My story on the Western Air Defense Sector came out today, but for some reason the map showing its territorial expansion was omitted from the print edition. If you're curious, here's how much extra ground the Air National Guardsmen at McChord Air Force Base have to monitor:

Stories about Washington National Guardsmen are popping up in newspapers across the state this week. (Our story about the Lineberry family, an early edition of which is posted below, will run tomorrow.)

Here’s a list of a few of the stories from this week. If I come across more, I’ll add ‘em.

Commander: "Christmas is just another day" in Iraq (Seattle Times)

War-bound single mom reaches out to troops, and gets help herself (Seattle P-I)

A bittersweet Christmas for 81st Brigade soldier (Yakima Herald-Republic)

Melancholy Christmas for soldier's family (Yakima Herald-Republic)

A note to Santa Claus sits in the Christmas tree at the Lineberry home in Gig Harbor. The family isn’t home this year, it reads, and it asks St. Nick to deliver the presents to Bellingham.

Jeanette Lineberry wrote the letter earlier this week at the urging of her 4-year-old daughter, Anna, who worried so much that Santa would drop off the gifts in their usual location that she asked her mother if they could take their Christmas tree with them to their grandparents’ home.

“It made her feel better,” Jeanette said this week. “She’s not really used to being elsewhere for the holidays.”

But Christmas at home just wouldn’t have felt the same for Anna and her 2-year-old sister, Emily. Their father, Maj. Doug Lineberry, is deployed alongside 2,400 Washington National Guardsmen with the 81st Brigade Combat Team in Iraq.

Doug, a 37-year-old lawyer whose firm has branches in Tacoma and Poulsbo, is serving in Ramadi as the brigade’s judge advocate.

The brigade’s yearlong deployment began in August, but Jeanette said December has been the toughest: Doug has missed Christmas, his wife’s birthday this week and Anna’s birthday earlier this month.

But Jeanette said her situation can’t compare with the difficulty her husband and other deployed service members face.

“Even though he’s not with us this time, I actually feel like the lucky one,” she said. “I’m surrounded by friends and family. For him, it’s much harder to be away from home.”

=> Read more!

The North American Aerospace Defense Command is once again tracking Santa Claus as he makes his way from the North Pole to houses of little boys and girls everywhere.

So if you’re worried if his sleigh can successfully lift off the ground – there are more than 6.7 billion people in the world these days, and that’s a lot of gifts – check out the Web site. The tracking goes live at 3 a.m. Pacific time.

NORAD's "Santa Cams" will send along images, and Google will provide tracking on its Google Maps and Google Earth software. If English isn't your primary language (though if you're reading this blog, it likely is), the information will also be available in French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Chinese.

Last year, 10.6 million unique visitors from 212 countries and territories logged on to track Santa.

Here’s a bit of background on NORAD’s tradition of tracking St. Nick:

The NORAD Tracks Santa program began on Dec. 24, 1955, after an errant phone call was made to the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The call was from a local youngster who dialed a misprinted telephone number in a local newspaper advertisement. The commander who answered the phone that night gave the youngster the information requested – the whereabouts of Santa Claus.

This began the tradition of tracking Santa Claus, a tradition that was carried on by NORAD when it was formed in 1958. This Christmas marks the 50th anniversary of NORAD tracking Santa Claus as he goes around the world delivering presents.

(U.S. Air Force photo)