There was Gatorade at the second kilometer but no one calling out splits. There were no medals at the finish line, only the satisfaction of knowing that some Thanksgiving traditions, like the Turkey Trot, can be transplanted — even to the palm groves and farm fields near Baqouba in eastern Iraq.

Thanksgiving Day brought more than a race to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the Army's 1st Infantry Division, whose soldiers are among the 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq who celebrated the holiday away from their families. At a long table at the Warhorse dining facility, which was crowded with American troops and soldiers from the former Soviet republic of Georgia who are based here, Capt. John Fernas, 29, poured sparkling juice into coffee cups and raised his glass in a toast.

"We don't have family here, but we are with good friends," Fernas said.

At the back of the hall, a thin rope cordoned off a single place setting on a white tablecoth. Behind the empty chair hung the pictures of the 27 soldiers of the 1st Infantry who have died in Iraq. A serving of corn and mashed potatoes sat untouched.

At home in the United States, he would be gathering at his grandparents' house, said Fernas, of Vineland, N.J. "My grandmother would bake every kind of pie you can imagine," he said. His favorite is pumpkin. He had to settle for apple this Thanksgiving, however, when he could not find any pumpkin left in the cooler at the dining facility.

Civilian cooks, with Army soldiers supervising them, prepared a multi-course meal. Large platters in the center of the dining facility were filled with shrimp cocktail, which soldiers nibbled on while they waited in line to reach the spot where servers in chef's hats and aprons served roast turkey, prime rib, ham and Cornish game hens. There were also fresh crab legs, corn-bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans and hot rolls served from a wooden chariot.

"Back home, we'd have a big fat goose," said Sgt. 1st Class Roger Jeanice, as he stood behind the buffet, the steam from the roast meat covering him in a thick mist as he served turkey.

Staff Sgt. John Abuan, 34, of Guam, was in charge of monitoring the food line. After two hours, he finally took a break and sat down to a plastic plate of Cornish game hen and mashed potatoes, washed down with Gatorade.

Abuan said the civilian cooks started Wednesday and worked through the night to make Thanksgiving dinner for 2,013 people. The food was brought from the United States to Kuwait, said Abuan, and then sent by truck to a military base in Balad, just north of Baghdad, and on to Warhorse.

Tell the truth about the mashed potatoes, he was asked: Were they real or instant? They tasted like the real deal.

"They were made out of powder," Abuan said, grinning.

What about the pumpkin pies? "A box."

The green beans? A can.

Nobody seemed to mind.

Fernas, the brigade's civil-military affairs officer, said he remembered the Thanksgiving he spent out in the field when he was at Army Ranger school. He and the others had not eaten for several days, and there was a rumor that they would get a real meal. Instead, the instructors came out and threw them cold, prepackaged rations.

Capt. Sandra Sizemore, 32, whose husband and 3-year-old daughter moved to Alexandria, Va., while she was deployed in Iraq, said she would miss having Thanksgiving with her in-laws in West Virginia. At those gatherings, she said, everybody brings a dish to share.

She awoke yesterday morning thinking about the holidays and how she would not spend them with her family, said Sizemore, who is in charge of coordinating humanitarian projects for the brigade. "But getting through the holidays means we're that much closer to going home," she said.

For Arthur Bajouka, 39, an Iraqi-American who works as a translator for the Army, this was his first Thanksgiving dinner in Iraq. "It's kind of nice to celebrate with the soldiers," said Bajouka, who has lived in Michigan since 1983.

As the dining facility was about to close, Spc. John Spatig, 26, rushed in with a pack on his back, a heavy coat slung across his arm and his rifle on his shoulder. He face said: Did I miss the Thanksgiving meal?

Spatig, of Bethlehem, Pa., still had a few minutes before last call, so he rushed through the line, filling his plate.

He had just woken up, he said, and he didn't have time to talk. "I have to get to guard duty in 15 minutes."

This was still a working day. During the early-morning race, a sergeant ran back to join the rest of the pack after crossing the finish line. "Come on, catch up," he yelled. "Run. Run."