ALBUQUERQUE, Dec. 25 -- Pvt. Jeremiah Jensen, on leave from Iraq, had his car stolen at gunpoint just days before Christmas. Pfc. Robert Ruiz was injured by a booby trap in Iraq a few days after Christmas last year. For both Albuquerque soldiers, ill holiday fortune turned to hope and joy because strangers reached out to them this year.
Jensen, 21, drove 1,300 miles from Fort Campbell, Ky., to Albuquerque Dec. 18 to spend the holiday with his family. Four days later, his red 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix, loaded with Christmas gifts, was stolen outside a restaurant by a man who threatened Jensen and his girlfriend with a rifle.
Jensen had reduced the insurance on the vehicle while he was deployed and had not reinstated the coverage.
"I didn't know what I was going to do, honestly," Jensen told the Albuquerque Journal. He must report back to Fort Campbell on Jan. 4.
Sheriff Darren White, an Army veteran, took Jensen shopping Thursday evening to replace some of the stolen Christmas gifts.
"I told him, and this is really important, 'This is not an act of charity; it's an expression of gratitude.' "
And the gratitude did not stop there: When word got out about Jensen's situation, automobile dealerships, restaurants and at least 25 individuals made donations totaling more than $5,000 by Friday evening.
"We're going to raise enough money to buy him another car," White said. "This is vintage New Mexico and, really, what the spirit of Christmas is all about."
Ruiz, 28, is undergoing rehabilitation for injuries to his foot and back after he was hurt last December by a booby trap while on patrol in Iraq.
A father of three, Ruiz wanted a motorcycle, but he and his wife were buying a house, and Andrea Ruiz said she wanted to save money.
"I finally gave in and just wrote [the local Harley-Davidson dealer] to see if they had any financing options available," she said.
Dealership owner Chick Hancock and his employees decided to get Ruiz a Harley for free. "Here's a guy who is 28 years old with a wife and three kids who wanted to do right by our country," Hancock said.
Ruiz, wearing his dress uniform, limped into the Harley shop on Christmas Eve to see his customized, infantry blue Harley-Davidson Sportster and was greeted with applause.
"I told my dad I'd get a bike, and we'd go riding together," Ruiz said. "I never expected anything like this."
