HMM-266 (Rein) aviator decorated for combat service in Iraq

[thedrifter]

HMM-266 (Rein) aviator decorated for combat service in Iraq
Submitted by: 22nd MEU
Story Identification #: 200471823115
Story by Gunnery Sgt. Keith A. Milks



Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan (July 19, 2004) -- For years, Capt. Jimmy Brown trained for the day he would receive his baptism under fire in the cockpit of his AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter.

Yet when he first heard the distinctive ping and crack of incoming fire it wasn't flying over a battlefield in a heavily-armed helicopter, but down in the trenches with the infantrymen of 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion on the scorched battlefields of southern Iraq.

It was because of Brown's Iraq service that Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 266 (Reinforced), the aviation combat element of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), recently gathered in front of the air terminal of Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan to see one of their own awarded for combat valor.

In front of his fellow pilots, maintenance crews, and ground support personnel, the 32-year-old San Jose, Calif. Native received the Bronze Star with Combat Distinguishing Device (more commonly known as the 'Combat V') for his wartime service as a forward air controller (FAC) with 2nd LAR.

During the war, as 2nd LAR pushed north toward into Iraq as part of part of Regimental Combat Team 2, Brown was responsible for coordinating and controlling more than 200 fixed and rotary wing air strikes against the enemy.

According to the award citation, Brown repeatedly exposed himself to direct enemy fire to properly bring close air support onto target, and during one 12-hour battle during the key fight for An Nasiryiah, he personally controlled more than 50 air strikes onto enemy forces.

Brown credits his service in OIF with giving him a unique perspective on supporting the grunts now that he's back in the cockpit. Since arriving in Afghanistan in mid-April, Brown has logged in more than 130 hours flying close air support, escort, and reconnaissance missions.

"I've been on the ground with the infantry and now know the ground scheme," he said. "I have a better picture of what's going on, the size of maneuver units, what they can and can't see from the ground, and all that helps me deliver support more effectively."

As for serving in two wars in as many years, Brown is mindful of the effect it has own his wife and three children.

"It's hard on the family, but Marines join to deploy and that's what we have to do."

When pressed to speak about the award, Brown is humble, and redirects the question toward his fellow pilots and ground crew's sole purpose in Afghanistan.

"Our only job is to support the troops on the ground," said Brown, a San Jose, Calif. native. "Everything we do is for that 19-year-old lance corporal on the ground with an M-16 making sure the enemy doesn't mess with our Marines."

In addition to HMM-266 (Rein) and BLT 1/6, the MEU consists of its Command Element and MSSG-22.

For more information on the 22nd MEU (SOC)'s role in Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, visit the unit's web site at http://www.22meu.usmc.mil.

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Capt. Jimmy Brown, an AH-1W Super Cobra pilot from San Jose, Calif. was awarded this Bronze Star Medal with combat distinguishing device (combat 'v') to during a ceremony at Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan. Brown is currently assigned to the aviation combat element of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable). Photo by: Cpl. Jemssy Alvarez

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Col. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., commanding officer of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), presents the Bronze Star Medal with combat distinguishing device (combat 'v') to Capt. Jimmy Brown during a ceremony at Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan. Brown, an AH-1W Super Cobra pilot from San Jose, Calif., earned the award for his service with the 2nd Light Armored Infantry Battalion during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. Photo by: Cpl. Jemssy Alvarez

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/D0433CFDD097FD9885256ED600117E92?opendocument


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Cybercafe brings our Marines closer to their loved ones

ALLUJAH, Iraq – In most ways, the Internet cafe at Camp Baharia outside the city is like those found anywhere. Dozens of computers set up in air-conditioned comfort and live radio streaming in from some of America's biggest cities.

But there are some unusual differences. Take the gun racks holding M-16 rifles, and the dozens of sweaty Marines waiting around an hour or longer to make a call or send an e-mail.

"I have a lot of guys who tell me that they would rather skip a meal or the shower to come in here and talk or see their wife or kids," said Gunnery Sgt. Doug Bouma, who runs the operation in a building that bears the family seal of Saddam Hussein.

"This has been a heck of a morale booster," he said. "It is a piece of back home."

The cafe is the closest thing to a ticket home that most of these Marines from Camp Pendleton's 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment are likely to see until their job of keeping guerrilla forces in Fallujah in check ends months from now.

Marines agree that the cafe is vital to keeping up their spirits – and those of their families – in a bleak place where duty calls nearly 24 hours a day, and the temperatures approach 130 degrees by day and still hover around 100 at night.

"Last year during the war, we didn't have anything like this to contact our families," said Cpl. Nicholas Scaljon, 23, assigned to Echo Company. "I think it is great for morale, but is probably better for the families than it is for us. I haven't heard my mom that happy to hear my voice."

Marines said they seldom tell their families about their days – filled with the endless grind of combat duty, mortar and rocket attacks by insurgents, snipers' bullets, roadside bombs and the sapping heat.

Instead they use their 30 minutes of Internet or telephone time to savor the little things – family gossip, back-home trivia and plans for the future.

"We just talk about what we do here on our free time, not about the patrolling," said Lance Cpl. Jason Gonzalez, 20, of San Antonio, Texas. "It's the little things that count. We try to stop (in) here when we can. It's about the only place of refuge we have."

But it's not a total refuge from rules and regulations.

A sign on the cafe wall reads: "If you put the receiver down hard or hit the keys hard, you will be asked to leave and not return for 24 hours."

While much love and sentiment have been exchanged here, some conversations bring sorrow. Relationships have ended here. One Marine recounted how a married comrade received pictures of his wife's infidelities, and "Dear John" letters aren't always written on paper.

The Marines took the Internet site over from the Army in mid March and spruced it up by adding speakers that pipe in live radio stations from Los Angeles, Atlanta and Hawaii.

Now, 300 to 400 Marines a day use the cafe, which overlooks a man-made lake and the ruins of a palace. Sometimes, 20 Marines are waiting for the doors to open at 5 a.m.

Their base camp is a onetime Baath Party retreat named Dreamland. It was occupied by one of Hussein's sons. While some Marines call an air-conditioned tent home here, most stay in a complex of austere cement bungalows with plywood-covered windows. Some sleep on cots and others in bunk beds. Generally, there are four or five Marines per room. Size of the buildings vary.

In the Internet cafe, perhaps the most popular feature that's been added are Web cams connected to seven of the 37 computer laptops. Marines use the cams to see their babies for the first time and to watch first steps.

"It's great to be able to call your family or to get an e-mail, but to see your family and for them to see you is just uplifting," said Bouma, 33, of Riverston, Wyo. "Hundreds of smiles a day walk out of this place."

On a recent Friday, one of those smiles belonged to Sgt. Michael Krall, 26, of Wauzeka, Wis., who had just finished a Web cam-aided Internet chat with his fiancée, Dana Oswale, 28, of Boscobel, Wis.

"I come here everyday so she knows that I am OK," said Krall, who is assigned to 2nd Light Armor Reconnaissance, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Four Marines in his unit were killed in a roadside bomb attack July 6.

Krall and Oswale use the Web cam to look at each other and plan their July 30, 2005, wedding.

"Looking at her gives you just that much more to strive for, knowing that you are going to be holding that person very soon," said Krall. "I'm not afraid to show my emotions for her. I don't care if there are 100 guys in the room, I'll still blow her a kiss."



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Union-Tribune staff writer Rick Rogers and staff photographer Nelvin Cepeda are accompanying Camp Pendleton-based Marines in Iraq.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20040718-9999-1c18cafe.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

9 Killed in Truck Bomb Blast in Baghdad

By RAVI NESSMAN

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A fuel truck sped toward a police station in southwest Baghdad and exploded as policemen waited for their assignments early Monday, killing at least nine people and wounding 57, Iraqi officials and witnesses said.

The white tanker came to within 500 feet of the two-story, fence-ringed station when it exploded at 8 a.m. local time, also damaging nearby mechanic and electrical workshops, witnesses said. Police are often targeted by insurgents for their association with Iraq's U.S.-backed government.

"We were all standing in a row, listening to our officer as he gave us our assignment for the day," said wounded policeman Mehdi Salah Abed Ali, 32, lying in a bed at al-Yarmuk hospital, a bandage around his leg.

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"There were many policemen standing in the square when the tanker exploded," he said.

The tanker's presence in the industrial area didn't raise concerns until it started speeding towards the police station, a worker at a nearby car wash said.

"I was standing with a friend when we saw the tanker speeding in an unnatural way," said Ahmed Nouri, who said the driver was a young man with a light beard.

At least nine people were killed, said Saad al-Alami, from the Iraqi health ministry.

Standing in the morgue at al-Yarmuk, supervisor Ahmed Araybe counted eight bodies, including two policemen and one child. He said four boxes of flesh and a blankets carrying body parts were also brought in.

Also Monday, six cars filled with waving Filipino soldiers left their camp in Hillah, south of Baghdad. Filipino officials wouldn't say if they were headed directly for Kuwait, but had said on Sunday that they would finish withdrawing their small contingent of troops from Iraq by Monday in keeping with the demands of kidnappers holding a Filipino truck driver hostage.

The pullout, engineered to save the life of Angelo dela Cruz, was scheduled to end when the 22 remaining members of the humanitarian contingent were to make an "exit call" on the new Polish commander at their base in Hillah, Philippine Foreign Minister Delia Albert said.

Some allies have sharply criticized the move, saying it would only encourage more kidnappings.

Over the past 15 months, militants have used kidnappings, car bombs, sabotage and other attacks to try to destabilize the country and push out coalition troops.

Militants also fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a fire station in the Baghdad neighborhood of al-Salihiya, the U.S. military said. One person was wounded.

In the restive city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, Iraqi police reported the discovery of a local police chief's body at a shopping market. Lt. Col. Nafi al-Kubaisi was kidnapped two days ago, said Capt. Nasir Abdullah, from nearby Heet police station. His body was found Monday morning.

On Sunday, a statement posted on an Islamic Web site said a group close to al-Qaida-linked militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is offering a $280,000 reward for the killing of Allawi. The statement by the group Khalid bin Al Walid Brigade called Allawi an "American stooge" and said that its assassins were ordered to kill the prime minister and other Iraqi leaders.

Also Sunday, a U.S. airstrike authorized by Allawi hit purported trenches and fighting positions in Fallujah used by al-Qaida linked foreign fighters, killing 14 people, officials said.

Word that Iraq's interim leader approved the attack was a clear attempt to show that the Iraqi government has taken full sovereignty from the Americans and has firm control, despite its deep reliance on the 160,000 foreign troops, mainly from United States.

"We worked with the government, the government was fully informed about these matters, agreed with us on the need to take the action, we conducted the action," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said during a news conference here. "We didn't just strike off on our own, a sovereign nation had to agree."

Since the U.S. Marines pulled back from Fallujah _ a focal point of resistance to the U.S. occupation _ after besieging the city for three weeks in April, the U.S. military has been limited to using missiles attacks and airstrikes to hit potential targets there.

The nature of Sunday's target, like those hit in previous attacks, was in dispute.

The U.S. military said it had destroyed trench lines and fighting positions used by fighters loyal to al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant blamed for masterminding car bombings and other attacks in Iraq. The military said 25 al-Zarqawi fighters had been at the site just moments before.

Fallujah Mayor Mahmoud Ibrahim al-Jirisi said the attack hit a site for civilians supporting the Fallujah Brigade, a militia of local residents that took responsibility for security in the city when the Marines left.

"There are no Arabs or foreigners with them," he told the pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera.

The attack, the sixth U.S. strike on the city in roughly a month, killed 14 people and injured three, according to Saad al-Amili, a Health Ministry official.

After a July 5 airstrike, Allawi, who has promised strong security cooperation with the Americans, issued an unprecedented statement saying his government had provided intelligence for the strike.

After this attack, he went far further, saying that he had authorized the strike.

"The multinational force asked Prime Minister Allawi for permission to launch strikes on some specific places where some terrorists were hiding," an official in Allawi's office said Sunday on condition of anonymity. "Allawi gave his permission,"

Since the U.S. occupation government handed over sovereignty to the interim government June 28, officials from both nations have emphasized that Iraq was now a sovereign nation able to make its own decisions, despite the huge U.S. troop presence and the massive, U.S.-financed reconstruction programs.

Meanwhile, Allawi issued a decree Sunday reopening a controversial newspaper that had been closed by U.S. officials in March, sparking months of fighting between U.S. forces and fighters loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The weekly Al-Hawza was the mouthpiece of al-Sadr's "Sadrist" movement, routinely carrying his fiery sermons on its front page along with articles sharply critical of the U.S.-led occupation.

Allawi, himself a Shiite, ordered the paper reopened in an effort to show his "absolute belief in the freedom of the press," his office said in a statement. The decree appeared designed to broaden Allawi's base of support as his government struggles for legitimacy.

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Ellie

[thedrifter]

Miramar Marines come home from Iraq

By: TERI FIGUEROA - Staff Writer

MIRAMAR ---- Maybe this is what it's like for rock stars. Cheering crowds, adoring fans hefting handmade posters, people sporting T-shirts with pictures of their favorite hero on them.

More than 200 Marines from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing came home from Iraq on Sunday, greeted by hugs and kisses from ecstatic family and friends.

They had been gone between six and eight months, much or all of that time spent in western Iraq, primarily in the Al Anbar province.


Their primary missions during this deployment were casualty evacuation, air support, aerial reconnaissance and convoy escort, base officials said.

Many of the troops said this was their second stint in the Middle East desert ---- their first time was during the war last year ---- and most agreed it was tougher, more tense this time around.

The returning Marines belong to a slew of units, including helicopter and aircraft, logistics, communications, air control and headquarters squadrons.

On Sunday, after flying halfway around the world, the troops finally planted their feet on California ground.

Whooping and hollering kicked up as the Marines exited the airplane and lined up on the tarmac at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

Three-year-old Max Davis had counted down the days until his dad returned. The little boy had one simple wish.

"I want to see him at my home," Max said as he peered at the dozens of uniformed troops, trying to get a glimpse of his dad, Sgt. Jefferson Davis.

Brigadier General Carl Jensen, the commanding general of the Marine Corps Air Bases Western Area, welcomed the weary group.

"Your performance has been absolutely eye-watering," Jensen told them, adding that the group of returning Marines are owed "a debt of gratitude ... that we can never repay."

Then, when the go-ahead came to rush the troops, young Andrew Mock led the pack. The 9-year-old darted across the tarmac, leapt up into his dad's arms and squeezed tight. His dad, Lt. Col. Patrick Mock, looked just as thrilled.

Nearby, Cpl. Jones Joseph, with a gun slug over his shoulder and a long-stemmed rose in one hand, looked in awe at his wife, Cpl. Mirna Ramos. He gently moved closer and caressed her belly ---- the couple are expecting their first child in September.

"I'm just shocked right now," Joseph said. "I haven't seen her like this ever."

Base spokesman Sgt. Chanin Nuntavong said the returning Marines will get four days off before returning to duty. Eight-year-old Brodric Chestnut already has plans for his dad: karate practice.

When Brodric looks at his father, Sgt. Maj. Melvin Chestnut, his face lights up. Standing next to him, the boy can't resist grabbing him for another hug. His father beams.

Chestnut said he's glad to be back ---- and looking forward to "a long hot shower" ---- but admits some of his thoughts are about the troops who remain in Iraq.

"We left a lot of Marines there," he said.

Among the returning units were the Marine Wing Headquarters Squadron 3, Marine Aircraft Group 16, Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadrons 465 and 466, Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 16, Marine Wing Communications Squadron 38 and Marine Air Control Group 38.

The 3rd Marine Air Wing, headquartered at Miramar, is the aviation combat unit of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. More information about the unit can be found online at www.3maw.usmc.mil.

Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 740-3517 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com.

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Major Clark Pollard and his daugter Olivia, 2, look at a jet going by at his home coming at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar on Sunday.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/07/19/military/20_40_537_18_04.txt


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Iraqi boot camp

Pendleton Marines training volunteers for national guard
By Rick Rogers
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
July 17, 2004


FALLUJAH, Iraq – Thin-chested and weighing about 120 pounds, Jmad hardly looks like Iraq's best hope for democracy or the United States' most promising exit strategy from this turbulent nation.

But that's what the 18-year-old and his comrades represent to the Marines from Camp Pendleton who are teaching them basic soldiering at Camp India, outside Fallujah.

It's one of several training bases scattered across the country where Iraqi volunteers are learning to fight insurgents so Iraq can achieve peace and stability, and U.S. forces can eventually go home.

"That's our exit strategy right there," said Maj. Kevin Collins, Camp India's commander. "We can say that we don't trust these guys and don't want to support them 100 percent, but these guys are the only way we are going to get out of this country."

If that sounds like a backhanded endorsement, it's a standing ovation compared with how most Marines feel about the troops in the current Iraqi National Guard, formerly the Iraqi Civil DefeNelvin Cepeda / Union-Tribune photosnse Corps.

Even the Marine instructors here wondered aloud whom the guardsmen would shoot at with their U.S.-issued AK-47 assault rifles if guerrillas came over the walls. Simply put, the Marines are making the most out of what they have to work with. But there are glimmers of hope.

"Somewhere we've got to start trusting the Iraqis with their own country," said Collins, 40, of Gainesville, Fla.

Staff Sgt. Anthony Gabriel, 29, a former drill instructor at San Diego's Marine Corps Recruit Depot, said bluntly: "They are our ticket out of here. The better we train them, the quicker we get out of here."

Since Camp India opened 10 weeks ago, about 1,000 Iraqis have gone through a weeklong boot camp or other kinds of military training.

The goals of the training are limited by practicality – there are only 40 Marine instructors, and the longest of the five courses is just eight days – and military security. The Marines, who say they know that infiltrating insurgents sometimes take the courses, don't want to give away anything such as tactics or techniques that might be used against them in combat.

"We are not building Marines out here," said Chief Warrant Officer Robert Brooks, Camp India's executive officer. "We are exposing them to skills and trying to build some confidence and, more importantly, build a team."

The training, which stops five times a day for prayer, is conducted in Arabic and emphasizes first aid, searches, marksmanship, patrolling and other skills.

After graduating, most of the men will enter Iraqi National Guard units in which they will monitor checkpoints or perform other quasi-military duties. The Marines are determined that the training be the start of strengthening and transforming the distrusted Iraqi guardsmen.

There's a lot to do, if what happened June 25 is any indication.

On that day, some Marines from Camp Pendleton came under intense attack for more than eight hours at a traffic checkpoint outside Fallujah. Eight were wounded.

Nearby Iraqi forces didn't come to their support, and the city's mayor explained that they didn't help "because the (insurgents) are only here to kill the Americans," not the Iraqis.

The future will test the Iraqis' attitude as well as their mettle.

Some will fill positions in the no man's land between Marine base camps and the insurgents holed up among the 250,000 to 300,000 residents of Fallujah.

Any duty could be dangerous for Iraqis seen as aiding the American occupation. So far, hundreds of Iraqi police officers have been killed. An exact number isn't known, and estimates vary widely.

Yet Iraqis still volunteer, some out of patriotism and others because they need a paying job to support their families. Enlisted men earn up to $150 a month, captains and majors get $250, and a four-star general $500.

Many of the Iraqis in this training unit are in their 30s and 40s, and few are in ideal fighting shape. Others, like Jmad, are barely out of boy hood.

More important to the Marines than the Iraqis' physical condition is changing their mind-set. Part of the training includes a de facto civics course on the role of the military in a democracy.

"They think family, tribe and religion in that order," Collins said. The notion of duty to country as a whole "isn't very high on the list. We are trying to turn that around."

The Marines use themselves and their legendary military successes as an example.

"We tell them that in the Marine Corps there are all kinds of people, and that we all work together as a team for the greater good," said Sgt. Phillip Fryar, 29, a Camp Pendleton Marine from Clinton, N.C. "We tell them they have to do that, too, if their country is to be successful."

Just a few days into training, Jmad looks and sounds like a convert. But he and other Iraqis at the camp are worried about reprisals and asked that their last names not be used.

During a class on camouflaging techniques, he rubbed mud on his cheeks to cut glare and placed small branches between his teeth "to better hide from the terrorists."

"This training will help me bring security to my country," Jmad said through a translator.

"Everyone who makes destruction in my country is my enemy. The Marines are here to save our country, so they are our friends. We can save Iraq with the help of the Marines. We will fight together against any enemy.

"Marines good!" he added in English, giving the thumbs-up sign.

Amer, a translator who works at Camp India, said the Iraqi recruits are impressed because the Marines treat them with dignity.

He thinks this personal contact helps to counter insurgents' claims that all Americans are evil and want to harm their families, tribe and religion.

"Even the simple things, like how the Marines act, impress them," said Amer, who is from Baghdad. "Most of these people are not educated and follow what they hear in the mosques. They have never met an American or a Marine. What many of them are now saying is Iraq will be better because the Americans came."

To defeat the capable and well-armed insurgents, the Iraqi National Guard – or, as the Marines call it, the ING – needs credibility among its own people and not to be perceived as a shill for the United States.

Maybe for that reason, only an Iraqi flag flies over Camp India.

"If we build a team that is tight and we put them in the middle of Fallujah, people might start to follow their orders and people might respect them," said Brooks, 42, of Nashville, Tenn. "A big part of this is making the (Iraqi) National Guard feel legit."

Collins, Brooks and the other instructors said the military service has created a spark of pride among the Iraqis, especially since the June 28 transfer of sovereignty to the interim government.

"I think a lot of these guys are sitting on the fence when they come here, but by the time they leave they've fallen on our side," Collins said.

Capt. Abdul Hadi, 34, an Iraqi liaison at Camp India, said the Iraqi National Guard eventually will be ready to take over from the Marines.

"When we are strong enough, I think we will be able to take over because we are getting good training from the Marines," Hadi said through a translator.

Asked how long that might be, Hadi replied, "I think it will take lots of time."



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Union-Tribune staff writer Rick Rogers and staff photographer Nelvin Cepeda are accompanying Camp Pendleton-based Marines in Iraq.

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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20040717-9999-1n17guard.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

One Marine's Thoughts

One Marine's Thoughts

---------------- I sat in a movie theater watching "Schindler's List," asked myself, "Why didn't the Jews fight back?"

Now I know why.

I sat in a movie theater, watching "Pearl Harbor" and asked myself, "Why weren't we prepared?"

Now I know why.

Civilized people cannot fathom, much less predict, the actions of evil people.

On September 11, dozens of capable airplane passengers allowed themselves to be overpowered by a handful of poorly armed terrorists because they did not comprehend the depth of hatred that motivated their captors.

On September 11, thousands of innocent people were murdered because too many Americans naively reject the reality that some nations are dedicated to the dominance of others. Many political pundits, pacifists and media personnel want us to forget the carnage. They say we must focus on the bravery of the rescuers and ignore the cowardice of the killers. They implore us to understand the motivation of the perpetrators. Major television stations have announced they will assist the healing process by not replaying devastating footage of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers.

I will not be manipulated.

I will not pretend to understand.

I will not forget.

I will not forget the liberal media who abused freedom of the press to kick our country when it was vulnerable and hurting.

I will not forget that CBS anchor Dan Rather preceded President Bush's address to the nation with the snide remark, "No matter how you feel about him, he is still our president."

I will not forget that ABC TV anchor Peter Jennings questioned President Bush's motives for not returning immediately to Washington, DC and commented, "We're all pretty skeptical and cynical about Washington."

And I will not forget that ABC's Mark Halperin warned if reporters weren't informed of every little detail of this war, they aren't "likely -- nor should they be expected -- to show deference."

I will not isolate myself from my fellow Americans by pretending an attack on the USS Cole in Yemen was not an attack on the United States of America.

I will not forget the Clinton administration equipped Islamic terrorists and their supporters with the world's most sophisticated telecommunications equipment and encryption technology, thereby compromising America's ability to trace terrorist radio, cell phone, land lines, faxes and modem communications.

I will not be appeased with pointless, quick retaliatory strikes like those perfected by the previous administration.

I will not be comforted by "feel-good, do nothing" regulations like the silly, "Have your bags been under your control?" question at the airport.

I will not be influenced by so called, "antiwar demonstrators" who exploit the right of ___expression to chant anti-American obscenities.

I will not forget the moral victory handed the North Vietnamese by American war protesters who reviled and spat upon the returning soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines.

I will not be softened by the wishful thinking of pacifists who chose reassurance over reality.

I will embrace the wise words of Prime Minister Tony Blair who told the Labor Party conference, "They have no moral inhibition on the slaughter of the innocent. If they could have murdered not 7,000 but 70,000, does anyone doubt they would have done so and rejoiced in it?

There is no compromise possible with such people, no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must!"

I will force myself to:

-hear the weeping -feel the helplessness -imagine the terror -sense the panic -smell the burning flesh - experience the loss - Remember the hatred.

I sat in a movie theater, watching "Private Ryan" and asked myself, "Where did they find the courage?"

Now I know.

We have no choice. Living without liberty is not living.

-- Ed Evans, MGySgt., USMC (Ret.) Not as lean, Not as mean, But still a Marine.

Keep this going until every living American has read it and memorized it so we don't make the same mistake again.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

In Iraq, new ways to kill, and to counter

James Glanz/NYT NYT Saturday, July 17, 2004
MOSUL, Iraq In a deadly game of technological one-upmanship, insurgents have been adapting their most effective weapon, a concealed and remotely detonated bomb, to increasingly sophisticated American attempts to detect the devices before they explode.
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During a morning security sweep of city streets on Thursday, American soldiers based here at Camp Freedom said the modifications suggested that there was a kind of technical elite, sometimes referred to generically as "the bomb makers," who were guiding the changing designs.
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"It's this constant chess match," said Captain J. Philip Ludvigson of the Stryker Brigade, named for the nimble armored vehicle that made the sweeps. "They change their techniques around and find out new ways to kill us, and we figure out new ways to counter it."
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The test of wits is important in itself, expressing itself in lives gained and lost. But soldiers involved in detecting and analyzing the devices said the game may also be providing new insight into the mysterious, dedicated and skilled core of people who may be leading the insurgency, with devastating effect across Iraq.
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"The education level of the ordinary Iraqi is not sufficient to be able to initiate these things," said Captain Kenneth Mitchell, commander of the Stryker Brigade's engineer company.
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"I couldn't build one of these," Mitchell said. "They are smart. There is a training network out there. There is an instructor."
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Alongside that dark assessment, though, is a new sense that many of the operations involving the bombs also rely on a kind of local contractor force that is much less committed to the cause of terror than the leaders.
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Those contractors are unlikely to have more expertise than the ability to take apart a garage door opener or a two-way radio - the kinds of devices used to detonate the bombs remotely - and put it back together again, but this time connected to a blasting cap.
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Others, especially those who put the bombs in place, are simply laborers without any specialized knowledge or much motivation when it comes to committing terrorist acts.
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"In some cases I feel straight up that the guys are just making money," said Captain Robert Cope, an expert on destroying unexploded bombs in the 744th Ordnance Company. "They see that their devices are not working properly and they don't modify it."
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For months, private and governmental threat reports have listed the bombs, referred to generically as "improvised explosive devices," as the prime threat to Western military and civilian convoys.
.
In Mosul, a senior military officer said, 40 to 50 percent of the 778 attacks so far this year have been the result of such bombs. Although there are also large numbers of mortar attacks, that method is notoriously inaccurate and much less lethal than the remotely detonated bombs, which an assailant can explode as a target passes.
.
The bombs generally involve a blasting cap, detonated by an electric current by something as simple as a cordless phone, a garage door opener or a remote-controlled toy. The cap may detonate a plastic explosive that has been placed into the nose of a mortar round. When the round explodes, it may set off other shells or plastic explosives placed near it.
.
Explosives experts here said that the earliest devices often had wires running from a porch or a house to the bomb, making it easy to trace the perpetrator. Later the remote-controlled bombs became more common.
.
The ways in which the bombs have been concealed has also become more sophisticated. Recently, soldiers said, bombs have been disguised as curbing on the side of the road.
.
The explosives inside have also evolved. In just the last few weeks, insurgents have for the first time tried to explode bombs with a kind of homemade napalm that is called fougasse, a concoction of gasoline and detergent.
.
The Americans use electronic jamming to disable some of the bombs, but those methods are largely considered secret and not discussed openly by soldiers.
.
During the sweep on Thursday, one soldier, Sergeant Benjamin West, peered at a television screen in one of the vehicles, switching back and forth from visible to infrared imagery in a search of the streets for suspicious objects.
.
Three more soldiers - Staff Sergeant Robert Renfro, Sergeant Nathan Francis and Specialist Joshua Donoho - stood looking out hatches in the top of the Stryker vehicle, watching for anything suspicious.
.
However technologically advanced the battle becomes, eyes and ears are still the first line of defense against the bombs, said Brigadier General Carter Ham, commander of the American-led forces in northern Iraq, which have their headquarters at Camp Freedom.
.
"If there's a trash can where there's not normally a trash can, then they'll investigate that," he said.
.




See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the International Herald Tribune.
< < Back to Start of Article MOSUL, Iraq In a deadly game of technological one-upmanship, insurgents have been adapting their most effective weapon, a concealed and remotely detonated bomb, to increasingly sophisticated American attempts to detect the devices before they explode.
.
During a morning security sweep of city streets on Thursday, American soldiers based here at Camp Freedom said the modifications suggested that there was a kind of technical elite, sometimes referred to generically as "the bomb makers," who were guiding the changing designs.
.
"It's this constant chess match," said Captain J. Philip Ludvigson of the Stryker Brigade, named for the nimble armored vehicle that made the sweeps. "They change their techniques around and find out new ways to kill us, and we figure out new ways to counter it."
.
The test of wits is important in itself, expressing itself in lives gained and lost. But soldiers involved in detecting and analyzing the devices said the game may also be providing new insight into the mysterious, dedicated and skilled core of people who may be leading the insurgency, with devastating effect across Iraq.
.
"The education level of the ordinary Iraqi is not sufficient to be able to initiate these things," said Captain Kenneth Mitchell, commander of the Stryker Brigade's engineer company.
.
"I couldn't build one of these," Mitchell said. "They are smart. There is a training network out there. There is an instructor."
.
Alongside that dark assessment, though, is a new sense that many of the operations involving the bombs also rely on a kind of local contractor force that is much less committed to the cause of terror than the leaders.
.
Those contractors are unlikely to have more expertise than the ability to take apart a garage door opener or a two-way radio - the kinds of devices used to detonate the bombs remotely - and put it back together again, but this time connected to a blasting cap.
.
Others, especially those who put the bombs in place, are simply laborers without any specialized knowledge or much motivation when it comes to committing terrorist acts.
.
"In some cases I feel straight up that the guys are just making money," said Captain Robert Cope, an expert on destroying unexploded bombs in the 744th Ordnance Company. "They see that their devices are not working properly and they don't modify it."
.
For months, private and governmental threat reports have listed the bombs, referred to generically as "improvised explosive devices," as the prime threat to Western military and civilian convoys.
.
In Mosul, a senior military officer said, 40 to 50 percent of the 778 attacks so far this year have been the result of such bombs. Although there are also large numbers of mortar attacks, that method is notoriously inaccurate and much less lethal than the remotely detonated bombs, which an assailant can explode as a target passes.
.
The bombs generally involve a blasting cap, detonated by an electric current by something as simple as a cordless phone, a garage door opener or a remote-controlled toy. The cap may detonate a plastic explosive that has been placed into the nose of a mortar round. When the round explodes, it may set off other shells or plastic explosives placed near it.
.
Explosives experts here said that the earliest devices often had wires running from a porch or a house to the bomb, making it easy to trace the perpetrator. Later the remote-controlled bombs became more common.
.
The ways in which the bombs have been concealed has also become more sophisticated. Recently, soldiers said, bombs have been disguised as curbing on the side of the road.
.
The explosives inside have also evolved. In just the last few weeks, insurgents have for the first time tried to explode bombs with a kind of homemade napalm that is called fougasse, a concoction of gasoline and detergent.
.
The Americans use electronic jamming to disable some of the bombs, but those methods are largely considered secret and not discussed openly by soldiers.
.
During the sweep on Thursday, one soldier, Sergeant Benjamin West, peered at a television screen in one of the vehicles, switching back and forth from visible to infrared imagery in a search of the streets for suspicious objects.
.
Three more soldiers - Staff Sergeant Robert Renfro, Sergeant Nathan Francis and Specialist Joshua Donoho - stood looking out hatches in the top of the Stryker vehicle, watching for anything suspicious.
.
However technologically advanced the battle becomes, eyes and ears are still the first line of defense against the bombs, said Brigadier General Carter Ham, commander of the American-led forces in northern Iraq, which have their headquarters at Camp Freedom.
.
"If there's a trash can where there's not normally a trash can, then they'll investigate that," he said.
.
continued.......

[thedrifter]

The New York Times MOSUL, Iraq In a deadly game of technological one-upmanship, insurgents have been adapting their most effective weapon, a concealed and remotely detonated bomb, to increasingly sophisticated American attempts to detect the devices before they explode.
.
During a morning security sweep of city streets on Thursday, American soldiers based here at Camp Freedom said the modifications suggested that there was a kind of technical elite, sometimes referred to generically as "the bomb makers," who were guiding the changing designs.
.
"It's this constant chess match," said Captain J. Philip Ludvigson of the Stryker Brigade, named for the nimble armored vehicle that made the sweeps. "They change their techniques around and find out new ways to kill us, and we figure out new ways to counter it."
.
The test of wits is important in itself, expressing itself in lives gained and lost. But soldiers involved in detecting and analyzing the devices said the game may also be providing new insight into the mysterious, dedicated and skilled core of people who may be leading the insurgency, with devastating effect across Iraq.
.
"The education level of the ordinary Iraqi is not sufficient to be able to initiate these things," said Captain Kenneth Mitchell, commander of the Stryker Brigade's engineer company.
.
"I couldn't build one of these," Mitchell said. "They are smart. There is a training network out there. There is an instructor."
.
Alongside that dark assessment, though, is a new sense that many of the operations involving the bombs also rely on a kind of local contractor force that is much less committed to the cause of terror than the leaders.
.
Those contractors are unlikely to have more expertise than the ability to take apart a garage door opener or a two-way radio - the kinds of devices used to detonate the bombs remotely - and put it back together again, but this time connected to a blasting cap.
.
Others, especially those who put the bombs in place, are simply laborers without any specialized knowledge or much motivation when it comes to committing terrorist acts.
.
"In some cases I feel straight up that the guys are just making money," said Captain Robert Cope, an expert on destroying unexploded bombs in the 744th Ordnance Company. "They see that their devices are not working properly and they don't modify it."
.
For months, private and governmental threat reports have listed the bombs, referred to generically as "improvised explosive devices," as the prime threat to Western military and civilian convoys.
.
In Mosul, a senior military officer said, 40 to 50 percent of the 778 attacks so far this year have been the result of such bombs. Although there are also large numbers of mortar attacks, that method is notoriously inaccurate and much less lethal than the remotely detonated bombs, which an assailant can explode as a target passes.
.
The bombs generally involve a blasting cap, detonated by an electric current by something as simple as a cordless phone, a garage door opener or a remote-controlled toy. The cap may detonate a plastic explosive that has been placed into the nose of a mortar round. When the round explodes, it may set off other shells or plastic explosives placed near it.
.
Explosives experts here said that the earliest devices often had wires running from a porch or a house to the bomb, making it easy to trace the perpetrator. Later the remote-controlled bombs became more common.
.
The ways in which the bombs have been concealed has also become more sophisticated. Recently, soldiers said, bombs have been disguised as curbing on the side of the road.
.
The explosives inside have also evolved. In just the last few weeks, insurgents have for the first time tried to explode bombs with a kind of homemade napalm that is called fougasse, a concoction of gasoline and detergent.
.
The Americans use electronic jamming to disable some of the bombs, but those methods are largely considered secret and not discussed openly by soldiers.
.
During the sweep on Thursday, one soldier, Sergeant Benjamin West, peered at a television screen in one of the vehicles, switching back and forth from visible to infrared imagery in a search of the streets for suspicious objects.
.
Three more soldiers - Staff Sergeant Robert Renfro, Sergeant Nathan Francis and Specialist Joshua Donoho - stood looking out hatches in the top of the Stryker vehicle, watching for anything suspicious.
.
However technologically advanced the battle becomes, eyes and ears are still the first line of defense against the bombs, said Brigadier General Carter Ham, commander of the American-led forces in northern Iraq, which have their headquarters at Camp Freedom.
.
"If there's a trash can where there's not normally a trash can, then they'll investigate that," he said.
.
The New York Times MOSUL, Iraq In a deadly game of technological one-upmanship, insurgents have been adapting their most effective weapon, a concealed and remotely detonated bomb, to increasingly sophisticated American attempts to detect the devices before they explode.
.
During a morning security sweep of city streets on Thursday, American soldiers based here at Camp Freedom said the modifications suggested that there was a kind of technical elite, sometimes referred to generically as "the bomb makers," who were guiding the changing designs.
.
"It's this constant chess match," said Captain J. Philip Ludvigson of the Stryker Brigade, named for the nimble armored vehicle that made the sweeps. "They change their techniques around and find out new ways to kill us, and we figure out new ways to counter it."
.
The test of wits is important in itself, expressing itself in lives gained and lost. But soldiers involved in detecting and analyzing the devices said the game may also be providing new insight into the mysterious, dedicated and skilled core of people who may be leading the insurgency, with devastating effect across Iraq.
.
"The education level of the ordinary Iraqi is not sufficient to be able to initiate these things," said Captain Kenneth Mitchell, commander of the Stryker Brigade's engineer company.
.
"I couldn't build one of these," Mitchell said. "They are smart. There is a training network out there. There is an instructor."
.
Alongside that dark assessment, though, is a new sense that many of the operations involving the bombs also rely on a kind of local contractor force that is much less committed to the cause of terror than the leaders.
.
Those contractors are unlikely to have more expertise than the ability to take apart a garage door opener or a two-way radio - the kinds of devices used to detonate the bombs remotely - and put it back together again, but this time connected to a blasting cap.
.
Others, especially those who put the bombs in place, are simply laborers without any specialized knowledge or much motivation when it comes to committing terrorist acts.
.
"In some cases I feel straight up that the guys are just making money," said Captain Robert Cope, an expert on destroying unexploded bombs in the 744th Ordnance Company. "They see that their devices are not working properly and they don't modify it."
.
For months, private and governmental threat reports have listed the bombs, referred to generically as "improvised explosive devices," as the prime threat to Western military and civilian convoys.
.
In Mosul, a senior military officer said, 40 to 50 percent of the 778 attacks so far this year have been the result of such bombs. Although there are also large numbers of mortar attacks, that method is notoriously inaccurate and much less lethal than the remotely detonated bombs, which an assailant can explode as a target passes.
.
The bombs generally involve a blasting cap, detonated by an electric current by something as simple as a cordless phone, a garage door opener or a remote-controlled toy. The cap may detonate a plastic explosive that has been placed into the nose of a mortar round. When the round explodes, it may set off other shells or plastic explosives placed near it.
.
Explosives experts here said that the earliest devices often had wires running from a porch or a house to the bomb, making it easy to trace the perpetrator. Later the remote-controlled bombs became more common.
.
The ways in which the bombs have been concealed has also become more sophisticated. Recently, soldiers said, bombs have been disguised as curbing on the side of the road.
.
The explosives inside have also evolved. In just the last few weeks, insurgents have for the first time tried to explode bombs with a kind of homemade napalm that is called fougasse, a concoction of gasoline and detergent.
.
The Americans use electronic jamming to disable some of the bombs, but those methods are largely considered secret and not discussed openly by soldiers.
.
During the sweep on Thursday, one soldier, Sergeant Benjamin West, peered at a television screen in one of the vehicles, switching back and forth from visible to infrared imagery in a search of the streets for suspicious objects.
.
Three more soldiers - Staff Sergeant Robert Renfro, Sergeant Nathan Francis and Specialist Joshua Donoho - stood looking out hatches in the top of the Stryker vehicle, watching for anything suspicious.
.
However technologically advanced the battle becomes, eyes and ears are still the first line of defense against the bombs, said Brigadier General Carter Ham, commander of the American-led forces in northern Iraq, which have their headquarters at Camp Freedom.
.
"If there's a trash can where there's not normally a trash can, then they'll investigate that," he said.
.
http://www.iht.com/articles/529789.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

In Iraq War, Death Also Comes to Soldiers in Autumn of Life
By EDWARD WYATT

Published: July 18, 2004


AUGUSTA, Ga. — Master Sgt. Thomas R. Thigpen was 52 when he fell dead of a heart attack during a touch-football game in Kuwait on March 16 — a casualty that does not quite fit the standard template of wartime tragedy: the fresh-faced 18-year-old cut down with the promise of a full life ahead.

He was not the oldest to die since the invasion of Iraq. That would be Staff Sgt. William D. Chaney, 59, who operated the machine gun in the door of his unit's Black Hawk helicopters — the same job he performed in Vietnam — and died after surgery for an intestinal problem. Sgt. Floyd G. Knighten Jr., 55, serving in Kuwait in the same unit as his 21-year-old son, died of heat stroke while driving a Humvee without air-conditioning across the scorching Iraqi desert.

In all, 10 soldiers age 50 or older have died in the Iraq war, some of medical ailments that might have excluded them from earlier conflicts, others under fire in the heat of battle. That is a small percentage of the nearly 900 American service members who have died since the Iraq war began, but it is 10 times the percentage of men in that age group who died in Vietnam. It is nearly as many as those of that age who died in the entire Korean War.

And those 10 deaths, if no sadder than those of the young soldiers who never left their teens, have created a far different, and perhaps surprising, landscape of grief. It is a scene not of spring, but of harvest: a total of 11 grandchildren left behind, 21 decades of marriage, years of service to communities, mortgages nearly paid off, and long careers that were already pointed toward retirement.

"I told him, `Daddy, you're too old to be going over there like that,' " said Liza Knighten, 57, who met her husband, whom she called Daddy, 34 years ago near her home in the Philippines while he was in the Navy. "He told me, `I'm not too old to fight for our country.' "

The war deaths of middle-aged soldiers are a consequence of a specific moment in American history. With a shrinking roll of full-time soldiers and no draft to replenish it, the nation's armed forces have had to reach deeper into the Reserves and the National Guard, where men in their 50's typically train and serve alongside soldiers in their teens. About 5,570 of the 275,000 American troops in or about to leave for Iraq and Afghanistan are 50 and older, nearly all of them members of the Guard and Reserves.

The deaths raise questions about why older men, many of them veterans and some in obviously questionable health, are deployed to a war zone. Seven of the 10 died of heart attacks or other "nonhostile'' causes, as the Pentagon classifies them, while three were killed in combat.

Though the Army and other service branches have mandatory retirement regulations that can kick in anywhere from age 55 to 62, depending on a soldier's length of service and other circumstances, there are no age limits on the battlefield. "If you're a soldier, you're expected to be able to do your job and to go where you're needed," said Lt. Col. Gerard Healy, an Army spokesman. "Where you're needed is most likely to be in a combat zone.''

All members of the armed forces must pass periodic fitness tests - meeting standards in push-ups, sit-ups and a two-mile run - and military regulations require physical examinations on base at least once a year for members of the Reserves and the Guard. But medical assessments can be subjective: A condition like high blood pressure, which would bar a recruit from enlistment, is allowable in an experienced soldier if it can be controlled through medication.

Most of the older soldiers understood the potential sacrifice they were being asked to make, because many of them had faced it before, in Vietnam or the Persian Gulf war of 1991. And if they or their families had doubts - "Let's sit this one out," one veteran's wife urged him - those misgivings were most often squelched with a nod to duty, country and an almost fatherly sense of responsibility to the younger soldiers they had taught.

Sergeant Thigpen, who lived here in Augusta, was to become eligible for voluntary retirement from the National Guard in June 2003. But that February, his unit was called up to serve in Iraq, pushing his retirement back at least a year. When his wife of 25 years, Theresa, visited him at a training camp in Indiana before he left, "he broke down and cried," she said.

"He said, 'I don't want to, but I know I have to go.' He told me he had 19-year-olds, who he trained, crying on his shoulder, and there was no way he could let them go by themselves."

In Shape, They Thought

His scheduled return was more than a month away, but Mrs. Thigpen, 50, had already packed their suitcases for a Caribbean cruise when, in March, word came of her husband's death. Now, their modest one-story house on the outskirts of Augusta is quiet, its solemnity enforced by a glass display case just inside the front door that confronts every visitor with medals and pictures and memories.

Family photos of some soldiers in their 50's who died in Iraq show that they were predictably soft around the middle. Not Sergeant Thigpen. While he was a grandfather of two, he was also a former marine who ran several times a week and, defying the gray mustache that betrayed his age, finished the Army's two-mile run in 17 minutes. He often joked about being in better shape than anyone else in the family, including his 31-year-old daughter and 24-year-old son, and for years he guided scout troops and church groups on hikes in the Georgia wilderness.

In the Middle East, he was stationed at Camp Doha, Kuwait, while many of the soldiers he had trained in computer and communications systems worked at Baghdad International Airport. Mrs. Thigpen said her husband, dismayed at being separated from them, had volunteered for a half-dozen trips on a supply convoy to Baghdad.

Most days, before she went to bed and just as he was rising, the couple would chat by instant messaging on the Internet. Rarely did he complain about life in the desert, but occasionally frustration surfaced, as when she urged him to take a short leave to visit his ailing mother in Georgia.

"If I leave here, I'm going AWOL, I'm not coming back," he wrote. But he came home at Thanksgiving, and went back, dutifully.

He seemed able to handle the rigors of a war zone, Mrs. Thigpen said, but over the years there had been warning signs among the high fitness scores. Three times - in 1994, 2001 and last October, while in Kuwait - Sergeant Thigpen had gone to doctors or a hospital with chest pains.

A stress test after the second incident convinced his private doctor that his heart was fine, and the military doctor's diagnosis after the third was "basically acid reflux,'' Mrs. Thigpen said. But after he collapsed during the football game, an autopsy revealed that two arteries were partly blocked.

In their daily chats, Mrs. Thigpen, an assistant manager at the Georgia Department of Motor Vehicles who was also active in the women's ministry at Augusta's HIS Community Church, talked about wanting to take up the ministry full time. The couple were contemplating ways to pay for her return to college. Now, because of her husband's death, the Army will pay.

"It just shows,'' she said, "you'd better watch what you pray for.''

'The Last Time I Go Away'

Outfitting a 59-year-old National Guardsman for war requires some unusual skills, like persuading a doctor and an insurance company to approve and supply 18 months' worth of anticholesterol and blood pressure medication.

Staff Sgt. William D. Chaney arranged all that. But if he had any reservations about whether his health or age should keep him from going overseas, they evaporated when he and his wife of 32 years, Carol, sat down for a family meeting with their 26-year-old son, Chris.

Chris asked one question: "Dad, do you want to go?"

"He said, 'Yes, it's what I trained to do,' " Mrs. Chaney, 58, recalled in an interview at her office at the Chicago Botanic Garden, where she is director of human resources.


continued....

[thedrifter]

When her husband's unit was called up, Mrs. Chaney was recovering from surgery and treatment for cancer, but she did not ask him to stay. She knew he had a deep need to go, a desire nurtured over 30 years. "Bill said he wanted to finish what he didn't finish in Vietnam," she said. "He said, 'This will be the last time I go away to war.' "

Drafted into the Army in 1967, he served for two years before coming home to a nation where opposition to the Vietnam War - and sometimes to the soldiers who fought there - had not yet crested. Seeking to put his Army training as an air traffic controller to use, he was told it did not qualify him for a job in commercial aviation, his wife said. So he went to work in a warehouse. He once sought out other veterans at a V.F.W. post near his home in Schaumburg, Ill., a Chicago suburb, but felt less than welcome.

Where the military was concerned, "he was kind of bitter about everything," Mrs. Chaney said.

Not until 1986, when a huge "welcome home" parade for Vietnam veterans in Chicago attracted more than a half-million people, including Sergeant Chaney, was he able to begin putting those feelings aside. He began talking regularly with veterans he had met there. Three years later, he joined the Illinois National Guard.

This Mother's Day, May 9, Mrs. Chaney was surprised to receive her husband's call from a military hospital in Germany. He had been evacuated from the combat zone because of severe abdominal pain and had undergone surgery to remove part of his small intestine. They spoke a couple of times that week, as his condition improved. But when she called on May 18, he was dead, apparently of a blood clot in his lungs. Military officials had not yet contacted her, she said, and that has been a source of continued anguish during the two months since.

While the sergeant was in Iraq, his unit's Internet connection rarely worked. So Sergeant Chaney resorted to an old standard of soldiers: handwritten letters. He described Saddam Hussein's palaces and talked about the generals ferried about in his helicopter. But he expressed little fear, Mrs. Chaney said.

"He told me he was more afraid when he was in Vietnam," she said. Comparing resistance fighters in Iraq with the Vietcong, he told her, "I've dealt with professionals. These guys are amateurs."

Father and Son, Serving Together

When the commander from the Louisiana National Guard armory knocked on Liza Knighten's door one evening last August, his message was simple and somber.

"He said, 'Floyd died,' " Mrs. Knighten recalled. "I said, 'No.' Then I said, 'Which one? Because I've got two.' "

It was her husband, Sgt. Floyd G. Knighten Jr., a 55-year-old mechanic with the Guard's 1087th Transportation Company, who had died of heat stroke during a convoy across the Iraqi desert.

Her 21-year-old son, Specialist Floyd Knighten III, who was serving in the same National Guard unit in Iraq, was safe. But that, she said, eased the pain only so much.

Sergeant Knighten, a barrel-chested Vietnam veteran with the stomach bulge of a middle-aged man, did not have the physique of a combat-ready soldier.

"He's got a belly on him, but who doesn't these days?'' Specialist Knighten said. "He was a strong guy, with a lot of upper-body strength. That helped him as a mechanic.''

Floyd Knighten III was just 8 when his father came home in 1991 after serving in the gulf war. "I told him then that when he goes back to war, I'm going to go with him.''

Father and son shared a truck on two missions across the Iraqi desert.

"We mostly talked about wanting to go home,'' Specialist Knighten said. "He was thinking about retiring, and he'd talk about the fishing trips he wanted to take. But it was awesome just being there together, especially being at war. I did feel like I was at home because I had my dad there.''

Back in Olla, La., a quiet town of 1,417 about 100 miles southeast of Shreveport, Mrs. Knighten says she does not feel at home, even though her husband's relatives live nearby.

"Before he left, he said we could build a home in the Philippines,'' she said. Now, she does not know whether to stay or try to return there.

"I've got nobody here except my Daddy,'' she said, weeping softly, as she often does these days, and brushing specks of dirt from the photo affixed to his tombstone. "I grew up with him. I'm not going to get over this.''

Needed at Home, and in Iraq

It took nearly a week for the soldiers of the Third Battalion, 15th Infantry, Third Infantry Division to locate the body of Sgt. First Class John W. Marshall, 50, who was blown from the turret of his armored vehicle as his unit fought its way into Baghdad in April 2003. But then Sergeant Marshall never made things easy for himself, or anyone else.

"I'll get rid of them in a heartbeat'' was his half-joking prescription for dealing with incompetent or inattentive subordinates, said Denise Marshall, his wife for 16 years. Apparently he did just that on the run into Baghdad, taking the place of another soldier who had been manning the turret. His actions earned him the Silver Star.

A career soldier, Sergeant Marshall enlisted in the Army at 18 and worked his way up the ranks, serving in South Korea and Germany. Early on, he took a five-year leave for treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma, but resumed his career. He was eligible to retire in 2002, but as the prospect of war in Iraq loomed, he decided to re-enlist.

He had plenty of reasons not to go. His son Richard, 16, was suffering from night terrors that had started a few years before, while Sergeant Marshall was stationed in Kentucky and rarely home in Hinesville, Ga. His wife had developed a disorder that left her temporarily blinded in one eye and required surgery.

"I told him, 'Let's sit this one out,' " Mrs. Marshall said. Her doctor had written a letter to her husband's commanders asking his deployment to be deferred at least 30 days so he could help at home. "He read it,'' she said. "He didn't like it.'' The letter sat on his desk while Sergeant Marshall prepared to go overseas.

"His response was: 'I trained these guys, Denise. I really need to be there.' I knew if he didn't go, somewhere down the line, maybe in five years or so, he would look at me and say, 'I should have been there.' ''

Now home alone with their three children in Hinesville, the military town near Savannah that borders Fort Stewart, Mrs. Marshall says she feels isolated. Few men from Sergeant Marshall's unit have visited, she says, and none have reached out to offer help with her boys, Richard and Kevin, 15. Though their house bubbles with the laughter of a daughter, Jennifer, 13, and the shouts of pre-kindergartners at the day care center that Mrs. Marshall runs at home, the air of vitality can be misleading.

Recently, Mrs. Marshall recalled, Richard asked his mother about his father's attachment to his unit, and to the Army: "Did Dad love them more than he did us?''

"No," she answered. "But he felt obligated to do everything he could to get them back safe and sound. He just didn't come back with them.''


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/international/middleeast/18OLDER.html?pagewanted=1&hp


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Man Killed While Trying to Blow up Iraqi Gas Pipeline(Those Whacky Iraqis)
AP


Man killed while trying to blow up Iraqi gas pipeline Associated Press

KIRKUK, Iraq - A saboteur attempting to plant a bomb Saturday under a natural gas pipeline set off the explosion early and killed himself, authorities said.

The explosion that occurred early Saturday in Riayd, about 45 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Baghdad, did not damage the line, said Col. Sarhat Qader of the Iraqi police in Kirkuk.

"He was blown to pieces while trying to place it into the hole in the ground," Qader said.

Insurgents frequently target Iraq's oil infrastructure and repeated bombings on pipelines have disrupted exports, robbing Iraq of hundreds of millions of dollars in much-needed reconstruction funds.

On Thursday, in separate incidents, saboteurs attacked two northern crude oil lines, forcing a halt in exports from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Smugglers also damaged a key southern pipeline, but the attack had no impact on exports.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Forget WMD -- It's Conventional Arms That Are Killing GIs and Iraqis

By Rachel Stohl, Rachel Stohl is senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C.

When the United States turned over sovereignty to the new government of Iraq last month, it did so without confronting one of the most pressing problems facing the country: the millions of small arms and light weapons plaguing Iraq's security and threatening its stability. Excluding small arms from the long-term security plan is a deadly mistake.

Since the declared end of major combat operations in May 2003, an average of one American has died every day in Iraq, and more than one-third of these soldiers have been killed by small arms — revolvers, rifles, pistols and the like. Thousands more have been injured and some have been unable to complete their duties because of the level of violence and insecurity fueled by small arms. Moreover, uncounted Iraqi civilians have been killed, wounded, threatened or terrorized by small arms.

While U.S. policymakers were consumed with finding weapons of mass destruction, mission planners largely ignored the threat of conventional weapons. Reports estimate that Iraq has perhaps the fourth-largest supply of conventional arms in the world. An embedded reporter in Iraq said military sources told him this included "3 million tons of bombs and bullets, millions of AK-47s and other rifles, rocket launchers and mortar tubes, and thousands of more sophisticated arms like ground-to-air missiles." The 2004 edition of the Small Arms Survey estimates that at least 7 million to 8 million small arms have fallen into the hands of Iraqi civilians since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

One of the additional challenges in dealing with small arms and light weapons in Iraq is the 2003 U.S. policy that allows Iraqi males to keep one weapon. Most have chosen to keep an AK-47 for their personal security, but these arms often find their way out of homes and make their way to the black market or are used for crime and violence.

To address these myriad problems, the U.S. in mid-May undertook an eight-day gun buyback program in Iraq offering amnesty and cash in return for weapons — for instance, $125 for an AK-47. It distributed about $350,000 a day to individuals turning in weapons, from ammunition to surface-to-air missiles.

The effectiveness of this type of program, however, is questionable. First, Iraqis are not being required to turn in all their weapons. Second, many are buying weapons on the black market and turning them in to the Americans for a profit. There are even credible reports of Iraqis turning in older weapons in order to buy newer models on the street. And in some places, such as Karbala, U.S. troops ran out of money. The buyback was a symbolic victory, for some weapons were removed from circulation. But it was an ad hoc and short-term program; it did little to increase overall safety and security, nor did it stymie the black market. Moreover, providing the equivalent of a month's salary or in some cases a year's wages to someone who has illegally possessed weaponry no doubt fueled resentment and jealousy and created targets for criminals.

Iraqis would benefit more from community-based weapon-collection programs and symbolic destruction celebrations. Rather than an individual receiving cash for each weapon turned in, neighborhoods could receive services that benefit the entire group — job training or the building of a post office or soccer field. With good incentives, such programs have worked in other nations. In all cases, the United States must destroy weapons quickly, preferably in a public demonstration, and securely stockpile those that have yet to be destroyed.

On June 22, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee that the United States should "expect more violence, not less, in the immediate weeks ahead." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the same committee that the U.S. had "underestimated" the threat from insurgents in Iraq, and that the U.S. military could keep "a significant number" of U.S. troops in Iraq for "years to come." Developing a coherent, long-term strategy for small arms is not only prudent, it is lifesaving.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-stohl19jul19,1,3478355.story


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Issue Date: July 19, 2004

Gearing up for Round 3
Iraq force size debated amid planning for next rotation

By Rick Maze
Times staff writer

The Bush administration continues to oppose permanent increases in active-duty strength, despite increasing congressional worries that the Pentagon is using desperate and morale-damaging steps to find people for the third wave of troop rotations into Iraq.
Operation Iraqi Freedom III, already underway, will send about 135,000 troops to replace the approximately 140,000 currently deployed. Finding replacements required extraordinary steps, defense and service officials acknowledged in July 7 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, but they defended the decisions as the best way to spread the burden.

About 35 percent of the troops in the third wave have already pulled at least one deployment in Iraq, including reserve and National Guard members who are going back despite the Defense Department’s goal of putting reservists on no more than one involuntary mobilization every six years.

In a move military officials said is aimed at spreading the burden more widely, the next deployment includes units that had been assigned as the opposing force at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., and the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La., as well as U.S. troops based in South Korea.

The new rotation relies more heavily on reserve forces, which will make up as much as 43 percent of deployed troops. By comparison, reservists made up 25 percent of the initial Iraq deployment and 39 percent of OIF II.

The latest step, and the one sending out the biggest alarm, is the Pentagon’s decision to order about 4,000 Individual Ready Reservists back to duty. These are people who completed their active-duty obligation but have a remaining inactive reserve obligation that under normal circumstances would not involve additional duties.

David S.C. Chu, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, tried to downplay disagreements with Congress over force levels. The steps being taken “are not the last resort,” Chu said, but rather “measures that keep the burden shared.”

“This is the way we sustain the mission over the long term,” he said.

The administration agrees with lawmakers that the strain of deployments warrants an increase in the number of people on active duty, but disagrees over the permanence and funding of increases, Chu said. Defense officials view the need for more people as a temporary situation that should be paid for with supplemental funds rather than a permanent change that would be embedded in the annual defense budget.

There is an element of election-year partisan sniping in criticism of the deployment plans, with some Democrats complaining that the current stress on the force would not exist if the administration had garnered more international support before launching the invasion of Iraq and done more realistic postwar planning.

Concerns about strain on the force, however, are bipartisan on the armed services committee, which is pressing for an increase of 39,000 active-duty personnel — 30,000 for the Army and 9,000 for the Marine Corps.

Marine Lt. Gen. Jan C. Huly, deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations, offered assurances to lawmakers. “We are taking careful, but deliberate, steps to manage deployments,” he said.


http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=0-MARINEPAPER-3076961.php

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marine leaders meet with Iraqis for stepped-up measures in western Al Anbar Province
Submitted by: 1st Marine Division
Story Identification #: 200471771045
Story by Cpl. Macario P. Mora Jr.



CAMP AL ASAD, Iraq(July 13, 2004) -- Senior Marine leaders met with leaders from Iraqi security forces to discuss measures for stepping up actions against Anti-Iraqi forces in western Al Anbar Province.

Col. Craig Tucker, commanding officer of Regimental Combat Team 7 along with battalion commanders met with local Al Anbar security force leaders in the first of many monthly meetings to discuss ways for a more secure Iraq.

Tucker met with Iraqi National Guard, Iraqi Police and Border Police leaders to discuss problems and solutions. It was an effort to unite local communities as one voice in Iraq.

"These meetings will help us identify trends in crime and terrorism," said 44-year-old Tucker from Yucca Valley, Calif. "It will also give us the means to combat these problems."

The meeting set the groundwork for the different security forces and Marines to share information on crime and ideas on how help solve them, according to Tucker. A centralized building will be established containing all the forces to pass along information more quickly.

"We need to identify short falls in our equipment and training," Tucker said. "We need to prioritize and become one voice to better fight for resources."

A particular concern to Marines is preventing attacks on Iraqi security forces, which have increased since April, according to Gunnery Sgt. Scott H. Stalker, a 29-year-old regimental intelligence chief from Bay Point, Calif.

"As the turnover came closer, attacks on Iraqi forces began to increase," Stalker said. "We believe they were trying to deter them from working with the Coalition Forces."

"They're not fighting the occupation with these attacks," Tucker said. "They want to defeat local forces and assume control of your communities. What they weren't expecting were Iraqi forces to step up."

Once the attacks on Iraqi forces decrease, the regiment and local forces will focus on local crimes, Tucker explained.

Tucker expressed the need for better communication, pointing out that criminals and terrorist weren't local problems, instead they moved from city to city, making it a regional concern.

The biggest concern for many was the protection of the border. Tucker said it would take all the forces to combat this problem as well as those problems inside the city.

Steps are already underway to fix that. The regiment and local Iraqis began the process of protecting the country's borders with Al Asad's first Border Police Academy.

"They're going to be able to take care of their own country," said 1st Sgt. Octaviano Gallegos Jr., a 37-year-old first sergeant for Company B, 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion, from Las Cruces, N.M. "Our goal is to work ourselves out of a job."

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/200471771744/$file/security1lr.jpg

Col. Craig Tucker, commanding officer of Regimental Combat Team 7 speaks to a gathering of security leaders from throughout the western Al Anbar Province. Attacks on Iraqi security forces increased since April. Tucker encouraged the different Iraqi agencies to work with each other and Coalition Forces to reduce the violence.
(USMC photo by Cpl. Macario P. Mora Jr.) Photo by: Cpl. Macario P. Mora Jr.

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/8D224B64FE9CD4B285256ED4003D68FB?opendocument


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Saying Good-bye

Mothers extended their children's arms to wave goodbye Sunday morning as a bevy of EA-6B Prowlers bearing members of Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 2 rumbled down the tarmac and rocketed into the heavens. Deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom II, the Marines' tour is expected to last approximately six months.

Though the separation from his family will be painful, Steele said he has always been prepared to heed the call of duty.

"Marines have always trained well and trained hard to do our jobs, and we're going to go and do our jobs," he said. "We're called upon, we go."

Each Prowler aircraft carries one pilot and three electronics countermeasures officers, whose primary duty consists of jamming hostile radar and disabling enemy communications. Approximately a quarter of the VMAQ-2 squadron departed Sunday, with the remainder scheduled to deploy at a later date.

Electronics countermeasures officer Capt. Sean E. Crittenden said his squadron's mission will provide direct aid to ground troops battling combatants in Iraq.

"We're the guys who make sure the enemy doesn't know what's going on," he said. "We're going to be supporting the guys on the ground doing their job. I can't really go into specifics on what that's going to be, but we're going to be supporting the Marine Corps as well as the other services that are on the deck there."

Moments before their deployment, Marines were tightlipped about the precise details of their support mission, some declining to comment on their exact duties. However, all expressed pride in the endeavor and underscored its significance in the war effort.

"It's extremely important," Crittenden said. "We do this because we love to do it, but we also do it for the people back home and for them to understand that is extremely important."

For years, Capt. Bobby Rhodes wrestled with his three sons. Now, he'll wrestle with the reality of being unable to spend time with his family when he misses them the most.

Though he expects to return safely, the Marine fulfilled his responsibility as head of household to ensure that his family would be secure if he died in service of his country.

"I spent time with my family and made sure everything was in order before I left," he said. "The bills were all lined up. I got all the legal stuff lined up as far as wills and power of attorney, made sure my insurance is up to date in case something happens.

"I wanted to get them set up before I left and make sure they were taken care of."

Each of Rhodes' sons hugged their father in turn, wishing him a safe and successful mission overseas.

Fifteen year-old Jon Rhodes joked about being disciplined by his dad, but the laughter gave way to sincerity as he glanced at the Prowlers undergoing pre-flight preparations.

"Every day he yells at me for stupid stuff, so he's involved, I guess," he said. Then, turning serious, he added: "He's a big part of my life so if I lose him, I'll go haywire."

Jennifer Grischkowsky sniffled her way through her parting moments with her husband, who also was deployed to Haiti in 1994 and has taken several tours of duty overseas.

Though she teetered on the verge of bawling, the Marine wife remained strong to reassure her husband that she and their daughters would be OK.

"It's hard, but I promised I wouldn't cry, at least not in front of him," she said. We've been through it before, and it's just part of his job."

Her husband, Maj. Michael Grischkowsky, will be absent for his daughter's first day of kindergarten, among other milestones and everyday family events.

Huddled on the damp tarmac, families embraced in an emotional goodbye as the seconds ticked away early Sunday morning. Marines locked lips with their wives and blinked back tears as they bid their better halves farewell.

Fathers cradled their children in one final squeeze before boarding the Prowlers, one Marine kneeling to stroke his 5 year-old daughter's hair and impart a few fatherly words.

"Leaving's always the hardest part, but you always have coming home to look forward to," Grischkowsky said.



Corey Friedman can be reached at 638-8101 ext. 269 or at corey_friedman@link.

freedom.com.

http://www.newbernsj.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=16467&Section=Local

Ellie