Berlin ? President Bush’s surprise visit to Baghdad meant a wounded Kansas soldier didn’t get a scheduled Thanksgiving call from the nation’s chief executive, but Spc. Matthew Van Buren didn’t mind. In fact, he said, things couldn’t have turned out better.

After Vice President Dick Cheney called to explain that the president had been serving sweet potatoes and corn in Iraq to members of Van Buren’s 1st Armored Division and the 82nd Airborne Division, Van Buren said he immediately understood.

“Once I realized why he hadn’t called it was quite all right with me, because my boys are still down there in Baghdad, and they need the moral support more than I do,” Van Buren said in a telephone interview from the U.S. military’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in southwest Germany.

Van Buren, a 21-year-old native of Kansas City, Kan., is recovering from shrapnel wounds to the legs. Van Buren, a scout, was injured Nov. 8 when his Humvee hit an improvised land mine outside Baghdad in an incident where another soldier was killed.

His name was submitted by the hospital when the White House called asking about who might be there on Thanksgiving to receive a call from the president.

Van Buren said he and the vice president talked for about five minutes about where he was from, his family and his experience in Iraq.

“It’s probably the most interesting Thanksgiving I’ve ever had,” Van Buren said.