Christmas Day arrived — and for two 1st Brigade Combat Team soldiers, there was a gift like no other: their very survival.

Sgt. J.R. Salzman had arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center hours earlier, days after being critically injured in a roadside bomb in Iraq.

A few doors down, Sgt. John Kriesel already had settled in as a patient after he, too, was maimed by an explosion.

For both, there would be a long hospital stay and an even longer recovery. The two bombing survivors had much in common but they took different paths in starting over.

Kriesel had to learn to walk again with prosthetic legs.

Salzman would learn to write, feed and dress himself with an artificial arm.

Through their many months of rehabilitation, their wives remained at their sides, standing vigil through surgeries, sharing their triumphs and their setbacks, counting the days until they could return home.

Some of those days were especially memorable.

Just before Christmas, Kriesel had a special visitor — President Bush.

Ever since he had arrived at Walter Reed, when nurses would ask what they could do for him, Kriesel had one reply: “I want to meet my boss. I want to meet the president.”

On a visit to the hospital, Bush and his wife, Laura, met with the family. The president called Kriesel a hero. He turned to the soldier’s two young sons. Are you proud of your father? he asked. The boys solemnly nodded in unison.

Leaning over Kriesel, who was still unable to sit up, Bush pinned a Purple Heart on his hospital gown.

As Bush prepared to depart, 4-year-old Broden, sensing the momentous occasion, turned to his mother and asked: “Is George Washington leaving now?”

Nursing her husband