"It started during a watch change-over, so most of us were awake," said Navy Seaman Jonathon Seaux, hospital corpsman with India Company, from Abbeville, La. "I checked on my Marines to make sure everyone was OK, and then I just did the first thing I thought to do: pick up the squad automatic weapon next to me and start firing back."

Seaux didn't even notice the 7.62 mm round that lodged in his body armor just above his heart until the next day.

"I guess I'm just lucky," said Seaux, proudly displaying the SAPI plate with a hole from which he had extracted a round. "Better me than one of my Marines," added the corpsman, who helped bandage another Marine's bullet wound the next day.

After taking fire for a solid 20 minutes, the Marines sent the enemy packing for the night with deadly accurate 60 mm high-explosive mortar bursts.

With one squad running low on ammunition after the firefight, another squad made a night movement of more than 1,200 meters to make sure their fellow Marines had backup.

"They didn't complain and they didn't stop," said 2nd Lt. Pete Ankney, platoon commander with India Company, from Colstrip, Mont. "They knew they had a job to do."

On Christmas Eve, India Company's combined anti-armor team went to retrieve the Marines who were maintaining an overwatch position in the Korangal Valley. After extracting the Marines, they got their own taste of action in an ambush by heavily armed forces using fortified fighting positions.

"We heard muted gunfire, RPGs exploding and the sound of rounds hitting the trucks," said Marine Cpl. Josh Burgbacher, India Company machine-gunner from Lima, Ohio. "That lasted for maybe half of a second and then you could hear every single gun in the convoy open up. Everyone just reacted with their training."

Other Marines said Burgbacher calmly helped fix a jammed MK-19 automatic grenade launcher while rounds were impacting around him.

The ambush was a well-planned attack, according to the anti-armor team's commander, 1st Lt. Jonathan Frangakis, from Belle Meade, N.J. He said the enemy had a pile of rocks marking the start of the kill zone.

"We thought at first it was an improvised explosive device, but they knew how many vehicles we had, and as soon as the first vehicle got near the marker, they opened up on us," Frangakis said.

For several Marines, it was their second firefight in just a few hours.

"I heard the rounds impacting," said Lance Cpl. Daniel Alfieri, India Company machine-gunner from Syracuse, N.Y. "I just thought 'here we go again,' " he said as he cleaned his weapon after returning to Asadabad with his squad.

Another close call to complement Seaux's included the shot-through front sight post of Sgt. Jason Burch's M-16A4 rifle. Burch, from Deerlodge, Mont., said he didn't even notice the damage to his rifle as he continued to return fire.

As dawn broke on Christmas morning, the Marines and Sailors joined together in giving thanks for their good fortune that no one was seriously injured in the firefights. After holiday services, the Marines returned to their base of operations in the Kunar Province where, to the man, they broke out cleaning gear and busted the carbon off their weapons before heading to Christmas chow.