When the coalition invaded Iraq in late March, Moulton’s unit was on the front lines.

“There’s really nothing in life quite like getting shot at. Still, most of us got used to it,” Moulton wrote in the e-mail.

In Marblehead, the entire community kept electric candles on in its windows to show its support for Moulton and his family.

Debbie Dusenberry, the first neighbor to turn on a candle, said that the candles were not put up as a statement of anyone’s stance on the war but rather as “a hope that Seth would come back home and that peace would be restored.”

As coalition forces pushed deeper into Iraq, Moulton said his unit was in the vanguard of the final push into Baghdad.

“I was in the first company of Marines to enter Baghdad, and once most of the fighting was over, our biggest problem with running patrols was the huge mobs of cheering supporters who would always crowd our vehicles,” he wrote in the e-mail.

But even with the military phase of the campaign at an end, Moulton said that life for him and his Marines remains far from tranquil.

“There’s shooting every night, most of it celebratory. If there’s quite a bit of gunfire, we run towards it, not away, since that’s our job. But at least it keeps things interesting,” wrote Moulton, who added that his unit is now based south of Baghdad in the town of Al Hillah.

Moulton added that his Marines have faced little of the unrest among the Iraqi people that has plagued the Baghdad garrison.

Moulton wrote in the e-mail that he is not sure when he will be coming home, but he said that he hopes that it will be “within the next month.”

Lynn Moulton said that although she had planned to keep her candles on only until Seth returned to the United States, she will keep hers in the windows until he comes home to Marblehead and see them lit.

—Staff writer Yailett Fernandez can be reached at yfernand@fas.harvard.edu.