JDBC getConnection with Tomcat

I'm sorry for the posting, but recently re-installed my development
machine to Win XP from Win 2000. I had everything working fine with Win
2000. My issue is when I go the query the database from my jsp page I
receive this HTTP Status 500 error:

Exception
javax.servlet.ServletException

org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.processException(RequestProces
sor.java:523)
. . .

root cause
java.lang.NullPointerException
fssm.dao.UnitDAO.getUnit(UnitDAO.java:104)
fssm.manager.UnitManager.HqsUnit(UnitManager.java:22)

Here is what's on line 104 of UnitDAO.java:

. . .
Connection conn = null;
Statement stmt = null;
ResultSet rs = null;

try
{
conn = getConnection();
stmt = conn.createStatement();

rs = stmt.executeQuery(GET_HQ_UNITS_SQL);
. . .

Any suggestion for what I should check. I'm thinking I have a path
problem. My web.xml points to an application.xml file in
CATALINA_HOME\conf\Catalina\localhost directory.

Thank you,
Warren