Lacey Springs, Ala., native Lance Cpl. Bradley A. Snipes, a Marine antitank assaultman for 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, stands with the helmet that saved his life. During an Oct. 2005 combat mission with his platoon, Snipes was shot in the head by an enemy sniper. Doctors said his Kevlar helmet saved his life. After spending seven months of routing out insurgents and stabilizing the Al Qa?im region, located along the Euphrates River in northwestern Al Anbar Province near the Syrian border, the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based Marines say they?re leaving the region in better shape then when they arrived last year. During the past seven months, the Marines have brought stability back to the people of western Iraq by training Iraqi Army soldiers and ridding the region of anti-Iraqi forces, thanks to an aggressive counterinsurgency campaign, which included Operation Steel Curtain. ?We're able to progress now with getting consistent (electrical) power, free and clean running water for all the villages up there, as well as starting to rebuild the hospitals and the schoolhouses that have suffered over the last three years,? said Col. Stephen W. Davis, who commanded all Marine forces in western Al Anbar Province for the past year, during a Pentagon press briefing last month. The battalion?s redeployment to the U.S. is part of a regularly scheduled rotation of forces in Al Anbar. More than 25,000 Marine and sailors of Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based I Marine Expeditionary Force are replacing the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based II MEF. (Official U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Jerad W. Alexander)