"That's it?" Dave Handley asked, glancing at his watch. "That didn't take very long at all, guys."

In an hour and a half, with military efficiency, Handley and about a half-dozen other Vietnam veterans drove out to Don's Valley Market, loaded a van full of food and headed back to the American Legion Post 22, where they sorted it all into boxes to deliver to veterans and others who could use the meal at Christmas.

Handley denied it was their time in the service that had the guys working so well together. "This is going way too smooth to have anything to do with the military," he joked, instead attributing the speed to their years of experience.

Handley started the program in 1981, and the men say the chance to help others gives them some perspective about their lives around the holidays.

One of his first years, Doug Fletcher drove a box to the run-down home of an old veteran, who refused the meal.

"Why don't you give it to someone who needs it?" the man demanded.

Fletcher said he knew the man needed the food, and tried to convince him to take it, but he was too proud. So they waited until the man had gone back into his house, and returned.

"We made a swing around and left it there anyway," Fletcher said.

Most people accept the boxes gratefully, and the veterans kept them in mind Tuesday as they worked quickly and quietly to pack the meals in a room where smoke drifted in from the bar, along with the sound of the waitress's voice as she called someone honey.

"OK, there's two here, two here, two here," Darrell Kulm counted to himself as he parceled out boxes of stuffing.

There was nothing fancy about the meals - just staples loaded into used banana boxes, each with two pounds of butter, two loaves of bread, two boxes of stuffing, a sack each of oranges, apples and potatoes, four Jell-Os, fruit cocktail, cranberry mold and four cans of corn. And a turkey, one to each household.

The whole thing cost $1,300 this year - several hundred more than last year, and enough for one vet to mutter something unprintable about the cost of food.

The money comes from donations and from funds left after the Legion post's year of activities. The expense was even after Don's Valley Market gave a discount. Owner Don Turner, a former Air Force medic, explained, "It's that time of year," and that he wanted to honor the sacrifices of soldiers and airmen, many of whom are away from home at Christmas.

The Vietnam veterans recalled their own Christmases away from home, at a time when there was no e-mail or Skype. They had to call back to Ellsworth, where someone would patch the call to their families.

Then, maybe they'd get together with other servicemen, and have their own Christmas.

"You make your own family," Mike Herman said.

That's what they'll be this morning, when they deliver the boxes of food to other veterans, who may not have anyone to call family.

"It makes you feel thankful for what you have," Handley said. When they were younger, he'd take his children along for the ride to make deliveries.

They'd get back in the truck ,and after sitting in silence a minute say to him, "We don't have it too bad, do we?"