A mess hall Thanksgiving

Capt. Mara Boggs was having a long night.

The first bomb went off shortly after her lumbering line of earthmoving equipment, cement trucks and armored vehicles rolled into the dark streets of this northern Iraqi city. It missed Boggs’ convoy.

The next one detonated just after her team spotted it amid bags of cement in the median of a road that was supposed to have been cleared of hidden explosives the previous night. A driver suffered a mild concussion in the blast.

Another charge was hidden under that one.

As the Army troops waited for an ordnance disposal team to conduct a controlled explosion, occasional bursts of gunfire from nearby buildings crackled around them and tracer bullets flashed overhead.

By the time the area was cleared, and Boggs’ team could start paving over the median to prevent the next round of bombs from being hidden there, it was after midnight.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” Boggs, still calm and smiling, told her soldiers over a crackling radio.

For most American armed forces stationed across this strife-torn country, Thursday was just another day of the unceasing Iraq war. But many managed to steal at least a few hours to celebrate, whether over a special meal, at an impromptu Turkey Bowl football game or by sleeping in for a change.

For Boggs, 31, the first woman to command her airborne engineer company, it was special too. Behind her in the Humvee early Thursday was her husband, Maj. Kenneth Boggs, 36, who flew in for a quick visit from his base farther south, in Tikrit.

Later that day, the soft-spoken captain from Keyser, W.Va., climbed on top of a truck to cheer for her company in a rowdy football game in the afternoon sunlight.

“This is my second Thanksgiving here in two years, but this makes it fun,” she said. “We’re kind of a family, so this makes it like being with the family at home.”

Her husband joined in the game. Being together, he said, “was the only way I knew it was Thanksgiving.”

Most had to make do with phone calls and e-mails to their loved ones.

“I tell my husband: ‘Put the remote down. Go and check on the turkey,’ ” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Clarissa Lewis, 34, of St. Croix, Virgin Islands. “At least I don’t have to cook here.”

For her, the long separation from her husband and five children is the hardest part of the deployment -- her second in Iraq. A webcam helps Lewis bridge the divide.

“I can see the kids there,” she said over dinner in the jammed chow hall. “They ask when I am coming home. That’s when I miss them -- when I see them. I wish I was there.”

Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the No. 2 U.S. general in Iraq, dropped by Mosul briefly on a swing through bases north of Baghdad. He doled out holiday greetings and talked football with the troops.

Among those he met was Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin Hanner, 35, of Redding, Calif., who had reason to give thanks Thursday.

“I’m still alive,” he said. “My family’s safe. And I’m glad all my soldiers are OK.”

Last month, a suicide car bomber plowed into Hanner’s line of Strykers. Shrapnel cut into his face, but the armored vehicles did their job and there were no deaths onboard.

Bombings and fire from guns and mortars are near-daily occurrences in Mosul, a Sunni-dominated city that descended into anarchy as its police force melted away after an insurgent assault two years ago.

These days, however, Iraqi security forces take care of most incidents and many U.S. soldiers were given at least part of the day off.

The staff went all out at the cafeteria, where a suicide bombing shortly before Christmas 2004 killed more than 20 people.

The line of soldiers waiting to pile their plates with turkey, baked ham, beef Wellington, candied yams and corn on the cob snaked around the building.

Inside, the hall was decked out with paper turkeys and streamers. Ice sculptures and fruit carved in the shape of birds and flowers graced the elaborate food displays.

A “cocktail bar” -- no alcohol, of course -- served eggnog and mixed fruit drinks in champagne flutes.

“For one day, they get to forget that they are in Iraq, get some joy, and feel like they are at home,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Luis Pineo, 31, of Fitchburg, Mass., a food service advisor.

“Until you walk out that door,” interjected Chief Warrant Officer 2 Lorenza Moseley, 35, of Huntsville, Ala.

“Once you leave the building, you remember where you are at,” agreed Pineo, before moving on to another table to see how his diners were enjoying the meal.

“You eating with somebody else?” he asked Capt. Tim Emig, 26, of York, Pa., who was methodically working his way through two plates piled high with turkey and trimmings.

“I wish I was home, but it’s nice that they have put together something special,” Emig said, before raising a glass to toast the day with root beer.

Behind the chow hall, Spc. Brandon Schein, 22, of Baltimore waited with a line of Strykers while the rest of his unit went to collect plates of food for their meal in the armored vehicles. Part of a quick-reaction force, Schein had no time to sit in the hall and eat.

“The days all just seem to blend together,” he said.

Schein was not prepared for some of the misery he has encountered in Iraq.

“When you get out and experience it for your own -- the way kids live, the dirt houses and everything -- you realize how good you have it at home,” he said. “It makes you more appreciative of what you have. I wouldn’t want my kids to grow up like this.”

Before the day was out, armed soldiers in helmets and bulletproof vests gathered again. This time they were in a cramped room lined with maps for a briefing for their next mission in the city.

“Every day you and the men around you get up and fight, knowing that you face danger,” their commanding officer, Lt. Col. Barry Huggins, told them.

“I am grateful to you. And you should be grateful to the men and women standing next to you.... Happy Thanksgiving.”

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zavis@latimes.com