FALLUJAH, Iraq — The first few pages of Marine Cpl. Tim Milholin's small zip-up Bible are stuck together — drenched "too many times" from the sweat of battle, he explains. It lives under his armored vest in his chest pocket, with an inscribed metal plate: "The Lord is my strength and my shield."
Corporal Milholin, a 21-year-old machine-gunner with a pencil-thin mustache, is girded for war in Fallujah with both book and sword. He is as well-versed in the King James text as he is in the killing potential of hollow-tipped bullets or the amount of C4 plastic explosive and TNT needed to blow through an Iraqi door. To him, they are all essential tools of his warfighting trade, as important as the photo of his wife, Brianne, that's tucked inside his helmet.
"I pray earnestly every day, and believe that God puts his angels out before us, to protect us," says the marine, who fires up his camp stove daily...