12/20/98

Holiday season takes backseat to business of warfare in Iraq

By Genna McLaughlin

STAFF WRITER

The Army promised a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings and they would have it - even if it meant dodging incoming shells from enemy aircraft.

Harry McCracken and fellow U.S. combat medics, one by one, ran the length of two city blocks from the aid station to the kitchen, diving for cover when the bombs landed, rising again only when there was silence. The return trip, with a full mess kit, was harder but worth the food they were able to salvage.

It was Christmas Day 1944, another day of combat for U.S. troops in Belgium. The feast was the only thing to distinguish it from the nine preceding days.

"The shelling was continuous that day," said McCracken, a 76-year-old Penn Township World War II veteran recalling his Christmas spent at the Battle of the Bulge.

The monthlong defensive against the Germans began Dec. 16, the same date attacks on Iraq began this month, and lasted through the end of January 1945.

It wasn't the first nor the last time that the holiday season took a back seat to the business of warfare. Last Christmas, 107,000 soldiers were maintaining peace across the globe instead of decorating the tree at home, according to the Department of Defense.

There are no official numbers for this Dec. 25. A defense department report in June said 253,552 U.S. military personnel were deployed or stationed in foreign countries or waters.

About 5,000 of them are in the Persian Gulf region, the site of airstrikes against Iraq.

"I think for the most part you have a mission to do and you're focusing on that mission" said Richard Castelveter, a former paratrooper from Moon Township who spent holidays on secret military missions in the 1980s. "But when you have a minute of down time, the time you're scared, you're still thinking about your loved ones and more so around the holidays."

There is no way to predict what Christmas Day will be like for soldiers in the Persian Gulf, Bob Close, spokesman with the Army's Third Infantry Division in Fort Stewart, Ga., said as strikes began Wednesday. Even if airstrikes cease, troops will remain there, thousands of miles from home on Christmas Day.

"The military will do everything it can to make it bearable," Close said.

Attempts have also been made to make the season festive for other U.S. troops in other parts of the world.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, where it promises to be a white Christmas with inches of snow already on the ground, peacekeeping troops celebrated a tree-lighting ceremony and a visit from Santa Claus earlier in December.

The USS Boxer assault ship will be on the seas between Hawaii and Hong Kong on Christmas Day. The 880-foot-long ship left port in San Diego Dec. 5 with 3,000 personnel, all of whom will stand in line Friday for a Christmas feast.

"We'll wait for hours," said Seaman Tammy Gladden of Vandergrift, days before leaving on her six-month trip.

"The military, regardless of where it is, does its best to have a holiday meal and create a festive atmosphere," said Jack Gordon, spokesman of 99th Regional Support Command, U.S. Army Reserve, in Oakdale.

Betty Molyneaux finds some consolation in that fact.

The Verona woman said she misses her daughter, Kristin, more this time of year. It helps to know that the 22-year-old in Bosnia with the 475th Quartermaster unit will follow family tradition and attend Mass on Christmas Eve. Still, the "empty seat" when the family attends Mass in Verona won't go unnoticed.

"I'm not getting used to it," Molyneaux said. "I find myself opening the door and walking in her room and just standing there."