"There's not much you can do but pray and hope they come home," said 24-year-old Debra Hyde, who works at the garden center on the sprawling base, home to some 43,000 Marines and a handful of navy personnel.

Her uncle Brian Wallace is fighting in the Third Infantry Division, and her father glimpsed him on television thanks to embedded MSNBC correspondent Daniel Bloom.

Already at least a dozen men from Camp Lejeune have fallen in a war widely seen as a necessary part of the response to the September 11 attacks on the United States, and acceptance of battlefield casualties is correspondingly higher.

"Prayer can do things and go places that we can't go," said Pastor Wilse Sample of New Life Baptist, a modest church off Marine Boulevard in the surrounding town of Jacksonville. "It is our direct communication between us and God."

At Sunday's service, Sample drew from the 56th Psalm to encourage his congregation to "open up and tell God how they feel, and to keep things from being bottled up."

The psalm implores God to "put my tears into your bottle."

The pastor, who served 21 years in the military, said: "Whether or not we agree with (the war), all of the things that we had against what's going on" should be put aside in support of the troops. "It's a time to come together," he said.

His congregation of about 400 is made up primarily of retired or active Marines and their families.

Inside the church, the walls are draped with the flags of all the armed services, the Marine flag taking pride of place behind the altar with the Stars and Stripes.

Ten of them are deployed to the war, and their names are inscribed on a special panel placed at the foot of the altar.

After Sunday's service, one worshipper said as he mingled outside the church: "The real battle is in the spiritual world."

Said another: "You've got to stay prayed up."

The base itself has a variety of chapels and religious centers, serving Catholics and Protestants as well as Jews and Muslims.

Saint Francis Xavier chapel was filled to capacity on Sunday with some 200 Roman Catholic worshippers.

This week's missal bore an AFP photograph of four Marines silhouetted against the setting sun, a helicopter and a truck in the background, captioned "marking a landing site somewhere in Iraq."

Underneath, part of the opening prayer of the Mass in Time of War is cited: "Protect us from men of violence and keep us safe from the weapons of hate. Holy Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle."

Chaplain Breck Bregel, who is on hand Tuesday and Thursday mornings for special prayer sessions in support of the troops, told AFP: "Because of our faith and because of the relationship that we have through Christ with God, we believe that just as a child would go to parents with his concerns ... we can go to God."

Those concerned for the safety of the troops pray for them in the belief that God "can certainly intervene and have the ability to shield and protect those that we are praying for," the chaplain said.

He added: "We pray for the civilians who are caught in the middle; they have hopes and dreams just as we do."

As Muslims, Bregel said, "they believe in prayer. Prayer is one of their five pillars (of Islam)," Bregel said, adding that while "I would not say that we are praying to the same God ... we both believe in the power of prayer."

As for the Muslims at Camp Lejeune, Lance Corporal Omar Jammeh, who said he led prayers for "no more than 10" last Friday, added: "There are a few, but we don't see them around very much these days."

SPACE.WIRE