It's Turkey From Mideast To Pacific Rim

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)
November 24, 2006
By Will Weissert, Associated Press
FALLUJAH, Iraq — It was before sunrise on Thanksgiving morning and a U.S. Marine sat on a frigid concrete curb, reflecting on a holiday spent in his violent patch of western Iraq.
From the Middle East to Central Asia and beyond, U.S. service members like Staff Sgt. Dominco Washington passed a day meant to celebrate American bounty in far-flung deployments, longing for home while focusing on their missions.
"There are times when you think it would be nice to be home, nice to be with the ones you love," Washington, of the 3rd Reconnaissance Military Transition Team, said while waiting in the dark along a wind-swept Fallujah street for a company of Marines searching houses.
"But you can't think too much about yourself, get too down and be a disruption to the other guys," said the 30-year-old from Norfolk, Va. He lives with his wife and 10-year-old daughter on a U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan.
From their positions across Iraq's dangerous and insurgent-dominated Anbar province, more than 20,000 Marines quickly and quietly marked Thanksgiving amid their work, while trying to bring some homestyle traditions to Iraq.
There was a flag football tournament on fields of hard-packed sand that became blanketed by blinding dust whenever medical evacuation helicopters took off or landed nearby.
"Thanksgiving is food and football. That's what we do every year. It's America, even if we're in Iraq," said Cpl. Daniel English of Antwerp, Ohio, in the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion.
A television lounge at Camp Fallujah planned to show NFL games live, even though they didn't start here till midnight.
Inside the base's two sprawling mess halls, turkey sculptures fashioned out of butter greeted the troops, who piled their trays with roast turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and corn bread, as well as pumpkin and four other varieties of pie. The menu also included prime rib, crab legs, shrimp cocktail, fried chicken and collard greens.
In the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, there was no lack of thought for families back home among U.S. personnel at Manas Air Base.
"My wife and 5-month-old daughter, Emily, are waiting for me at home," said Air Force Capt. Karl Recksick of Cheyenne, Wyo.
Supporting refueling and cargo missions for U.S. operations in nearby Afghanistan is the main purpose of the base.
In South Korea, U.S. Air Force personnel at Osan Air Base feasted on turkey and mashed potatoes in mess halls.
Staff Sgt. Benjamin Short, 26, who fixes electronics equipment, said being at Osan was better than Balad, Iraq, where he spent last Thanksgiving.
 
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