GRAND FORKS - Radio talk show host and U.S. Marine Mike McNamara is trading his microphone for combat boots as he prepares for deployment to Iraq.

McNamara will give his final broadcast Friday from a local restaurant before leaving for Camp Pendleton, Calif.

His deployment orders have arrived. After checkups, paperwork and more training, his unit is expected to be in Iraq sometime in the spring.

McNamara, 46, will be taking a leave of absence from his "Mac Talk" show, on Leighton Broadcasting's KNOX in Grand Forks.

The four-hour show is sometimes serious, usually comical and never lacking in patriotism. Each morning's show begins with a rendition of the national anthem followed by the pledge of allegiance, narrated by John Wayne.

During the early days of the war in Iraq, the 16-year Marine veteran gave local audiences on-the-battlefield insight.

"Obviously, we don't want to see him go, but it was strictly his decision, and we've been behind him 100 percent," said Linn Hodgson, Leighton Broadcasting general manager in Grand Forks. "We just hope and pray he comes home safe, and we have a spot waiting for him when he does."

McNamara has talked on the air about his desire to rejoin the Marines and head to Iraq. On Oct. 1, he was sworn back into the Marine Corps Reserve and recommissioned as a major.

"I'm excited," McNamara said. "I enjoy being a leader in the Marine Corps. I look at it as a privilege to go and serve."

McNamara moved to Grand Forks with his family in 1998. McNamara and his wife, Susan, have four children.