GRAY -- A U.S. Marine reservist from Greeneville who recently returned from his second tour of duty in Iraq says the situation there has greatly improved over the last four years.

Cpl. Nick Fillers, 26, of Buckingham Road, spoke with a Greeneville Sun reporter on Monday afternoon at the Armed Forced Reserve Center in Gray where the members of Lima Company, 24th Marine Regiment, are winding down from a four-month deployment to Iraq that began last September.

Fillers was the only one of five Lima Company Marines from Greene County who agreed to be interviewed about the unit's experiences in Iraq.

Cpl. Fillers said he was never fired upon during his recent four months in Iraq.

The level of violence in Anbar Province is much lower now than it was during his first tour of duty there in 2006, he said.

"It was much better this time," he said. "It really shows that the efforts that every service member has put in over there have paid off. The Iraqi people are starting to stand on their own and take care of themselves. There is far less violence."

He recalled that his 2006 tour of duty in Iraq had been "a true combat mission."

"This time, it was more of a supporting mission," he said of the unit's 2009 deployment to Iraq. "More or less what we did this time was the closing chapter of U.S. forces in Iraq."

The Marine Corps, which had responsibility for Iraq's Anbar Province since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, turned over responsibility for the province to the U.S. Army and began withdrawing earlier this year.

Fillers said Lima Company was based on the Al Asad Airbase in Iraq and provided base security and convoy security.

"I wouldn't say it was any less dangerous, because the threat is always there," Fillers said. "However, we were able to let down our guard quite a bit."

He said no members of Lima Company were wounded during the unit's 2009 tour.

By contrast, when he was in Iraq in 2006, Fillers said, several members of his unit were killed and wounded.

He believes his 2006 experience helped him better prepare younger Marines who had no combat experience.

Fillers said he was a fire team leader during Lima Company's 2009 tour.

While escorting convoys, the Lima Company Marines were often assigned to Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles.

The "MRAPs," provided better protection for the Marines from roadside bombs that the military calls "improvised explosive devices," of IEDs, than did the vehicles the Marines used during his 2006 tour of duty.

Before missions off the air base in Iraq, Fillers said, the Lima Marines began their preparations a day in advance.

"We tried to work through everything that could possibly happen to us during a mission," Fillers said. "Then, whenever the time came, we would load up and go," he said.

Convoy escort missions were always performed at night.

The convoys, he said, moved from base to base. "We could be gone for eight hours or for a couple of days, depending on how far apart the bases were," he said.

The Lima Company Marines had returned home to waiting friends and family members at the Appalachian Fairgrounds on Feb. 19.

A Marine Corps press release said Lima Company's primary duties in Iraq had been to assist with the drawdown of U.S. personnel and equipment and with providing convoy and base security at the Al Asad air base in Anbar Province, where the unit was stationed while in Iraq.

Upon the unit's return to Camp Pendleton, Lima Company initially had been ordered to stand by for possible deployment to Haiti to assist with post-earthquake security, a Marine Corps press release said.

But as the situation in Haiti improved, Lima Company was allowed to return home instead last month.

Lima Company is a rifle company composed of Marine reservists from Tennessee, Kentucky, North and South Carolina and Georgia.

The unit been deployed twice as a whole to Iraq. In addition, some Lima Company members, including Cpl. Fillers also deployed to Iraq with a sister unit in 2006.

On Monday, Cpl. Fillers said that after a four-day post-return break, the Lima Company Marines have been reporting to the Armed Forces Reserve Center in Gray five days a week for training.

"They give us the weekends off," he said, noting that Lima Company was originally scheduled for a seven-month deployment to Iraq and remains "under orders" until the seven-month term expires in early summer.

Fillers, whose enlistment is scheduled to expire this year, says he plans to leave the Marine Corps Reserve this spring and go to college. "I feel like I have done my time," he said.

On Monday, Fillers said he does not yet know what he plans to study in college.

"I originally thought I wanted to be a police officer, but after two deployments to Iraq, I don't think I want to do that anymore," Fillers said.

A former assistant manager at a Greeneville sporting goods store, Fillers said he plans to begin his "terminal leave" from the Marine Corps soon and begin looking for a civilian job.

Waiting for Cpl. Fillers when he returned home on Feb. 19 were his wife, Sarah Jones Fillers; his parents, Jack and Carmen Fillers; Sarah Fillers' mother, Patty Jones, and Sarah's sister, Halie.

Sarah Fillers held a large, hand-lettered sign that welcomed her husband home, while Jack Fillers, a U.S. Air Force veteran who works for the Veterans Administration in Johnson City, held aloft another welcome-home sign that featured a photo of his son in his Marine Corps dress uniform.

During a conversation with a Greeneville Sun reporter while she waited for the Marines to reach the fairgrounds, Sarah Fillers noted that she and her husband, Nick, were married last Sept. 11, only seven days before he had to depart for Iraq.

She said that Nick had asked her to marry him last July 23 and then had asked for her father's permission by telephone from California last year.