Dear Friends and Families of the Highlanders,

Happy Holidays from your Marines and sailors of 1st LAR Battalion (Forward)! We're doing well and continuing to make a difference in at least two Areas of Operations. More on that a bit later. Of course, we hope that all of you enjoying the Holiday season back home - at least as much as you can under the circumstances. Believe me, we think about you all the time and are eagerly anticipating our homecoming in a few more months. In the meantime, thanks for all the cards, letters and packages.

Currently, the majority of the Task Force is conducting operations in our normal/assigned area of Operations near Ar Rutbah. Weapons Company, on the other hand, is currently working for 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines in the vicinity of Al Qaim. I speak with Capt Sucher on a regular basis and he reports that Warlord is doing very well and doing what they were trained to do. Am also getting many compliments on their performance from the Commanding Officer of 3/6. Their terrain is a little more urban than ours and they have the opportunity to do some great work in an area that has, up until last month, always been a thorn in the Coalition Force's side. Their Engineers have done a remarkable job turning an austere combat outpost into a functional Company firm base. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's "comfortable" but it's a vast improvement over what they originally moved into! For those who participated in Operation Santa back home, we have made arrangements to have Weapons Company's packages sent up to them.

The rest of us have had a busy first half of December. On the 6th, we had the good fortune of hosting the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Hagee. He stayed with us for approximately an hour and a half and gave all of us more than enough opportunities to talk with and listen to him as well as numerous photo opportunities. SgtMaj Ward has even figured out a way for you to see all of the photos. If you hit this link: http://www.usmc.mil/cmc/photos/index.html and go to the Al Asad section of the December 3-9 CENTCOM visit, you can find our photos beginning on page 11. Our server's a little slower out here but there are lots of photos and the chances are good that your Highlander is in there somewhere! Following our visit, he took a flight out to our POE at Trebil where he visited Capt Jeff Goodell and our Marines and sailors of Alpha Battery - their pictures begin on around page 23 or so. All in all, the visit was a success and the Commandant had great things to say about what we're doing.

While CMC's visit was certainly big news, our biggest event occurred yesterday - 15 October. We set up and provided security for two polling sites in advance of Iraq's election of a full-term Parliament. Alpha Company (Apache) teamed with two Platoons from our partnered Iraqi Army unit - the 2d Company 2-1-1 and established a polling site in the vicinity of Ar Rutbah. All was set on the evening of 14 October and I visited the site at approximately 0845 on the 15th. In short, as surprised as I was at the turnout in Barwanah on the 15th of October, I wasn’t prepared for yesterday's voter turnout - it was unbelievable. As you probably already know, we're in a heavily Sunni dominated area and the turnout for the previous two elections was minimal at best. Without getting into too many details - official results are apparently a week or so away - the IECI workers (poll site employees) ran out of ballots and the line of voters stretched, at times, at least a quarter of a mile. Our polling site that H&S Company (Hammer) and their partnered platoon from 2d Company set up in Akashat had similar success - over 350 women voted out of approximately 1500 very enthusiastic voters there. When we visited that site, there were many people in the area and virtually all proudly displayed their ink-stained fingers. We attribute much of the success - at least in terms of how security affected the turnout - to the great work done by all of the Highlander elements in the few weeks preceding the election. I could not be more proud of their efforts and the expressions on the Highlander faces yesterday spoke volumes. Good things are happening in Iraq.

As I type this, we are in the process of sorting through the two tractor trailer-sized containers of mail brought to us by Combat Logistics Battalion - 2 last night as well as the four containers brought in by helicopters a few hours ago. Our company office is literally stacked to the ceiling with boxes from well-wishers. Both SgtMaj Ward and I cannot overstate how thankful we are for the wonderful generosity shown by so many of you. It inspires us! There are so many people to thank that I’m going to send a separate update and attempt to provide a proper "thank you" shortly after Christmas Day. Until then, thanks for your support!