AJC.com > Iraq coverage > Blog > Archives > 2005 > December > 24
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Finding joy far from home
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tallil Air Base, Iraq — In the darkness of this vast military base, sometimes it was hard to tell that Christmas was here.
Many of the soldiers kept to their trailers. Others were out on supply convoys that would last all night or even a few days.
“Is it Christmas? I hadn’t noticed,” was a common comment.
Soldiers can find Christmas especially difficult because of the separation from family and friends; they give up the comforts of home for a crude, and sometimes lonely, existence in a combat zone.
Here in southern Iraq, members of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team tried to make the best of it. Some units threw Christmas parties or organized gift exchanges. A few Christmas lights and decorations sparkled among the trailers soldiers call home. An inflatable snowman bobbed up and down in the wind that swirled between the metal buildings.
In a courtyard outside the main recreational facility, some troops gathered for a Christmas program of carols, readings and a live Nativity scene.
Two friends who serve in the 220th Engineer Company, based in Festus, Mo., held up battery-operated plastic candles and sang “Away in a Manger” together.
“I’d probably be heading to my aunt and uncle’s house right now,” said Spc. Jeremiah Johnson, 22, a corrections officer from DeSoto, Mo. “That’s what we do every Christmas Eve. I miss the food, the gifts.”
Johnson said he could go for a good roasted turkey.
Sgt. Robb Breck, 37, a driver for United Parcel Service in Imperial, Mo., said he was really missing his twins.
“It’s kind of sad to be here,” he said. “We usually go visit relatives on Christmas Eve and exchange gifts.”
Spc. Lisa Evans, 37, a Macon State University student from Griffin, said soldiers try to make the best of being so far from home on this special day.
“I didn’t want to be thinking about home,” she said. “I wanted to be in the Christmas spirit.”
“This is wonderful,” she said of the outdoor Christmas program. “The narration of the whole event — why we celebrate Christmas was represented really well.”
Across the street and by the rows of trailers that occupy Living Area 2, members of the Puerto Rican National Guard took out guitars and gathered at a gazebo to sing traditional songs from the countryside known as aguilando. They shared arroz con dulce (a sweet rice pudding) and later went from trailer to trailer regaling soldiers with Christmas cheer.
“I feel great,” said Capt. José Lopezmolina, 48, commander of the 1st Battalion, 295th Infantry Regiment’s Charlie Company. “This is what we do at home in Puerto Rico. It’s real meaningful for the soldiers to be able to do this.” See photos
Sgt. Emeline Felix of the brigade’s Headquarters and Headquarters Company said she was warmed by the Puerto Rican contingent’s sense of family.
“When you do something together, it makes you feel like you belong,” said Felix, 51, a full-time Guard soldier from Marietta.
At the main base chapel, about 50 Georgians were joined by a group of Romanian soldiers for a service.
“Christmas by Chemlight,” led by chaplains of the 48th Brigade, included readings from the Bible and Christmas carols — and of course, outdoor chemical lights instead of candles.
The Romanians sang a few carols in their native language.
“We saw something here tonight that was amazing to me,” said one chaplain, Lt. Col. Stanley Bamberg, 53, of Fawnsdale, Ala.
“Sixteen years ago, NATO was in the West, Warsaw in the East. The dividing wall came down. We could have met in the plains of battle. Tonight we met to sing Christmas carols.”
AJC photographer Curtis Compton contributed to this article.
