HOLIDAYS AT WAR VIVID IN VETERANS' MINDS

It's the one gift that made the wish lists of several world leaders but wasn't actually delivered this Christmas -- world peace.

While NATO troops attempt to restore peace in Bosnia, veterans in Southeast Missouri recalled other holidays spent in the quest for peace.

Army veteran Harold Henderson spent Christmas 1944 in Belgium hiding under a blanket of snow beneath a fir tree fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.

As German soldiers fired shots at the American troops, the snow-covered limbs helped shield them from the enemy, who were dressed in white uniforms.

"We knew it was Christmas but we knew we hadn't had food or water in five days," said Henderson, a resident of the Missouri Veterans Home in Cape Girardeau. "We went in with a full force of 2,500 men and came out with 13 men."

Henderson has vivid memories as one of the 13 Americans who survived the battle. "We were covered in snow and the tanks were coming at us," he said, adding that the men eventually disguised themselves in white mattress covers they had cut apart.

"It was a funny feeling to have all that going on," Henderson said. "I don't want to witness it again in my lifetime."

After 20 months in the service and with the war over, Henderson spent both the following Thanksgiving and Christmas in the United States with his family.

"The first year I came back home we were all together," he said. "It was an old-fashioned Christmas with the whole works. Friends helped us get a turkey because you couldn't just go buy one. We celebrated liberation."

While Henderson spent his holidays in the battlefields of Europe, Joe Miller recalled a Christmas cooking for seamen aboard the USS Maryland.

"It was a big blowout," he said, adding that the soldiers usually received candy as a gift. "They tried to make it as much like home with a traditional dinner."

Miller, another Missouri Veterans Home resident, knew every item on the dinner menu, since his job was to help cook it. Most of the work consisted of cutting potatoes and making salads.

"You went into the spud locker and got all the vegetables ready," Miller said, adding that the hardest job was to remove all the eyes on the potatoes before they were cooked in a large vat. "We even had corn on the cob. That was a mess getting rid of all that junk afterward."

Miller, who spent six years in the U.S. Navy before joining a reserve unit. As a reservist, he also spent Christmas away from home during the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War.

"We kept close in touch," he said of his relatives who were living back in Missouri. "I kind of missed it after the war."