There's always the .. operator, like:

$ perl -ane 'print if /<request>/../<\/request>/' server.xml
<request>
<visitorID>4d1aebec-543b-41ae-8336-3a30462f5227</visitorID>
<reportSuiteID>aolmobilewebdev</reportSuiteID>
<pageName>wpt: help_pv</pageName>
<pageURL>http://mqa.aol.com/portal/default/help.do?icid=ft_help</pageU
+RL>
<ipAddress>10.146.175.162</ipAddress>
<userAgent>JoeDog/1.00 [en] (X11; I; Siege 2.70)</userAgent>
<scXmlVer>1.0</scXmlVer>
<timezone>-5</timezone>
<channel>us.wptportal</channel>
<referrer></referrer>
<events>event10</events>
<server>qawire-ql26.tweb.aol.com</server>
<eVar16>ft_help</eVar16>
<prop1>wpt: portal</prop1>
<prop2>wpt: Help Page</prop2>
<prop3>gmt_5</prop3>
<prop10>JoeDog/1.00 [en] (X11; I; Siege 2.70)</prop10>
<prop12>http://mqa.aol.com/portal/default/help.do</prop12>
<prop13>non-authenticated</prop13>
<prop14>no referrer</prop14>
<prop24>uaid_na</prop24>
<prop49>xml api</prop49>
</request>
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