“A Christmas tree decorated with bullets. A sergeant said that a soldier had used a grenade for a Christmas ball, but apparently that was a little over the top even for Anbar Province, and so the grenade was removed from the list of acceptable Christmas decorations.” Photo and cutline by Michael Yon.

Michael Yon is writing from Mosul and Ramadi in his second installment of “Walking the Line.” As usual, the dispatch is full of hope and hard truths, setbacks and stand-ups, and great pictures– lots of pictures. I particularly liked the part about troop morale and the signs thereof (“Combat soldiers have simple dreams. Crude, but simple.” That’s the punchline. Click through for the joke. Heh.)

More on morale from INDC in Fallujah:

Marines responsible for security fight boredom and tension with work (convoys, patrols, administration, cleaning), internet, TV, care packages and dumb challenges, the latter a young male tradition that transcends time and place. Between the furor of battles, I’m fairly certain that young Roman Legionnaires challenged each other to Marshmallow Fluff eating contests (or their equivalent) in the snowy forests of Germania.

Much more at the link.

And, finally, an interview with one of the “exceptions” to the all-military-are-dumb-and-disadvantaged rule. There seem to be a lot of exceptions, don’t there?

I was up on the satellite phone, talking to my mother; hadn’t talked to her for awhile, so calling to check in. And I’d been up there for awhile, about 15-20 minutes, and I’d just happened to stand up for 3 minutes, and tracers started flying.

Me, I didn’t realize they had tracers, they were just like ours, and I just hit the ground, didn’t cut off the phone, my mother was listening the whole time.

Fighting for freedom and still finding time to call home? That’s a good man. Read all he has to say. All links are worthy of a “read the whole thing,” so go! Seriously. You won’t regret it.

Update: Embedded reporters for the Detroit Free Press thank the Marines– for their lives:

…another reporter, working for an international news service, suggested that embedding with the Marines might impair my objectivity.

That reporter might have been right. I tend to bond with people when they’re trying to make sure I get through an assignment alive…

“If anybody comes at you,” he (Gunnery Sgt. Brian Ivers) said with level certainty, “I’ll just shoot ‘em, and we’ll be good to go.”

Ivers said he is “Australian by birth, American by choice and U.S. Marines by the grace of God.”

H/t Blackfive.

Note: I had some major computer malfunctions last week and over the weekend, and have been jumping from laptop to laptop, so if I have missed an e-mail from you, that’s probably why. My apologies. Feel free to hit me up again at mkham at townhall dot com.