Troops mark milestone of Christmas

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Dec 26, 2003 by Larry Kaplow Cox News Service

TIKRIT, Iraq -- First Sgt. Edward Strickling served communion at a Christmas Day gospel service, then served in the line at dining hall and, finally, stepped in to provide a holiday break for lower- ranking troops by serving a shift on guard tower duty.

"I'm never off duty," said Strickling, 38, a New Orleans native with the 4th Infantry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas.

For Strickling and others in this huge palace compound, which has been converted to a U.S. army base in Tikrit, Christmas Day was a time for religion and connecting with family -- either by phone or by praying for loved ones at church.

Perhaps most of all, the day marked another step toward home for a division battered by casualties and bolstered by triumphs since coming to Iraq in March.

Back in the spring, most thought they would be home by now. Then they were told to expect a year away.

"Christmas is a milestone we've been looking for for a while," said Strickling, who dipped briefly into Iraq from Kuwait in 1991's Operation Desert Storm. "When Valentine's Day gets here, we should be in Kuwait scrubbing down trucks" in preparation to ship home.

At the sprawling base, three square miles in size with more than 3,000 people, Christmas was marked by flag football games on the muddy front yard of one of Saddam Hussein's bombed-out palaces. There were turkey and ham dinners, church services, concerts and a talent show. One gunner, perched behind the mounted machine-gun on a Humvee, returned to base wearing a red Santa hat instead of his helmet.

But fighting persisted nearby. Iraqi guerrillas fired several mortar rounds at an armored patrol in Khadasiya, just outside Tikrit, and U.S. armored vehicles returned fire, the military said. There were no U.S. casualties. Heavy mortars from the division's base fired a dozen illuminating rounds to help search for the insurgents. No arrests were made.

In Baghdad, insurgents fired a barrage of mortars, rockets and rocket-propelled grenades before dawn at a number of targets -- a hotel housing Westerners, banks, embassies and a U.S. base -- causing little damage but showing they can still strike in the capital.

The 4th Infantry Division, part of Task Force Ironhorse, captured Saddam Hussein in this area on Dec. 13. It has also faced some of the stiffest resistance in Iraq. Three of its soldiers were killed Wednesday in a bomb blast near the insurgent stronghold of Samarra. About 40 soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division, which comprises the bulk of the task force, have died in Iraq from combat or accidents.

"I try not to think about the bad things," said Karyn(cq) Price, a Fort Hood-based Army private from Louisville, Ky., whose friend was killed along with 15 others when the helicopter taking them to begin a leave was shot down. "If I could get revenge on just one person for my friend, I would feel a little better."

Asked if they were thinking about missing comrades on Christmas Day, most said they were trying to stay focused on their mission.

It's a response Maj. Mark Plaushin, a chaplain from Pennsylvania, said he hears a lot. But he said the feelings of loss and anxiety eventually have to be addressed. A priest from Pittsburgh who serves in the army reserves, he said he tries to get soldiers to accept the loss of those around them. "Even the nativity was tinged by the cross," he said. "It's part of human living."

In his Christmas Day Mass homily, Plaushin, wearing a camouflage stole embroidered with two black crucifixes, said the holiday can be a time for soldiers to "come to the manger" and "have an experience of peace in a time of war."

There was no shortage of Christmas goodies on the base. The dining hall tables were strewn with party noise-makers, Jolly Rancher candies and gift stickers. Boxes of stuffed stockings had arrived in bulk from family members and support groups back home.

But the distance from families is tough.

Sgt. 1st Class Steven Ferguson, based at Fort Hood and originally from Virginia Beach, said he called his wife Rosa at home in Killeen, Texas, Thursday morning. He was headed to a base gospel service and, with the nine hour time difference, his wife was driving with their daughter to a Christmas Eve service.

"It just made me think that we're on the same sheet of music," he said.

Others avoided the phones, fearing that talking would make them miss loved ones even more.

Spc. Kimberly Harrell, 23, had four free hours because a higher ranking soldier had taken one of her guard tower shifts. She read her e-mails and was relaxing on a plastic chair on the porch of one of the palaces as she prepared to call her husband and two children in Texas. She's close enough to going home that her three-year-old son is asking her to bring a toy dinosaur.

"All I can think about," she said as she looked over the palace's man-made lake, "is where am I going to get a dinosaur out here?"

Contributing: Associated Press.