For US troops, a holiday lift from home

Gag gifts from "secret Santas" are squirreled among the crowded bunks of a US Army infantry platoon in Baqubah, a volatile Iraqi city northeast of Baghdad. A six-foot-tall artificial tree outside the barracks is decked out with smoke grenades and machine-gun ammunition for ornaments.

But the 38 members of the 1st Infantry Division platoon, nicknamed the "Punishers," won't enjoy even these makeshift festivities this week at their dusty Forward Operating Base in Baqubah: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day promise more forays to track down insurgents among the tense streets and palm groves of this Sunni region.

Also waiting for them here are a truckload of presents ranging from candy canes to DVD players sent by Americans back home who have "adopted" the unit. The gifts are from an informal but active grass-roots network of families, schools, and businesses across the United States that are delivering literally tons of holiday morale-boosters to American troops - even from thousands of miles away.

US troops in Iraq can hope for no letup in dangerous missions this holiday season, with units like the Punishers facing ambushes and firefights that can last hours between uneasy lulls.

"There isn't too much else planned for the holi-days besides some more missions I guess, as lame as that sounds," says platoon leader Lt. T.J. Grider, a young West Point graduate from Chicago. "Really, it's just another day of work for us. Days become meaningless over here, because we work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week," he wrote in a recent e-mail. "Most of the time I do not know what day it is to begin with. But it's our job, and we all volunteered, so no complaining."

Back home, their families, friends, and even strangers who've adopted them cling to each phone call or message, worrying whenever a silence lasts too long.

One evening just before Thanksgiving, Lieutenant Grider's father, Terry, and mother, Danette, were sitting in their living room in Elmhurst, Ill., when the doorbell rang. It was after 9 p.m., when no one usually stopped by in their quiet neighborhood. "We looked at each other and both of our hearts sank," recalls Mr. Grider, a teacher and wrestling coach at York High School. "We had not heard from T.J. in 11 days and we were very scared to go to the door."

It turned out to be a little girl who lived on the block and was delivering wrapping paper. (In fact, Lieutenant Grider and his platoon spent Thanksgiving night on a raid searching for terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.) But like many families of service members, the Griders live with a nagging fear that at any moment solemn men in dress uniforms could appear on their front step.

Anxious to let his son and comrades know people back home appreciate them, Mr. Grider has joined community efforts to deliver shipments of holiday cheer to troops separated from family and loved ones during the holiday.

In Elmhurst, the York High School's National Honor Society adopted the Punisher platoon for the holidays, filling an entire room with some 5,000 pounds of food, candy, and gifts and then collecting more than $1,700 in cash for postage. In mid-November, they shipped 114 boxes of presents to the platoon. A neighborhood block club rallied children on their street to send drawings to the soldiers. Schoolchildren sent homemade Christmas cards.

"Kids say some pretty funny things, and it is nice to be told you are someone's hero and that they are proud of you," Grider says of the cards his men got in Iraq.

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