When we go and drop these bundles ... seeing videos ... of the children screaming and waving and just running to the box and ready to open their Christmas presents — to be a part of that is quite magical."
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