For Tent Town, Soldiers, It’s a Blue Christmas

In a muddy tent town on the Sava River, American soldiers set up more canvas barracks Sunday, working furiously to block out Christmas, a holiday that their families thousands of miles away would celebrate without them.

“Santa brought me a hammer and a bunch of stakes,” said Spc. William Edward Anderson of Washington.

For several hundred soldiers here, poised to enter Bosnia-Herzegovina on an international peacekeeping mission, Christmas meant a test of discipline, a time when they strove to focus on building showers and grading the riverbank, rather than on the aching longing to be with their families.

They tried not to look at their watches and calculate what they would be doing instead if they were home. This, they would fleetingly think, was the time when they would have wrapped gifts or readied the stockings. Or they would think about how their children’s faces would look when they opened gifts.

Before Sgt. 1st Class Lou Sabia shipped out on the peacekeeping mission to Bosnia, his 11-year-old son announced that, instead of asking for a laundry list of toys, he only wanted one present--his dad home for Christmas.

It tore Sabia up inside.

“It’s the one thing I can’t give you,” Sabia told his boy.

This is the first Christmas away from home for Spc. Joe Rosales, 20.

“Christmas doesn’t exist this year, that’s the way I think about it,” said Rosales, a Fresno native, as he paused from shoveling sand into a ditch outside the primitive tent town that Army officials intend to transform into a key gateway for American forces entering Bosnia.

Rosales tried to be stoic, he tried to be a good soldier.

And finally, he tried desperately not to cry.

“The more I think about it, the more depressed I get,” he said.

Rosales and the other members of his company had decorated a small scrawny tree outside their tent for Christmas. One soldier brought out gold tinsel his girlfriend had sent. Another added candy canes. Rosales placed bows of red and white on the branches.

As a last touch, just beneath a star made up of five glow-sticks tied together and amid the chains of unbraided rope, were three unfurled condoms--unofficially dubbed the “Three Wise Men.”

Not everybody felt glum.

“It’s just another day for me,” said Cpl. Antonio Keyes, 23, a North Carolina native.

First Lt. Bill Tennant, whose parents live in Westlake Village, observed that, “The worse deal for me is missing the UCLA-USC football game.” Since joining the Army eight years ago, Tennant has missed six of the past eight Christmases with his family. No biggie.

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Sgt. Britton Deweese, 24, of Houston kept thinking about all the Christmases he had spent with his family. Such as when he was 13 and figured he would have no Christmas present because his father had lost his job. But that Christmas morning, his father gave him a typewriter, which he treasures to this day.

On Christmas Eve in tent town, Deweese got a letter from his father, who quickly let his son know he was worried about the estimated 3 million to 6 million mines dotting the Bosnian land.

“My Dearest Britton,” his father wrote. “By the time you get this, you’ll likely be in beautiful Bosnia. Take care of yourself, watch your step, literally!

“Where are you? I mean what city, town, hamlet? The reason I ask is I’m planning to mount a map of Bosnia in your room and post your locations,” he added.

President Clinton sent a message of encouragement to the troops.

“There is too much at stake today in Bosnia for our nation to sit on the sidelines,” Clinton said in the taped Sunday address. “And that’s why we’ve turned to you, our men and women in uniform.”

He commended the troops, on what he called “the most noble mission of all,” as well as the families left behind for their “special sacrifice” at Christmastime.

At the Sava River tent town, a hot meal of turkey or ham--instead of the usual fare of dehydrated Meals Ready to Eat--was to be served for Christmas dinner. With a lot of luck and ingenuity, showers, jury-rigged to a water tanker, would be ready so those here who have gone a week without washing would finally have a chance. Telephones were to be installed in time for soldiers to call home on Christmas Day.

For the troops here, the prospect of such a call sent hopes soaring. Even if it would only be for the allotted two minutes.

Unsure whether he would be able to reach his son and daughter by phone on Christmas, Sgt. Jeff McKoy left each a card to be opened along with their presents. “I tried to tell them Daddy was sorry he couldn’t be there for Christmas and that I missed them,” he said.

He found it difficult to write, struggling to corral his emotions into words, struggling to make his kids understand why he was gone.

Suddenly, he realized there was only one thing left to write: “I love you.”