Christmas in Mortarville

Far from home and family, a young soldier finds the spirit of the season

by DAVID MARK SMITH JR., Sparta, Georgia

I’T WAS 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’t at all like the sturdy pines my family would pick out from the tree farm 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. “Thinking of you,” she had written. For the last two months, I’d 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,…

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The Joys Of Christmas (Digital) - 1 Issue, 2021

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