{"id":20370,"date":"2026-03-11T09:15:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T09:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/uncategorized\/the-unbroken-christmas-spirit-of-a-soldier\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:09:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:09:55","slug":"the-unbroken-christmas-spirit-of-a-soldier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/positive-living\/friends-and-family\/family\/military-families\/the-unbroken-christmas-spirit-of-a-soldier\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unbroken Christmas Spirit of a Soldier"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2019Twas the season. Like every Christmas, I had taken great care with my tree. There it was, at the foot of my bunk, in a corner of my two-man shelter on a U.S. Army base in Baghdad. It wasn\u2019t at all like the sturdy pines my family would pick out from the tree farm<\/a> and trim with ornaments back home in Sparta, Georgia. This was just a mini-tree, no more than two feet high, that my mom had sent me along with a box of mini ornaments. \u201cThinking of you,\u201d she had written.<\/p>\n

For the last two months, I\u2019d been stationed with the 503rd Maintenance Company at Log Base Seitz. Known informally as Mortarville, our small patch of desert was a favorite target for Iraqi insurgents. My job, in fact, was to repair tanks, troop transports and patrol vehicles that got hit. It was a job that seemed to have no end. Night after night, day after day, we grew used to the whine of air-raid sirens, and then the blast of mortars that followed. Well, used to it in a way that makes you pray for a day like Christmas, when you hope you\u2019ll get a 24-hour break to practice peace on earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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