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thedrifter
11-23-07, 08:45 AM
Troops enjoy taste of home
Uniformed personnel overseas take time to enjoy Thanksgiving feast

By LAUREN FRAYER, Associated Press
First published: Friday, November 23, 2007

CAMP SPEICHER, Iraq -- The U.S. military Thursday put on a traditional Thanksgiving celebration for some 165,000 military personnel stationed across Iraq.

The gymnasium-sized dining hall here, serving about 20,000 people, was decorated with red, orange and brown paper streamers. Each long table was topped with a watermelon carved in the shape of a basket, filled with grapes and squash.

For soldiers across Iraq, it was a time to reflect on time spent away from loved ones back home, and to celebrate a tradition as American as apple pie -- which could be found at the dessert table, next to the pumpkin pie.

Sgt. Shawn Tostado, a 31-year-old member of the 44th Expeditionary Signal Battalion from Sacramento, Calif., said this was his first Thanksgiving since his mother died in August.

"This is the first holiday I've had without her. This is my extended family now," Tostado said, gesturing to his fellow soldiers at Camp Speicher in Tikrit. "I do more with these guys than anyone else."

"I've gotta say, these deployments are harder on the family back home I think, celebrating the holidays without us. We're busy here constantly, but they worry," he said.

President Bush, who visited troops in Iraq on Thanksgiving after the U.S. invasion in 2003, called several servicemen and women Thursday from Camp David, Md., to extend best wishes and say it was "the least I can do."

Three of those receiving holiday greetings are in the Army, two are Marines, three are in the Air Force, two serve in the Coast Guard and two in the Navy. The troops called are serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and aboard ship, said White House press secretary Dana Perino.

"He called to wish the members of the military and their families and the troops that they are serving with a happy Thanksgiving. He said, 'I can't tell you how impressed I am by the courage and compassion of our troops.' He thanked them for their service," Perino said.

"He said how proud he is of them."

Ellie