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  • Thanksgiving for US Soldiers

    Thanksgiving 'Happy but Bittersweet Time'

    Thursday, November 27, 2003



    NEW YORK — While Americans watched parades and prepared to gather around the table for Thanksgiving dinner, thoughts were with the troops stationed far away from mom's stuffing.

    President Bush was spending the holiday with family in Texas and planned to call soldiers to thank them for their service in Iraq.

    American soldiers in Iraq were having a Thanksgiving celebration of their own. In Baghdad, soldiers started off the day with a "camel" trot. And in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, thousands of American soldiers celebrated with turkey and a rock concert.

    In Afghanistan, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., sat down for a Thanksgiving dinner with U.S. troops at Bagram Air Base, just north of the capital, eating turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie with a smattering of selected soldiers.

    Sgt. Scott Robinson of the Louisiana National Guard was especially thankful to be make it back in Houma, La., for Thanksgiving: He arrived from duty in Iraq on Tuesday, giving him two days before the holiday to spend with his wife of less than a year.

    "I'm glad to be home before Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is the time to be with our families," said Robinson, who was sent to the Middle East in February.

    After eight months in the Iraqi desert, Spc. James Masterson returned home barely a week before Thanksgiving with plenty of reasons to be grateful.

    The 23-year-old Army soldier had survived a war unscathed. Though he had trained troops in his unit in donning gas masks and protective suits, they had never come under chemical or biological attacks.

    Masterson's parents came from Virginia to greet him as he stepped off the plane at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah. And his wife brought along 3-month-old Madison Pearl, the baby daughter he had yet to meet.

    "To see her for the first time and hold her for the first time, you can't really put into words how that feels," Masterson said. "It's a big deal. We expected we would be home sometime around Thanksgiving, but everybody was worried whether we would make it or not."

    With thousands of U.S. troops home from the war months ago and thousands more still fighting its aftermath, soldiers in the 260th Quartermaster Battalion didn't know until two weeks ago whether they would celebrate Thanksgiving at Mom's dining room table or in desert mess halls.

    Though 49 of them made it back Nov. 18, another 109 remain in Iraq, where the battalion transports fuel in 5,000-gallon tanker trucks to other Army units.

    "A lot of people, Thanksgiving is going to be sad for them and we want to remember the troops who are still in Iraq," said Carolyn Masterson, Spc. Masterson's mother in Bedford, Va. "It's a happy time, but a bittersweet time."

    As for her son, Mrs. Masterson said he looks like he was well fed in Iraq "but I'm sure he's going to put on a few pounds between now and Christmas."

    "He's already requested some special things," she said. "For breakfast he wants a lot of pork, any kind, any variety -- ham and what he calls fatback bacon. Fried eggs, not scrambled."

    Capt. Greg Brown, who commands many of the returning troops, said they worked day and night to pack gear and scrub vehicles for the return trip. Getting home a week early not only meant soldiers would get a four-day holiday pass, but they would have time to make travel plans with family.

    "You kind of see holidays as benchmarks," said Capt. Josh Fields, 26. "`Maybe I'll be home by Labor Day' and then, `Maybe I'll be home in time to take my son trick-or-treating.' And now I'm back for Thanksgiving."

    Fields, a logistics officer, said he plans to spend a quiet Thanksgiving at home with his wife, Jenni, and 2-year-old son, Jacob.

    Fields says he's also finding himself thankful for little things, such as grocery shopping -- which he used to consider a chore.

    "I guess it's just all of those things you take for granted," he said. "It's just the freedom to choose what you're going to eat."

    Sgt. Veronica Calloway, a personnel administrator, will be heading home to Wallace, N.C., for her large family's traditional Thanksgiving gathering. But someone important will be missing -- her husband, who will remain in Iraq until December.

    She and her husband, Staff Sgt. Brett Calloway, both deployed in March and had to leave their 3-year-old son, Jeremiah, and their 7-month-old twins, Michael and Matthew, with her parents in North Carolina.

    Both soldier-parents literally missed half the twins' young lives, including their first birthday July 24.

    "I don't know how they're going to take me," Calloway said. "I'm a little nervous. Especially, what if I try to pick them up and they cry?"

    As for her husband, "He's very military minded, so he's OK," Calloway said. "I probably would have been crying."

    At nearby Fort Stewart, where the Army's 3rd Infantry Division returned from Iraq at summer's end, Army cooks prepared for their biggest meal of the year for soldiers who couldn't make it home.

    Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield expected to feed as many as 4,000 single soldiers, Army families and retirees at their four dining halls with a full menu including turkey, ham and shrimp cocktail as well as cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie.

    Army cooks consider Thanksgiving their Super Bowl, said Chief Warrant Officer John Nelums, the division food adviser who last year served turkey and trimmings in Kuwait to troops in tents.

    It's a day when officers show up to serve food to their soldiers, and cooks are allowed to stray from strict recipe instructions to give the meal a more personal touch.

    "We have a lot of soldiers who aren't able to get home, and that's one of the primary reasons we have this big meal," Nelums said. "The soldiers that are preparing the meal just got back (from Iraq) themselves, so they are going to make sure it's more special. It's as special for them as it is for the guys that are serving."

    The small house on Hunter Army Airfield where Sgt. Leroy Sibley, 27, last week rejoined his wife, Mindy, and their three small boys will be packed for the holiday weekend. They thought some relatives might have to stay in hotels, but Mindy said, "We'll make room. We've got air mattresses." Even if it's packed, "It can't be as bad as a tent in Iraq," she said.

    At dinner, Leroy Sibley's looking forward to his mother's Louisiana deep-fried turkey, his grandmother's homemade pumpkin cheesecake and sweet-potato pie and his mother-in-law's salads and side dishes. But he's especially looking forward to time with family -- "that's what Thanksgiving's all about."

    As he adjusts to life at home, there's more he's thankful for, his wife added. His own bathroom "that he doesn't have to share with 100 other people," she said. And "I know he's been glad to go to the fridge and get ice water without having to stand in line."

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.


    U.S. Army Spc. James Masterson and his wife, Crystal, feed their 3-month-old daughter Madison Pearl in Savannah, Ga.

    Troops in Afghanistan share a Thanksgiving Day meal
    Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

    Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

  • #2
    Gotta be pretty cool to celebrate a holiday with your mates in a warzone, just looks kind of cool. The downside = no women.
    Last edited by s_qwert63; 27 Nov 03,, 18:01.

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    • #3
      I'm pretty sure the downside would be the war zone and the no family. There are women there.
      Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

      Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

      Comment


      • #4
        Iraqi women...


        no thx.

        Comment


        • #5
          What's wrong with Iraqi women? Besides, there are planty lady soldiers
          Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

          Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

          Comment


          • #6
            no thx...

            Comment

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