Over hill, over dale, over the desert of Iraq, a soldier's got to have tunes.

For Spc. Joel Wilkinson, 28, who grew up in Westminster and Parker, the top tunes are bagpipe favorites, such as Amazing Grace, Happy Birthday and the hymn Lead, Kindly Light.

Getting into the spirit, fellow soldiers stitched up a camouflage kilt out of an Army uniform to show their appreciation for his music, said Tobi Wilkinson, 28, the soldier's wife.

"I think he tried it on once," she said, "But, he's proud of it."

Assigned to a vast Air Force base in northern Iraq that he and other soldiers never leave, Wilkinson goes into the desert to wail out his music, his loneliness and his frustrations, said his mother, Sylvia Wilkinson, 55, of Parker.

"He says he's never had complaints," she said. "He says, every time he goes out to practice, a crowd gathers around, and he has a little audience."

Music comes naturally to Joel Wilkinson. He is the third of four children in a musical family, whose maternal grandfather, Victor J. Nelson, 89, of Salt Lake City, was a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for 25 years.

"When I was a girl growing up, our family would gather around the piano," Sylvia Wilkinson said. "My dad would play, and we'd all sing."

As a child, Joel Wilkinson demonstrated a musical ear and dexterity with his fingers, perhaps an aptitude that led to his military assignment calibrating high- tech gear.

"He was the kid who took everything apart," his mother said. "He had screws all over his bedroom."

Musically, "He has the most beautiful tenor voice," his mother said. "He has that kind of sensitivity."

Over the years, he played trumpet, clarinet, mandolin, guitar, flute and violin, but his heart had heard the banshee wail of the bagpipes. He was smitten and stirred.

But there was no money in the family budget then for bagpipes.

Last summer, shortly before her son deployed from Fort Hood, Sylvia Wilkinson ordered him $600 plastic bagpipes.

Tobi Wilkinson asked her husband, please, practice outdoors.

"They're so loud," she said. "It makes our daughter cry."

In the fall, the soldier shipped out to Iraq with his starter bagpipes in his kit.

"It's a way for Joel to release his creative energies," his mother said. "It's hard for him to be away from his wife and children, and it's hard on them.

"The bagpipes keep him from dwelling on things he can't do anything about."

garnerj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5421.