The Unexpected Christmas Present

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I think any of you can picture the scene. It is December 20, 1957 and Christmas is on its way. Today we are even closer to Christmas by two days. Anyway the house is all decorated and a very successful man is enjoying his Christmas holidays in a just purchased mansion in the state of Tennessee that he named Graceland. By now you know that man was Elvis Presley. Suddenly all that holiday joy is totally ruined by the very honorable institution known as the United States Army because Elvis gets his draft notice. Now at this point he’s already a national icon and as once Beatle John Lennon said, “Before Elvis, there was nothing”. Take that remark as it comes but I think he sure paid Elvis a great compliment. Someone in Elvis’ position might have toyed with the idea of getting out of the army before he even got in. I mean leaving all that fame behind for two-years in the army. All respect to Elvis who decided to do the honorable thing like any ordinary male in the U.S. He finished filming the movie “King Creole” and got sworn in as an army private in Memphis on March 24, 1958. He spent six month is basic training and got an emergency leave in August to be with his mother Gladys before she passed away. During the following 18 months Elvis served in Company D, 32nd Tank Battalion, 3rd Armor Corps in Friedberg, Germany and worked his way to the rank of sergeant. Here we could say that it was fate that Elvis got drafted and that he had to go to Germany because there he met a 14 year old girl named Priscilla Beaulieu who years later became Mrs. Presley. During this time his manager Colonel Tom Parker kept the home fires burning by continuing to release singles that Elvis had recorded before leaving so that he was ever on the mind of his fans. Finally Elvis was discharged and returned home on March 2, 1960 and then he went on to become the King of Rock and Roll. Personally I feel like I’ve just written a fairy tale and yet, it all really happened.