Serving through the season: Staff Sgt. Joey Crowell

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Leigh Bellinger
  • Detachment 4, Air Force News Agency
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (AFPN) --  After more than six years in the Air Force, Staff Sgt. Joey Crowell has gotten accustomed to working during the holidays. That's why Christmas this year in the Crowell household probably won't be happening on the 25th.

"Being away five Christmases of those six it's really easy if you're flexible," he said inside the headquarters of U.S. Air Forces in Europe where he is a shift supervisor with security forces.

So that means he and his wife, Tulsi, move the date of Christmas depending on his work schedule. "You just make the Sunday before or the break day before your Christmas."

And with a young son, Noah, who is turning 2 years old soon, that family time is important even if it's not on the 25th.

"He gets it now where he's saying Santa," he said, "but if we celebrate on a different day that's his Christmas."

Instead, the Pocono, Pa., native will spend a lot of the holiday season patrolling the area in and around USAFE headquarters. It's those long and sometimes unpredictable shifts that make it possible for others to "feel warm and fuzzy back home."

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