By Roger Roy,The Orlando Sentinel

CAMP PHOENIX, Afghanistan – The afternoon sun slanting through the windows had warmed the watchtower nicely, and after the big turkey dinner Cpl. Daniel Higgins was wishing he could lie down for a holiday nap.

But Thanksgiving or not, someone had to man the machine gun overlooking the highway in front of the camp outside Kabul, and it was Higgins’ turn.

Just days earlier, Higgins, 28, had been home with his family in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., buying a new mini-van and helping his wife plan for the arrival of their third child.

“It’s not so bad, really,” Higgins said, standing up in the tower to help stay awake, his two-weeks leave just a memory. “It’s what you make of it. If you’re just going to bitch and moan the whole time, it makes for a long year.

“It could be a lot worse.”

And that might be the unofficial motto of the hundreds of Florida National Guard soldiers serving here who celebrated a Thanksgiving Day in what, back home, would be considered a meager manner: A long line for a mid-day meal of turkey, dressing and mashed potatoes, some apple or pecan pie, and if they were lucky a day – or at least a few hours – break from regular duty.

But though far from home and families, still nearly eight months from ending their yearlong tours in Afghanistan, many soldiers here, like Higgins, were able to find something for which they could be thankful.

At the morning service at the little chapel in the camp, chaplain Capt. Kevin Winemiller shared the reasons he could give thanks.

He concluded with, “I’m thankful for friends like you.”

“It’s a long way from home,” Winemiller told the soldiers and a few civilians gathered in the chapel. “But we’ve got each other … You’re not alone here.”

At Winemiller’s urging, several in the congregation got up to speak about Thanksgiving traditions back home.

Sgt. Dawn Murray, 29, of Orlando, Fla., a full-time Guard soldier, told how she and her four younger sisters had always prepared the food on Thanksgiving Day.

“This is the first one I’ll miss,” Murray said, and when she cried a little at the thought, Winemiller asked a woman in the back row to give her a hug.

For a few of the Guard soldiers, family was closer at hand. Sgt. 1st Class Angel Gomez, 47, and his brother Sgt. Wilson Gomez, 45, Florida National Guard soldiers from the Brandon, Fla., area both based at Camp Phoenix.

With his older brother pulling more rank, Wilson Gomez said, he has to do what he’s told, unlike when his brother tried to boss him around as kids.

“Now I don’t have a choice,” Wilson Gomez said.

Yet he said he is lucky to serve alongside his older brother.

“It feels good to have any family here with you,” he said.

And for the older Gomez, it means being able to keep an eye on his little brother, something that he hopes is reassuring to their mother.

But it also means knowing what danger his brother faces every time he goes “outside the wire” – leaving the security of the base – and to be thankful that he’s remained safe.

“I worry every time he goes out,” Angel Gomez said.

There has been a major upsurge in violence throughout Afghanistan. A bomb hidden inside a car exploded Thursday outside a district police headquarters about 50 miles east of here, killing two Afghans. A U.S. serviceman was killed by a road side bomb Tuesday. And last week, a suicide bomber struck a convoy just up the road from Camp Phoenix, killing a German soldier and Afghan civilians. The blast was close enough to rattle the buildings.

“We’d been through that intersection 20 times with no trouble,” Angel Gomez said. “But all it takes is one time.”

And on a day when those at home were focused on giving thanks for what they have, many of the soldiers paused to consider how their own view of the world had been changed by their experiences here.

For many of the soldiers, seeing firsthand the poverty, ignorance and destitution that are so much a reality of life in Afghanistan has given new meaning to aspects of life they had once taken for granted.

“I’m thankful I’m not living like the people here,” said Capt. Patrick Stallings of Orlando, who has been to nearby schools and orphanages to donate supplies.

Stallings, 38, a high school geography teacher, said he’ll try to explain to his students when he returns just how difficult life is for the Afghan people, and how the things that many Americans take for granted – a decent home, a job, an education – are the stuff of dreams for most people here.

But he wonders how many will understand just how much they have to be thankful for.

“I know my own father used to tell me how tough life was,” Stallings said, “and I never listened to him, either.”

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(c) 2005, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).

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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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