MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLEOTN, Calif. -- "You've called the right guy."

That's how William H. Frye, a 12-year Marine Corps veteran, replied when his nephew called, complaining that his Kevlar helmet was uncomfortable.

Frye, 55, immediately went into overdrive designing pads that his nephew, Sgt. Jason J. Frye, and some of his fellow Marines are using two years later.

Frye delivered the pads just in time for his nephew's second deployment to Iraq. He also participated in the invasion in March 2003.

"I had been already working on them for a while before he asked me. I knew they worked. I wasn't like -- 'here's something, just try it out,'" Frye explained.

"My uncle called me like every five minutes asking me how I liked it," Sgt. Frye said.

"Then he took the helmet pads to Iraq and gave some to his friends, and they liked them a lot," Bill Frye added.

Sgt. Frye's friend, Cpl. Johnathan D. French, was grateful for a comfortable helmet in Iraq after inserting the pads.

"I remember going through broken down buildings in Fallujah, clearing rooms, and it protected me when rubble fell on my head," French said.

Sgt. Frye conveyed the positive feedback to his uncle via e-mail. It included firsthand accounts of a helmet now fitting like it should.

"When I was ... going through buildings in Najaf and getting shot at, it stopped the bouncing," Frye chuckled.

Frye, 22, with Headquarters Battery, 5th Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, said the pad helped him focus on the mission instead of a wobbling helmet.

"When you're getting down into the prone position, you don't want your Kevlar flopping all over the place," he said. "Even when I was training in Twentynine Palms, for recon, it sucked without the helmet pad. It's nice to have a helmet that doesn't hit your face while your running."

Before his uncle provided the inserts, Marines improvised ways to keep the helmets from pounding against their heads.

"I just toughed it out, but other Marines would buy towels, foam pads and T-shirts -- anything to (relieve) the horrible weight of the helmet," Sgt. Frye said.

Now, the helmet doesn't grind his gourd -- or French's.

"It's important to have a tight helmet, or else all that banging can give a Marine a headache," said French, also with 5th Bn., 11th Marines.

Bill Frye, of Oceanside, was stationed here in 1970, when grunts like him wore a Vietnam-era "steel pot" for headgear. Back then, headaches caused by loose-fitting helmets were a problem, too, he said.

Kevlar came out in 1980, he said -- but wasn't any better in terms of comfort.

"The Kevlar is so heavy --and the lining that they put in there, when you sweat, it gets hard as a rock," Bill Frye said.

Frye wanted to help not only his nephew, but other Marines as well.

He was deployed to the Middle East and Europe and knows the rigors Marines face.

He said Marines need all the comfort they can get.

"It's no fun humping hills all day," he said.

Designing the equipment was "the least" he could do.

"It's bigger than the pad," he said about his offer of help. "Most of these young men go over to Iraq asking for nothing but to serve their country."

Providing pads was "the least" he could do, he said.