Television holiday greetings available online

  • Published
SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) --  Too busy to sit in front of the television to catch a holiday greeting from a friend or family member stationed or deployed overseas? Don't worry, the video hellos are now available online.

The holiday greetings program, videotaped and produced by the Army and Air Force Hometown News Service, is in its 24th year of providing servicemembers away from home the chance to send a holiday message to those they can't be with this time of year.

Three teams each spent 40 days collecting greetings in Europe, Pacific and Southwest Asia theaters. Additional greetings were videotaped by military broadcasters in the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan and at some remote deployment locations such as Romania and sent in for the program.

The holiday greetings program has grown into one of the most visible Department of Defense broadcast programs. More than 2,300 stations nationally run the greetings during commercial breaks throughout the holiday season. That is a far cry from the first-year numbers, said Larry Gilliam, Hometown News deputy director. Mr. Gilliam was the broadcaster who set up the inaugural trip while out on a holiday news story assignment. 

"Our first year we sent out about 300 greetings," he said. "This year we collected nearly 9,000.

"We get a lot of positive feedback from the stations. They always want more greetings," he said.

Greetings can be viewed on the HometownLink Web page.

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