Got no check books, got no banks. Still I’d like to express my thanks—I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.—Irving Berlin The economy is sputtering. Congress is spending us into a black hole—make that a red hole—from which we may never crawl out. Americans continue to worry over the mounting job losses despite the Obama administration’s assurances that we are no longer losing them quite as fast.

A Marine sergeant charged with faking battle injuries to get freebies intended for wounded warriors will plead guilty, a Marine Corps spokeswoman said Monday.

The World War II Round Table of Central Virginia will meet Wednesday at 7 p.m., at 3480 Batterson Road, behind Flat Rock Shopping Center in Powhatan County. Ralph Phipps, a Marine who landed on Okinawa during the war, will be the featured speaker. Other Marines from the war also will be honored. The meeting is open to the public with a social to follow. For details, visit http://www.ww2rtcva.com.

Forces moved into villages in Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan on Friday, meeting little resistance as they tried to win over local chiefs on the second day of the biggest military operation here since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001.

Nine-year-old Matthew Cabell is used to having a long-distance relationship with his dad. Soon, many of his classmates at Margaret Brent Elementary School in Stafford County will get a sense of what it feels like. Matthew’s father, Lt. Col. Joseph Cabell, who is beginning his third tour of duty in Iraq, will be pen pals with his son’s fourth-grade class.

The Marine Corps’ 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit completed more than two weeks of intense training in central Virginia yesterday. The unit will begin moving back to its home base at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The training was designed to sharpen skills for combat in urbanized areas for about 2,200 Marines and sailors before the amphibious outfit deploys overseas this spring.

BLACKSTONE Marines flank both sides of the amphibious assault vehicle as it rolls through town in the fictitious Middle Eastern nation of Mica. Two apparently friendly women step from a building and speak. A little farther down, a man waves with one hand, momentarily keeping the other in his pocket before slowly pulling it out. He has the full attention of the armed U.S. Marines.

A Marine infantryman from Fairfax County died Sunday in what the Department of Defense described as a non-hostile incident in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Lance Cpl. Daniel R. Bennett, 23, of Clifton was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C., military officials said yesterday.

About 2,200 Marines and sailors with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Lejeune, N.C., will train at Fort Pickett and other Virginia sites next month. The majority of the Marines will do their training on Fort Pickett, but small groups will take part in urban training events with local and federal officials, the unit said. The overall exercise from Jan. 9-24 is aimed at enhancing the unit’s capability to operate in populated environments—with downtown, industrial and village characteristics—before deploying overseas this spring.