War Veteran Refuses 2nd Iraq Deployment [Archive] - Marine Corps

thedrifter

01-14-05, 07:36 AM

.S. Having Impact On Tsunami Aid
Associated Press
January 14, 2005

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Thursday said American's military "is making a significant difference" for tsunami victims, despite demands by Indonesia that foreign troops leave the ravaged Aceh province by the end of March.

"There's a lot of talk about how some in the world don't appreciate America," Bush told reporters after getting an update at the Pentagon on the war on terror and U.S. relief efforts in South Asia. "I can assure you that those who have been helped by our military appreciate America."

Separately, in an interview with ABC, Bush acknowledged that U.S. public relations campaigns abroad could use some work in a time of rising anti-American sentiment. "Our public diplomacy efforts aren't very robust and aren't very good, compared to the public diplomacy efforts of those who would like to spread hatred and vilify the United States," Bush told Barbara Walters. The interview will air Friday night on ABC's "20/20."

Bush said the massive American effort to help tsunami victims could boost the U.S. image abroad. "Absolutely. I think it can," he said.

"Our military is making a significant difference in providing relief and aid and help and compassion for those who have suffered," Bush said at the Pentagon, flanked by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "I am very impressed, Mr. Secretary, with how quickly we have responded and the assets you have ordered deployed to help these people."

After the briefing with his top national security advisers, which lasted more than an hour, Bush greeted more than 50 members of various branches of the armed services, who cheered his visit to the Pentagon.

"We're constantly reviewing our strategy as to how to defeat the enemy," Bush said. "We fully recognize that the war on terror will require a coordinated effort within our own government as well as a coordinated efforts with countries around the world, which understand the stakes of this war."

Bush, who did not answer questions, said he has been pleased with the help the United States is receiving in fighting terror "mindful of the fact that we have constantly got to review our plans and never lose our will."

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said Indonesian authorities have informed the United States that there is no departure deadline for U.S. troops from the tsunami-affected area.

"Nobody is asking us to go home," Boucher said, suggesting that some reports to the contrary may have been "overinterpreted."

"The relief effort will go on for a long time," he added. "The Indonesian statement about three months, they tell us, was intended as an estimate about how long the military part of the operation might be necessary."

He said if that if the U.S. military is asked to leave, it would do so. "It's that simple," he said.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-14-05, 07:37 AM

States May Pay Troops Insurance
Associated Press
January 14, 2005

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Dawn Archuleta, a member of the New Mexico National Guard, wants to know that her son and daughter will be taken care of if she's called to serve in Iraq and doesn't make it home.

"That's my biggest worry if something did happen," said Archuleta, 25, who spent 11 months in Iraq as an Army truck driver.

Now, lawmakers in some states are hoping to ease such concerns with proposals to pick up the tab for $250,000 life insurance policies.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson wants the state to pay premiums under a federal program that allows service members to buy life insurance through a payroll deduction. The basic premium is about $16 a month, which would cost New Mexico an estimated $800,000.

Since Richardson's announcement earlier this month, legislators in Alabama, Iowa, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania have lined up with similar proposals.

"People think the military gets paid a lot but they don't realize how $16 can make a big difference," Archuleta said. "Getting an extra $16 on a Guard check is huge."

Support for those once regarded as "weekend warriors" is increasing because the active-duty Army is too small to meet demands - particularly in Iraq, where troop levels have far exceeded original predictions.

In fact, the National Guard has been used so much in Iraq and Afghanistan that the Army now has deployed, or put on notice, all 15 of its main combat brigades.

Still, some question whether states should pay insurance premiums since deployed soldiers are following federal orders. New Mexico does not cover premiums for any other state employees, including those with potentially dangerous jobs, such as state police officers.

Delano Garcia of the New Mexico Office of Military Affairs says regardless of who pays the premiums, it's something that needs to be done.

"I'm a Vietnam veteran and I hope that what happened to us never happens to these soldiers. Not again," he said.

New Mexico has about 400 guardsmen in Iraq, while Rhode Island has more than 800 stationed overseas. The Alabama Guard has 13 units in Iraq and four in Afghanistan. Iowa and Pennsylvania each have more than 4,000 guardsmen on active federal duty.

Richardson's administration says New Mexico can afford the premiums, citing its healthy reserves and that the cost will not erode funding used to maintain guard armories around the state.

Staff Sgt. Luis Otero, 22, of the New Mexico Air National Guard's 150th Fighter Wing, may have to return to Iraq this year. He said having his premium paid would make it easier. If anything happens to him, then his parents, brother and sister would benefit from his insurance policy.

"An extra $16 to have in our pocket would be nice, but the thing that the governor is talking about is worth more than $16," says Otero. "It's nice to know your family will be taken care of."

Ellie

thedrifter

01-14-05, 07:37 AM

AWOL Marines remain at large

WINCHESTER, Ky. A pair of AWOL Marines involved in a road rage incident on Interstate 64 in Kentucky remain at large.

Lance Corporal Wesley Wilkinson of Charleston, West Virginia and Private Michael Young of Indiana have not been recaptured since being involved in the incident Tuesday.

Lieutenant Rick Long says the pair deserted their units at Camp Pendleton, California, and were awaiting courts-martial when they left their base at Quantico, Virginia, without authorization.

Police say the two men were shot at by fellow Marine Abraham Cerpa during a 90-mile chase filled with gestures and insults.

Cerpa pleaded innocent to assault and four counts of wanton endangerment. He is being held in the Clark County Jail on 100-thousand dollars bond.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-14-05, 07:38 AM

Two U.S. Marines Killed in Western Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines were killed in action in western Iraq (news - web sites), the U.S. military said in a statement on Friday.

The statement said the two Marines, assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, were killed on Thursday "while conducting security and stability operations in the al-Anbar Province."

It gave no further details, saying the release of any information might be used by insurgents waging daily attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

The deaths raised to 1,071 the number of American troops killed in action since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-14-05, 07:39 AM

US Marines close in on Lanka rebel areas

KOGGALA, Sri Lanka (AP) - The USS Duluth, an amphibious assault ship, was bound for eastern Sri Lankan shores Thursday to carry out relief work that will bring it close to areas controlled by Tamil Tiger rebels. The ship with 400 Marines and 400 Navy personnel set sail two days after it anchored off this southern town. It will drop relief supplies in Ampara, one of the worst hit by the disaster.
In eastern Sri Lanka, Tamils and Muslims are the major communities and the Tamil Tiger rebels have considerable influence. The area was the scene of a major clash between the mainstream rebel group and a breakaway faction in March and April last year. The breakaway faction was defeated.

The Tigers have made no comment on either the landing of US soldiers or their movement to the east. But a rebel-backed Tamil politician has said that the troops engaged in relief efforts might use the operation as a cover to spy on the rebels and give intelligence to the government.

"They may try to collect details to help the government crush the Tamil national struggle in a future conflict," Tamil Rebel political leader Nallathamby Srikantha told Voice of Tigers radio.

Ellie

al20852

01-14-05, 08:16 AM

Back in the late 60's and early 70's I was involved with several desertion cases of Marines who refused to either report for duty or ship out to Viet Nam. There are always going to be people like that. Bottom line is you need to have rules and punish the people who don't follow them. If you don't, those people who actually report for duty are short changed. No one, and I mean no one, wants to go into harm's way. Everyone is scared. But, if you sign up you are obigated and you have to deal with your commitment. If you don't, you should suffer the consequences.

thedrifter

01-14-05, 08:30 AM

Marines and sailors set to leave Camp Lejeune
January 14,2005
Eric Steinkopff
Freedom ENC

About 850 Marines and sailors from Camp Lejeune will leave for Iraq today and Saturday as part of an area force expected to number 14,000 by April.

Gunnery Sgt. Sean Wright, a spokesman for the 8th Marine Regiment, said the deployment from 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines will start this morning, ending months of training and anticipation for the spring switch with West Coast Marine Corps infantry units.

The Marines are expected to be away for seven months.

"They (3/8) will become Regimental Combat Team 8 when the East Coast units take over command in February or March," Wright said.

The troops are among the first from the area to leave in what the military has said will be a deployment of about 14,000 troops from Lejeune's II Marine Expeditionary Force. It includes Marines and sailors from New River, Cherry Point and Beaufort (S.C.) air stations.

This "II MEF forward" is expected to swell in size to about 20,000 over the next couple of months as about 6,000 troops from various supporting active duty and activated reserve units join their command.

They are scheduled to replace roughly 20,000 troops under the command of I Marine Expeditionary Force, now in Iraq.

Camp Lejeune's 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, which numbers around 850, is currently training in Southern California and expected to return home before leaving for a seven-month deployment to Iraq.

First Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, also from Camp Lejeune, is slated to leave for its California training this month. When those troops return to Lejeune, they, too, will head to Iraq for seven months.

The reserve 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment - primarily from the northern Ohio area - is also scheduled to go through training in California before deploying to Iraq with II MEF within the next couple of months, said 2nd Marine Division spokeswoman 1st Lt. Kate VandenBossche.

"They are already mobilized," VandenBossche said.

Other II MEF active duty units supporting the spring rotation include:

n The 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing forward with elements of New River Air Station's Marine Aircraft Group 26; and Marine Air Control Group 28 and Marine Wing Support Group 27 from Cherry Point Air Station.

n The 2nd Force Service Support Group forward with elements of Headquarters and Service Battalion, 2nd Maintenance Battalion, 8th Engineer Support Battalion, 2nd Supply Battalion, 2nd Transportation Support Battalion, and 2nd Medical Battalion.

Ellie

MillRatUSMC

01-14-05, 08:44 AM

Yes, I have trouble with Marines that do not meet their commitment.
Especially those that refuse a second tour.
If you're a Non-Commision Officer and you get orders back, you go.
No questions asked, that what you'e getting paid for.
To teach other Marines to survive in one of the most hostile place known to man.
If you refuse, than you must suffer the consequences.
You might ask, what gives you the authority to make such statements.
I got orders twice to Vietnam, I went because that was the moral thing and I was an Non-Commissioned- Officer.
So I don't stand on high moral ground on this issue.

Semper Fidelis/Semper Fi
Ricardo

PS
There will always be fear on the field of battle, those without fear are either insane or mad!

TRLewis

01-14-05, 09:45 AM

Originally posted by thedrifter
Police say the two men were shot at by fellow Marine Abraham Cerpa during a 90-mile chase filled with gestures and insults.

Cerpa pleaded innocent to assault and four counts of wanton endangerment. He is being held in the Clark County Jail on 100-thousand dollars bond.

Ellie

Give that guy an award, not punish him.

thedrifter

01-14-05, 09:48 AM

Run for the money
Parris Island Marines raise nearly $17,500 for tsunami victims
Published Sat, Jan 8, 2005

By OMAR FORD
Gazette staff writer
BLUFFTON -- Lance Cpl. George Holmes could feel his legs cramping as he crossed over the Chechessee River bridge -- the midpoint in a 30-mile run between Bluffton and Lady's Island.
But giving up wasn't in the equation for the sweat-drenched, 21-year-old Lebanon Mo., native, who was running to raise money for survivors of the Dec. 26 tsunami.

"This is the most I've ever run at one time," said Holmes. "This is tough, but we're going to make it."

From 6:30 a.m. to noon Friday, Holmes and four other Parris Island Marines put their bodies on the line by running between the Palmetto Chapter of the American Red Cross headquarters in Bluffton and Hometown Realty on Lady's Island, raising nearly $17,500.

That money will go toward the American Red Cross' International Response fund. Locally the agency has raised $56,500 -- not counting Friday's donation's -- for the effort.

Since Monday, the Lowcountry has seen more than $80,000 worth of support going to aid the victims of the Southeast Asia tsunami that has killed nearly 150,000 people.

Ways to donate throughout the area have been numerous and creative, including Internet auctions, long-distance runs and golf tournaments.

People are stepping up to help, said Larry Rockwell, executive director of the local branch of the American Red Cross, which co-sponsored Friday's run with Hometown Realty.

"Children have brought in their Christmas money (to help)," he said. "It's just touching."

Loy Simmons, a Thailand native and resident of Hardeeville, said she will be selling traditional dishes today to help the survivors.

Simmons said she plans to go to her native country, which was struck by the tsunami, to aid in the relief efforts.

"Even though I don't have family that was affected, I still want to do what I can," she said.

Holmes echoed similar thoughts when speaking about why he approached the American Red Cross with the fund-raising idea.

"I don't have a million dollars to donate like (actress) Sandra Bullock, but I can help -- I can do something to make a difference," he said. (Red Cross) was very supportive."

Rockwell said the agency embraced the idea immediately.

"Not everybody can make a monetary donation, but (Holmes) still wanted to help," Rockwell said. "He wanted to give of himself physically -- it's just heart- warming."

Traffic was severely tied up at some points during the run, and soreness often set in for the Marines.

The five were escorted by an American Red Cross van that provided water along the way and a Beaufort County Sheriff's Office squad car.

Friday's run was a severe departure from the usual routine of running 30 miles a week, said Cpl. Joshua Harris, who was part of the group.

"I'm going to get into the bathtub and soak myself in Epsom salt when I get home," Harris said after the race.

But despite bruises and stiffness and future aches, Holmes and crew said it was worth the effort.

"Definitely I'm hurting," he said. "But I would do it again ... anything to help."

Contact Omar Ford at 986-5538 or oford@beaufortgazette.com.

http://beaufortgazette.com/ips_rich_content/NWS-Tsunami-1-01082005.jpg

Bob Sofaly/Gazette
Lance Cpl. George Holmes, left, Cpl. Joshua Harris, Gunnery Sgt. Scott Duplechain and Cpl. James Shipman jog over the J.E. McTeer Bridge on Friday morning. The Parris Island Marines were running from the American Red Cross office in Bluffton to Hometown Realty on Lady's Island.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-14-05, 10:20 AM

January 17, 2005

Soldier: Question for Rumsfeld was mine

Joseph R. Chenelly
Times staff writer

When Spc. Thomas “Jerry” Wilson emerged from a crowd of some 2,300 troops Dec. 8 to ask Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld why Iraq-bound soldiers had to rummage through Kuwaiti scrap yards to armor their vehicles, he was asking his own question, the way he wanted to ask it — and not acting as a reporter’s puppet as has since been widely implied.
Wilson, 31, said that while a reporter embedded with his National Guard unit helped him get to the open forum with Rumsfeld, the question was all his.

“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?” Wilson asked the secretary. The soldiers around him cheered so loud that Rumsfeld asked Wilson to repeat the question.

Wilson said he decided to ask the question after finding out that there were hundreds of armored vehicles at Camp Arijan, Kuwait, for a unit not due in theater until July. He asked that his unit, the 278th Regimental Combat Team, be allowed to use the vehicles in the meantime, but said his request was rejected.

U.S. Central Command did not respond to questions about the vehicles or Wilson’s initial request.

Rumsfeld was criticized for his answer: “You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

The query garnered an abundance of international news coverage. A week later, Army leaders announced that $4.1 billion had been earmarked to armor nearly 11,000 Humvees and trucks in Iraq and Afghanistan by June.

Still, some officers took exception to the way Wilson addressed Rumsfeld. But Wilson, according to Time magazine, told an officer that if the question “costs me my career to save another soldier, I’ll give it.”

Source of the question

Shortly after word of Wilson’s actions reached the United States, Lee Pitts, a reporter for the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press, sent an e-mail to his colleagues taking credit for orchestrating the exchange between Wilson and Rumsfeld, writing that he did so because reporters weren’t allowed to interview Rumsfeld directly.

The e-mail, which appeared on the Internet, began, “I just had one of my best days as a journalist today.” The entire e-mail also was printed in the Dec. 20 issue of Marine Corps Times.

“I was astonished to see the subject [change] so quickly from a lack of armor to whether or not someone planted a line of questions to me,” Wilson said. “The simple answer to the Lee Pitts involvement is no, it’s not true.”

The Times Free Press agreed in a Dec. 19 column by the newspaper’s publisher, Tom Griscom.

Wilson first met Pitts at Fort Irwin, Calif., during pre-deployment training. Once in Kuwait, Wilson said Pitts encouraged him to come up with “intelligent questions” to ask.

Wilson told Time that after he showed Pitts the question, Pitts advised him to reword it in a “less brash way,” but Wilson refused.

“I wanted to make my point very clear,” he told Marine Corps Times.

Wilson said that he talked with Rumsfeld after the forum and shook his hand.

“Actually, I had several more questions for Secretary Rumsfeld, but after the immediate response from my fellow soldiers in the hangar, I thought it was best just to let my question stand for itself,” Wilson said. “I am a longtime Bush supporter and hope that I didn’t do any damage to the Bush administration or to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.”

Wilson said he is grateful for the treatment he has received from his command and fellow soldiers since the town hall meeting and its aftermath. He even admits that he has something of a “celebrity status” in his unit.

“As a whole, the response has been overwhelming positive,” he said.

But his family in Georgia has received threats, according to Wilson’s ex-wife, Regina Wilson. “Some people don’t think what he did was right,” she said. “But I am very proud of Jerry. He did what he was supposed to — he said what he had to to help others.”

Regina Wilson said the family received about a dozen “negative” telephone calls in one night, more than two weeks after it all began. Local authorities are aware of the threats and a caller identification device has been installed, she said. Their 9-year-old daughter no longer rides the bus to school.

“My immediate chain of command is aware of both the positive and negative responses,” the soldier said. He said he does not regret asking the question, but hasn’t “slept well since.”

A Defense Department spokesman said the criticism and threats are unfortunate and unnecessary.

“Specialist Wilson was on the verge of moving into Iraq, a combat environment, and deserves to have his concerns addressed,” the spokesman said.

President Bush echoed the sentiments. “If I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country, I’d want to ask the secretary of defense the same question and that is: ‘Are we getting the best we can get us?’ And they deserve the best,” Bush said Dec. 9.

Joseph R. Chenelly covers the Army.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-14-05, 11:30 AM

Sacrifice for comrades cited
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By Will Hoover
Honolulu Advertiser Staff Writer
Jan. 14, 2005

For regimental commander Col. Jeffrey J. Patterson, the sacrifice of nine Marines and one Navy corpsman killed in the battle for Fallujah can best be summed up by words from the Bible.

Yesterday, he quoted John 15:13 at a memorial for his fallen comrades: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

The 10 warriors, said Patterson, exemplified that sort of love.

"Each of them gave their life for their brothers," said Patterson, adding that yesterday's service was the second of its kind in as many months, and a "stark reminder to all of us that freedom isn't free."

The men, from the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, were all killed since Nov. 8. They were honored at the special Service of Remembrance at Marine Corps Base Hawai'i in Kane'ohe.

One by one, Patterson praised each man's commitment, courage and character. Their helmets, rifles and boots were lined up across the stage at the base theater, where the service took place.

There was Sgt. Rafael Peralta - "the old man of the group" at age 25 - an immigrant from Mexico who enlisted before he became a U.S. citizen.

Peralta has been nominated for the Medal of Honor for using his body to smother the blast of an enemy grenade to protect his men.

There was Lance Cpl. Blake Magaoay, 20, of Pearl City, the only one of the 10 from Hawai'i. He was wounded twice before returning to the fight and being killed in a enemy ambush, said Patterson, whose booming voice broke several times as he fought back tears.

"Our motto is 'Always Faithful - Semper Fidelis,'" said Patterson. "It does a lot to explain why these Marines fought so hard and were so brave in combat. Oddly enough, during the heat of battle their acts of bravery have little to do with the Constitution or patriotism.

"They act instinctively, and they do it for the love of their brothers. Commitment and brotherhood are the things that inspired Petty Officer Julian Woods to turn, run out and give aid to a wounded Marine."

In so doing, Woods, a Navy corpsman, gave his life.

Among the hundreds of Marines attending the service were about a dozen men wounded in action and recently returned from Iraq. They watched quietly from the first two rows.

Lance Cpl. Michael Erdman, 23, of Denver, Colo., was one who stood to speak about his experience. Erdman, a machine gunner, was shot in Fallujah in early December. A week earlier he watched as two of his buddies - Lance Cpl. David M. Branning, 21, and Lance Cpl. Brian A. Medina, 20 - were shot and killed in a gun battle.

Erdman said he and Medina had become especially close in a short time in Iraq. He described Medina as the stuff of which legends are made.

Once, he said, he and Medina were chatting about finding themselves in the thick of battle in one of the world's hottest war zones. Erdman said he uttered something about being there to do his job, whether he liked it or not.

Medina's response was that he had joined the Marine Corps to defend his company, his family, and his friends in the United States of America. Medina said he considered Fallujah an opportunity to fulfill that commitment.

"I had never heard anybody say anything like that with such sincerity," Erdman said. "I salute him as a friend, as a brother in arms, and as a man of honor."

Following the service, Blake Magaoay's grandmother, Leilani Roberts of Ka'alaea, said she had been very moved.

"I'm so glad that I came," said Roberts, whose father and brother were Marines. "I just feel that the service was so beautiful and a fitting closure to the lives of these young men who sacrificed their all.

"Blake was the kind of person who would have done anything for his buddies."

Nine Marines and a Navy corpsman who were memorialized:

Lance Cpl. Aaron C. Pickering, 20, of Harrisburg, Ill.
Petty Officer Julian Woods, 22 of Jacksonville, Fla.
Lance Cpl. David M. Branning, 21, of Cockeysville, Md.
Lance Cpl. Brian A. Medina, 20, of Woodbridge, Va.
Sgt. Rafael Peralta, 25, of San Diego, Calif.
Lance Cpl. Michael A. Downey, 21, of Phoenix, Ariz.
Cpl. Michael R. Cohen, 23, of Jacobus, Pa.
Lance Cpl. Jeffrey S. Blanton, 23, of Fayetteville, Ga.
Lance Cpl. Franklin A. Sweger, 24, of San Antonio, Texas.
Lance Cpl. Blake Magaoay, 20, of Pearl City.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-14-05, 11:33 AM

Hometown punks nearly kill Taliban-fighting leatherneck 
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By Jules Crittenden 
The Boston Herald 
Friday, January 14,...

thedrifter

01-14-05, 11:41 AM

Marine Arrested After Road Rage Shooting 
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Bond reduction request denied for Marine in road rage case 
01/14/2005 ...

thedrifter

01-14-05, 12:33 PM

Jury Told Abu Ghraib Abuse Was for Laughs 
 
By T.A. BADGER, Associated Press Writer 
 
FORT HOOD, Texas - Military jurors began deliberating the fate of Spc. Charles Graner Jr. on Friday after a...

thedrifter

01-14-05, 01:00 PM

January 17, 2005 
 
Mayoral Marine 
Retired gunny finds unusual new ‘duty’ 
 
 
 
When Gunnery Sgt. Barry McCool told his colleagues that he was retiring from the Marine Corps to help his parents run...

Doc Crow

01-14-05, 01:28 PM

Amazing how Corpsman continue to do this type of work that when you first join the Navy were never told by the way you will end up with the Corps. God I love These Guys they continue to make me Proud to have been a DOC

thedrifter

01-14-05, 03:02 PM

Insurgents Fire Rockets in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents fired rockets Friday night against targets in the center of Baghdad, causing no casualties, police said. Other attacks were reported on the western edge of the capital.

Strong blasts were heard on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, which flows through the heart of the capital, and were followed by a brief burst of small arms fire.

Police said two of the rockets exploded near the Sadeer Hotel, which is used by Western contractors and third fell near the Ministry of Education — both in the downtown area.

Elsewhere, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an Iraqi police patrol in the Amiriyah district on the western edge of the city. Three explosions also were heard near the main road from central Baghdad to the city's international airport, police said.

Central Baghdad had been relatively quiet for about two weeks until a series of mortar attacks Thursday near the U.S.-controlled Green Zone.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-14-05, 04:46 PM

S.D. Marines to drop aid near rebel-held areas

By Tini Tran
ASSOCIATED PRESS

January 14, 2005

ABOARD THE DULUTH, off Sri Lanka – The amphibious transport dock Duluth was bound for eastern Sri Lankan shores yesterday to carry out tsunami relief work that will bring it close to areas controlled by Tamil Tiger rebels.

The amphibious assault ship, with 400 Camp Pendleton-based Marines and 400 Navy personnel aboard, set sail two days after it anchored off the southern coast, where it had delivered heavy machinery such as bulldozers and trucks as well as humanitarian supplies.

The San Diego-based ship's commander, Cmdr. Larry Grippin, said 30 tons of relief supplies would be dropped off today near the eastern town of Ampara, one of the worst hit by the Dec. 26 tsunami.

The supplies will be transported by three helicopters to an area so badly devastated by the tsunami it is unreachable except by air, public affairs officer Ensign Nick Rogers said.

"All the roads are in bad shape. The area around it has been cut off from regular contact," Rogers said. "This is something the government asked us to do because they don't have the capability to do that."

In eastern Sri Lanka, Tamils and Muslims are the major communities and the Tamil Tiger rebels have considerable influence. The area was the scene of a major clash between the mainstream rebel group and a breakaway faction last spring.

The rebels have their bases in the north and the east, which is home to most of the country's 3.2 million Tamil minority. The Tamil Tigers, included on a U.S. list of terrorist organizations, have fought a two-decade civil war for independence. About 65,000 people were killed in the conflict until a Norway-brokered cease-fire in 2002.

Once the relief mission is completed, the ship will return to its original anchoring position off the southern coastal town of Koggala by Sunday, the commander said.

From there, the ship will rendezvous with the San Diego-based amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard, which has been off the coast of Indonesia, and other members of its battle group, before returning course to its original destination of Iraq next week.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-14-05, 06:29 PM

Marines paint different picture of Raya
Acquaintance in Iraq says officer's killer did not have combat role

As questions swirl about Andres Raya's state of mind prior to the police shooting Sunday night in Ceres, Marines who say they served with him in Iraq and lived near him at Camp Pendleton paint a clearer picture of his time in service.
Lance Cpl. Sarah Carroll, a fourth-year Marine from Virginia Beach, Va., said Raya never engaged in combat while in Iraq and never served in Fallujah, contradicting statements his parents made earlier this week.

Another Marine, who asked not to be identified, said Raya was hardened by his Iraqi experience, but that he does not believe it was a factor in the shooting.

Those statements support claims by some local law enforcement officials who believe Raya was not suffering from posttraumatic stress when he shot and killed Ceres police Sgt. Howard Stevenson and seriously injured another veteran officer from the department, Sam Ryno. Hours later, Raya was shot dead by police.

Raya's family has said that when Andres returned from his tour in Iraq, his personality had changed from being a likeable, light-hearted teenager to someone who was combative and confrontational with authority. Family members did not return phone calls Thursday.

"The only fighting he saw was occasional mortar and rocket attacks, which we all saw," Carroll said from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego. "There was something else behind this."

Carroll said she met Raya while the two were stationed together with the 1st Intelligence Battalion in Ramadi, Iraq, between February and September 2004.

Ramadi, about 50 miles west of Baghdad and 20 miles west of Fallujah along the Euphrates River, was a fierce battleground in April, when 13 U.S. Marines were killed in an ambush by Iraqi insurgents. Eight of those fatalities came from the Marines' 2nd Battalion, 4th Regiment, the unit Raya transferred into when he returned to Camp Pendleton after his seven-month tour ended in September.

While in Iraq, Raya and Carroll were shielded from the most intense fighting as members of the 1st Intelligence Battalion, Carroll said. The 19-year-old Ceres High School graduate was a motor vehicle operator and drove transport vehicles such as Humvees and diesel trucks on supply runs, according to both Marines.

"He was an on-base kind of guy," Carroll said. "He wasn't involved in any door-to-door fighting or anything like that."

The 1st Intelligence Battalion provides intelligence for the larger 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton spokeswoman Capt. Juliet Chelkowski said. Although it's unknown how many Marines from the 1st Intelligence Battalion were killed, the 25,000-member 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was involved in heavy fire between February and September and had at least 81 deaths.

Aside from frequent mortar fire blasts from neighboring battles, Carroll said, the Ramadi base, called Blue Diamond, was largely a safe haven. There was only one Marine death during their time at the base that could be attributed to indirect fire, she said.

"On average, we'd receive two or three indirect-fire attacks a day," Carroll said. "It was just something we learned to live with."

Although Carroll said she didn't have enough contact with Raya to assess his psychological state, she recalled one meeting with him at the base dining hall. According to Carroll, Raya told her he had returned from a morning supply convoy that had rolled over a roadside bomb.

"(Raya) said the convoy had one fatality and said how upset he was that it was the other guy and not him," Carroll said. "It seemed like an odd comment because I didn't get the impression that he knew the guy or had been close to the bomb."

When Raya returned to Camp Pendleton, one Marine noticed a change in his attitude, but didn't think it severe enough to foreshadow Sunday night's shootout.

"He still seemed like the same guy, he just had a hard time (in Iraq)," the Marine said. "He didn't have any signs (of post-traumatic stress). He just didn't like it over there."

Funeral services for Raya will begin with a public visitation at 10 a.m. today at St. Jude's Catholic Church in Ceres. A memorial service will begin at 1 p.m.

Bee staff writer Joel Hood can be reached at 238-4574 or jhood@modebee.com.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-14-05, 07:45 PM

Germany Holds 3 More Islamic Extremists

ASSOCIATED PRESS

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -

German police arrested three more suspected Muslim extremists Thursday in connection with an illegal network that faked passports and recruited people for Islamic holy war, Munich prosecutors said.

Those arrested were among 11 detained in a nationwide sweep Wednesday of alleged militants suspected of building a criminal network, said August Stern, a Munich prosecutor. Eleven others were arrested the same day and another suspect was arrested earlier, Stern said.

It was not clear if the remaining eight detainees had been released after further investigation, or whether they still remained in custody.

The coordinated crackdown in five German states was the culmination of a long-term investigation of the network, which authorities said included supporters of Ansar al-Islam, a group with links to al-Qaida and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that is fighting U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

The suspects, aged 17 to 46, included German citizens, as well as nationals of Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and Bulgaria, police said.

Officials said the group was not suspected of planning any attacks, but was involved in raising money to support extremist organizations, producing false passports and visas, and smuggling illegal immigrants.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-14-05, 09:00 PM

U.S.-Led Forces Damaged Ancient Babylon-Report

By Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces, using Iraq (news - web sites)'s ancient city of Babylon as a military base, have caused "substantial damage" to one of the world's most renowned archaeological treasures, a British Museum report said.

The report, quoted in Saturday's Guardian newspaper, said U.S. and Polish military vehicles had crushed 2,600-year-old pavements in the city, a cradle of civilization and home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Archaeological fragments were used to fill sand bags, it added.

John Curtis, keeper of the museum's Ancient and Near East department, invited to visit Babylon by Iraqi antiquities experts, also said he had found cracks and gaps made by people who had apparently tried to gouge out the decorated bricks forming the famous dragons of the city's Ishtar Gate.

U.S. military commanders set up a base in Babylon in April 2003, just after the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), and handed it over to a Polish-led force five months later.

"This is tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain," Curtis said in the report.

The camp will be formally handed over to the Iraqi culture ministry on Saturday.

Babylon was the capital of ancient Babylonia, an early civilization that existed from around 1,800 BC until 600 BC.

Most famous for the Hanging Gardens built by Nebuchadnezzar, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, large parts of it were reconstructed by Saddam in an attempt to associate himself with his country's past glories.

In the report, Curtis described the decision to set up a base in the area as "regrettable."

Large areas of the site were covered in gravel, the report said, brought in from outside which was compacted and sometimes chemically treated to make helipads and car parks.

"The status of future information about these areas will therefore be seriously compromised," the report said.

Lord Redesdale, the head of Britain's all-party parliamentary archaeological group, told the Guardian he was horrified.

"Outrage is hardly the word, this is just dreadful.

"These are world sites. Not only is what the American forces are doing damaging the archaeology of Iraq, it's actually damaging the cultural heritage of the whole world."

The newspaper quoted Lieutenant Colonel Steven Boylan as saying the significance of Babylon was not lost on the foreign troops.

"An archaeologist examined every construction initiative for its impact on historical ruins."

Ellie

thedrifter

01-15-05, 07:55 AM

Iraq to OK Voter Registration on Jan. 30

By JASON KEYSER, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqis in two of the country's most troubled provinces will be permitted to register and vote on the day of elections, the head of Iraq (news - web sites)'s electoral commission said Saturday. Commission Chairman Abdul-Hussein Hendawi also said he expected a same-day preliminary vote count.

Tallying final results from the Jan. 30 elections could take as long as 10 days.

In the face of increasing concerns about security during the election period, authorities have agreed to let voters register and cast ballots on the same day in Anbar and Ninevah provinces, Hendawi said.

The two provinces, home to restive cities like Fallujah and Mosul, have suffered frequent insurgent strikes and deadly clashes involving U.S. forces, raising questions about whether voting will be able to precede in parts of those areas.

Some 14 million Iraqis are eligible to vote in the election for a legislature that will run the country, draft a permanent constitution and chose a president and prime minister.

A violent intimidation campaign by insurgents has kept voter registrations light in areas north and west of the capital. In particular, rebels have gunned down election officials and members of the U.S.-trained Iraqi forces, which are tasked with providing the bulk of election day security.

Iraqis wanting to vote in Iraq's 16 other provinces will have to register ahead of time, as planned, Hendawi said.

Much is riding on the success of the vote. President Bush (news - web sites)'s administration hopes the election will be a major step in the building of a democracy and set the stage for the withdrawal of American and international military forces.

A lot of attention is likely to be focused on the turnout. Clerics and politicians from Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority have threatened a boycott, citing security concerns. The country's long-oppressed Shiites, eager to win a share of power that reflects their status as the nation's majority community, are expected to turn out in higher numbers.

Some observers have warned such a scenario could further divide the country along ethnic and religious lines.

Meanwhile, a local government building in the city of Ramadi was hit with rocket-propelled grenades, and groups of armed men were seen roaming the streets of the city, where markets and shops were shuttered. There was no immediate word on casualties.

Baghdad University Vice President Nihad Mohammed al-Rawi escaped an assassination attempt Saturday by gunmen who fired on his car in the city's Jadriyah neighborhood, security officials said. One of his bodyguards was wounded, the officials said on condition of anonymity.

Killings of Iraq's intellectuals and professionals were common after the March 2003 invasion but had dropped off in recent months.

Meanwhile, 15 Iraqi soldiers were still missing after insurgents pulled them off a public bus Friday.

In the latest assault on Iraqi security forces, rebels stopped the bus, screened its passengers for the Iraqi security troops and set the vehicle ablaze.

In another development Saturday, the Defense Ministry confirmed a report in a major Arabic daily that an Iraqi woman trained by members of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime in Syria tried to assassinate the defense minister but fainted before she could carry out her mission.

Al Hayat newspaper quoted Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan as saying the assassination attempt took place in his Baghdad office more than a week ago.

Shaalan told the newspaper that the woman, who is about 40, entered the ministry claiming she wanted to deliver important security information.

"As she was sitting in the presence of several officials from the ministry, she surprised everyone by taking out a pistol she was carrying and pointed it at me from a distance of about one meter but in the last moment she collapsed and started crying," he was quoted as saying.

In the southern cities of Basra, Amarah and Kut, hundreds of followers of radical Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr demonstrated in front of government buildings Saturday to demand better services, mainly electricity and gasoline.

Also Saturday, a roadside bomb ripped through a U.S. convoy in the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad on Saturday. One U.S. truck was destroyed, said Abu Ghraib police Lt. Akram al-Zubaie.

In the capital, three mortar shells exploded around midday near the heavily guarded Green Zone in the third straight day of insurgent shelling of the nerve center of the U.S. and Iraqi administration.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-15-05, 07:56 AM

Wounded warriors get a hand
January 14,2005
TIMMI TOLER
DAILY NEWS STAFF

When Lance Cpl. Michael Meyer came back to Camp Lejeune after convalescent leave, he had a few obstacles to overcome. A big one was what to wear. The 20-year-old from Fort Myers, Fla., had external pins, about 6 inches long, extending from his right arm.

“I’d have to rip the sleeves off of my shirts to get them over the apparatus sticking out of my arm,” Meyer said. “I went through a few shirts that way.”

Meyer, a machine gunner with 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, is currently recovering from an injury that occurred in Iraq on Aug. 9. Shrapnel shattered nearly 50 percent of his humorous bone when an improvised explosive device exploded along the road near his Humvee,

“IEDs are about standard fare over there. I didn’t know it was coming. I felt heat, felt the truck rock,” Meyer said. “I felt like I had been kicked by a horse.”

After seven operations and hospital stays in Baghdad, Germany and Bethesda, Md., Meyer returned to Lejeune in October. His belongings, however, were still overseas or in storage.

“I didn’t have much with me, and I needed help getting things,” Meyer said. “That’s when the USO stepped in. They really helped me out.”

The USO of North Carolina’s Wounded Warrior program was able to provide Meyer with a number of personal belongings while he recovered. Judy Pitchford, the USO’s president and CEO, said the main thing the young Marine needed was shirts.

“He had to adjust his clothing to fit his injuries,” said Pitchford. “As those injuries healed, he’s left with clothing that’s unsuitable. Plus the expense of buying more clothes.”

The USO took Meyer shopping and spent $150 on new shirts. Pitchford said helping with clothing is just one of the ways the program provides injured service members with the items they need.

“When a Marine deploys, to safeguard his property, his personal items are packed up and sent to storage. They carry only what they can fit in a sea bag and that leaves very little room for personal items,” Pitchford said. “If they’re evacuated out of a combat zone, those items don’t come with them. They’re sent out at a later time.”

Pitchford said injured Marines need everything from razors to tennis shoes when they return to the base. The Marine Corps is able to provide certain amenities, but the community can help too — mainly through funding.

On Thursday, business members from the Swansboro Rotary Club presented the USO of North Carolina a check for $6,000. Pitchford said it’s vital to have funds handy for the non-profit organization to help provide for wounded service members. The program also helps with military family members. Often families need help with traveling expenses to visit injured service members.

“We need to do what it takes to take care of our injured Marines and sailors — to ensure they get what they need and what they want,” Pitchford said.

Meyer said the program makes a big difference.

“The USO did me a favor,” he said. “It’s a good program, and there are a lot of guys that are going to need it when they come home. The last thing you feel like doing is buying clothes to fit broken limbs.”

Contact Timmi Toler at ttoler@freedomenc.com or at 353-1171, Ext. 258.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-15-05, 09:16 AM

thedrifter

01-15-05, 10:19 AM

Unit gathers to leave for Iraq
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
January 15, 2005
ERIC STEINKOPFF
DAILY NEWS STAFF

Cold winter rain drove Marines and their families inside a base gymnasium Friday where they said their goodbyes before leaving for a seven-month deployment to Iraq.

Members of India, Kilo, Lima, Weapons and Headquarters companies - the entire complement from Camp Lejeune's 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment - are scheduled to be gone by Monday. They'll fly from North Carolina and be in place in Iraq by the end of next week.

Such a unit typically includes about 850 troops. They will be assigned for duties with the West Coast's I Marine Expeditionary Force until the 8th Marine Regiment headquarters arrives, is reinforced and becomes Regimental Combat Team 8.

"Within about 30 to 60, days they will transition to II MEF," said Gunnery Sgt. Sean Wright, 8th Marine Regiment spokesman.

All told, around 14,000 troops from Lejeune's II Marine Expeditionary Force will leave for Iraq between now and March.

The 3/8's departure date was bumped up a few weeks, perhaps to help maintain security and quell any unrest that might surface before Iraq's Jan. 30 election. Some units, already in Iraq since last summer, have been extended past the elections.

"(The elections) are a concern, but not a show stopper," said Weapons Company Gunnery Sgt. Jeff Dagenhart, 34, of Hickory. As the second-most senior enlisted Marine in his unit, Dagenhart is responsible for logistics and training. He's well aware of current tensions in Iraq, but he expressed confidence Friday.

"We're ready to do whatever mission we are assigned," he said.

Nearby, Dagenhart's mom, Celeste Cullinane of Hampstead, and his wife, Rocio, agreed that much is at stake.

"I think (the elections) are very important, and I hope people in that country realize how important it is that we're there," said Rocio, who was rocking the couple's daughter Randi.

Added Cullinane: "It's the right thing they're doing."

With a slight waver in her voice and her eyes welling with tears, Cullinane proudly displayed a card sent to her son by President Bush. It reads: "The success of our cause will depend on you. Training has prepared you and will guide you. You believe in America and America believes in you."

Cullinane said she will try to keep busy, pray a lot and rely on the help of fellow church members for support during her son's absence.

"Good bless our troops," 5-year-old Randi said in a soft voice.

Since 3/8 troops returned last June from Haiti, where they assisted with humanitarian efforts following deadly and destructive spring floods, they've been training non-stop for this deployment. Atop their priorities: convoy security, urban combat, identifying improvised explosive devices and manning vehicle and pedestrian checkpoints.

They built their proficiency through live-fire training at Lejeune and Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, desert training near Twentynine Palms, Calif., and nearly a week of urban training at a condemned family-housing area at March Air Force Base near Los Angeles.

All of this preparation, said 3/8 air officer Maj. Ray Coleman, 35, of Baltimore, will see them through elections security, if necessary.

"They are more than ready to do that kind of mission if called upon," he said.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-15-05, 10:23 AM

American Troops Cheer Attacks on U.S. Media
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Nathan Tabor on 2005/1/15
The American Conservative

Vince McMahon, chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), told American troops in Iraq before Christmas that when he returned to the U.S. he was going to look up the "negative media nay saying types and I'm going to say that you said that they can go straight to hell."

His comments were met with cheers and thumbs up.

McMahon and several of his WWE stars were in Iraq to perform for the troops. They crisscrossed the country in Blackhawk helicopters and met the troops in 16 different locations. They signed autographs, took photos and taped a full show that was broadcast on December 23 on the UPN network.

Those who witnessed the TV spectacle and the reaction of the troops to McMahon's strong attacks on the media saw something that was extraordinary. It is clear that many of our troops are seething with anger and resentment over media coverage of the war.

Speaking to thousands of soldiers in an old soccer stadium near Tikrit, Iraq, McMahon said that "The most important reason why we're here is to simply say 'thank you.' On behalf of an appreciative nation, on behalf of the WWE, on behalf of your family and loved ones back home, we thank you for all that you do from the bottom of our hearts. Quite frankly, we thought we were going to come over here and boost your spirits. Hell, you boosted ours. The secret weapon of the American fighting men and women is the American spirit that lives inside each and every one of you."

McMahon continued, "Unfortunately, back home we don't hear about that. Unfortunately, back home in the media all we hear is all the negatives here in Iraq. Negative, negative, negative, negative. We never hear about all the positives. We never hear about all your progress and accomplishments. We never hear about all the good things all of you do each and every day of your lives."

Upon his return home, McMahon was deluged with requests for interviews. His WWE website featured an article noting that he had "one clear message" for the media: "Report the good work being done in Iraq, not just the bad news."

McMahon said, "We get a little bit closer to the soldiers than most entertainers who just go and do their show and then leave. So we really get to know what's on their mind. And one of the things that concerns them is that the job that they're doing is not very well reported over here in the states. As far as the media is concerned, their point of view-and they get the news just like all the rest of us over here-is that it's generally very negative, and they take exception to that because they're doing a great job over there."

As if to illustrate McMahon's point, the lead front page story in the December 23 Washington Post was more bad news about Iraq. "Iraq Base Was Hit by Suicide Attack" was the headline. However, inside the second section of the paper was a story back on page seven about a funeral service for a U.S. Marine corporal, Binh "Ben" Le, who had been killed by a car bomb in Iraq on December 3. Normally, this would have been another bad-news story. And it was a tragedy. But this story had an interesting twist: "Over his coffin stood two Marines in dress uniform, one holding a U.S. flag steady in the breeze, the other the flag of the fallen South Vietnam."

Binh Le was born in Vietnam and brought to America as a child. "He understood what it was like in a fairly oppressed society, and he really enjoyed the freedoms he had over here," said his friend, Jamey Payne. "He wanted to help others experience that…It was a true American story." His father said, "He did the right job for the family, for the country, for himself."

What an inspiring story about American sacrifice!

A website in his honor, created by his friend Paul Stadig, declares that "Binh joined the Marine Corps to serve the country he loved." A close friend said, "He gave the ultimate sacrifice so that others could live." Another said, "Freedom cannot be achieved without sacrifices, and sacrifices cannot be made without deaths. Binh Le, like other soldiers who gave up their lives for freedom, is a man of honor because of his decision to defend the country from terrorists and enemies abroad so we at home can enjoy freedom."

The Post reported, "Le returned from his first tour brimming with stories of the gratitude of ordinary Iraqis, friends said. Stadig recalled Le describing an Iraqi family that invited the Marines for tea. When they were finished, the Marines handed their cups back, only to find them quickly refilled. Many cups later, they learned that according to local custom, if a guest drains his cup all the way, it should always be refilled."

It is tragic that the inspiring story about Binh Le gets buried in the paper while bad news about the war in Iraq is constantly featured on page one.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-15-05, 10:24 AM

Death Without Honors
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By David Zucchino
LA Times Staff Writer
January 15, 2005

ROSHARON, Texas - When the regulars at Johnson's Market Bar and Grill heard that their buddy Allan Smith had been killed in Iraq, they paid tribute by throwing darts and drinking beer, two of Smith's favorite pastimes.

"Allan would've wanted it that way," said Pat Johnson, the bar owner, who was pleased when the funeral featured a video of Smith wrestling a circus bear - and pinning him.

In another Houston suburb, Dona Davis had received an e-mail from her husband, Leslie, just hours before she was told he had died in the same suicide bombing that killed Smith on Dec. 21. Then she began planning what she called a "patriotism funeral."

"My husband loved his country," Davis said. "One of the last things he told me was: 'We're doing good work over here.' "

Leslie Wayne Davis and Allan Keith Smith weren't soldiers. They were civilian contractors, part of an army of mechanics and carpenters and electricians supporting the U.S. military mission in Iraq. Employees of Halliburton Co., they died along with two of their colleagues and 14 soldiers at a military mess hall in Mosul.

America has never fought a war like this one - where the enemy is nowhere and everywhere, where civilians do the jobs once performed by soldiers, and where middle-aged grandfathers die alongside 19-year-old infantrymen. This is the country's first outsourced war, where civilians provide the twin military backbones of logistics and supply.

It is a war without a front, where civilians share the risks and burdens of combat. People are killed in the most prosaic of circumstances - in their sleep, driving to work, eating lunch.

Unlike soldiers and Marines killed in action, contractors killed in Iraq tend to die anonymously, mentioned only in passing. A local newspaper ran a brief story about Davis and Smith, providing basic biographical details.

But their deaths are no less tragic, and the same ripples of grief and pain that flow over military families wash over civilian families.

Unlike the families of service members, the families of contractors have not had years to steel themselves for the possibility of death in combat. Their loved ones don't carry rifles or fire heavy machine guns. They are civilians going about their jobs, and each sudden, violent death is shocking, no matter how many contractors are killed in the chaos of Iraq.

The Pentagon and media organizations maintain meticulous lists of fallen soldiers and Marines. Local newspapers run detailed stories and obituaries noting their service and valor. The dead receive military funerals with honor guards, 21-gun salutes and flag ceremonies. Their families receive letters from President Bush.

No organization keeps an official list of dead contractors, according to Stan Soloway of the Professional Services Council, a trade group whose members include military contractors. He said the group represents 30,000 contractors in Iraq, with the total number of contractors there two to three times that.

Soloway estimated that 200 to 250 contractors had been killed in Iraq since March 2003. An unofficial tally based on news reports and maintained by the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a private research group, puts the number at 202, including 72 Americans.

Halliburton, with 40,000 employees and contractors in the Middle East, says 63 of its workers have died in Iraq - more than any other firm, according to Soloway.

The U.S. military, with 150,000 troops in Iraq, has suffered 1,356 deaths.

The top causes of death for contractors, as listed on the Casualty Count website: 48 killed in convoy attacks or highway ambushes, 29 executed by kidnappers, 18 killed by roadside bombs and 25 by suicide bombers or car bombs, including Smith and Davis.

The Pentagon provides funerals with full military honors in military cemeteries for service members killed in Iraq. The families of contractors make their own funeral arrangements.

After the military flew the remains of Smith and Davis to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, after Halliburton employees escorted the bodies back home to Texas, and after Halliburton counselors sat for hours with the two men's loved ones, the families were left to do the rest.

Dona Davis took the wedding band from her husband and replaced it with her own, burying it with him. She made sure his service included a video of Leslie speaking at his brother's recent funeral, where he said his brother had "gone to a better place in heaven." She believed Leslie was there now, too.

Smith's friends attached a dartboard to his casket. They laughed at the bear-wrestling video and wept at the playing of Smith's favorite song, "Silver Wings," by Merle Haggard. There were sobs over a snapshot of Smith holding his newborn grandson at the hospital.

Both Smith, 45, and Davis, 53, were grandfathers. They were more than twice the age of most of the soldiers eating in the mess hall with them the day they died. The typical soldier is single, only a few years out of high school and with few debts or entanglements. The typical contractor is middle-aged, married or divorced, and searching for a big payday.

Smith's friends say he went to work for Halliburton in Iraq as a labor foreman to earn money to build a better life for his two daughters and 4-month-old grandson and to buy one of his daughters a car. Davis' family says he went out of a sense of duty, working as a quality control officer, with hopes of landing a permanent job with Halliburton overseas so that he and his wife could travel the world.

Men like Davis and Smith, with a lifetime of acquired skills and expertise, are in demand at a time when a downsized military has turned to civilians for the support jobs once handled by soldiers. Halliburton, an energy services company based in Houston, has been among the leading private contractors in Iraq, mainly through its engineering subsidiary, KBR.

When the opportunity came to work for the company in Iraq, Smith and Davis seized it, despite pleas from family members and friends not to take the risk.

'I Got It Covered'

Smith was a stocky, moon-faced man with a carefree personality. His life centered on his daughters, Brandy, 21, and Savanah, 18, and his grandson, Koda. He was a regular at Johnson's bar, a low-slung taproom that hugs a narrow county road across from cattle pastures and oil rigs in Rosharon on the southern cusp of Houston.

Smith eked out a living running a lawn care service. He lived in a trailer less than a mile from Johnson's and was a partner, with a lifelong friend, in a now-defunct tavern called Hoot N Annie's.

Miranda Selvera, 29, who worked for Smith as a waitress, said she talked her husband out of going to Iraq but could not talk Smith out of it.

"He just grinned and told me he wanted a better life for himself and his kids," she said.

"Alabama" Terry Hartley, who threw darts with Smith for a decade, said he told him the night before he left in late October: "Man, you don't need to go over there." Hartley said Smith "hugged my neck and said, 'Buddy, I got it covered.' "

Smith's daughter Brandy Wilkison lives in his trailer, where two Halliburton counselors arrived the afternoon of Dec. 21 to deliver the news of her father's death.

She said her father had planned to return for a brief visit in the spring to see her sister, Savanah, graduate from high school and for the birth of Savanah's baby, due in June.

"Then he was going to go back and finish his year there so he could come back home and raise his grandkids right," Brandy said. He told her his salary there was "well over enough," and "a lot better than cutting grass."

She felt bereft now, she said. "He was so courageous. I counted on him for so much, and now he's gone and I'm feeling kind of lost."

When he left for Iraq, she said, Smith handed over his lawn-cutting business to Brandy's boyfriend. "We're going to keep the same name - Allan's Lawn Service," she said.

Smith worried about mortar attacks at the Mosul base where he lived, said his girlfriend, Ellen Hanley. He told her a mortar had hit a nearby storage building.

"But he wasn't scared of anything," Hanley said.

The day before Smith died, Hanley had undergone cancer surgery. "Then, getting the news about Allen, it was more than I could take," she said.

Smith's death has left a hole in Rosharon, a tiny community where everyone knows everyone else and most people work in home construction or the oil business. Everybody recognized his beige Dodge pickup truck, which he drove to Johnson's bar or for regular dinners at a Chili's restaurant.

Selvera said her 4-year-old son still smiled and waved when he saw Smith's pickup pass by, driven now by his daughter.

"He'll holler, 'Allan's here!' " Selvera said. "And I have to tell him, 'No, baby, he's not.' "

'Just as Close to Heaven'

Fifty miles away, in Magnolia, in Houston's far northern suburbs, Dona Davis had tried to talk her husband out of going to Iraq last June. She kept thinking about the time three decades ago when he served on Navy patrol boats in Vietnam, and how she had dreaded the knock on the door.

When the knock came on Dec. 21, it was not a military officer at the door but two counselors from Halliburton. "I completely lost it" when they broke the news, Davis said. She became hysterical, sobbing and screaming, she said.

She ultimately found solace in what her husband had told her when she tried to keep him home. "He told me: 'Dona, I'm just as close to heaven in Iraq as I am in Houston,' " she said.

thedrifter

01-15-05, 10:26 AM

Leslie Davis, known as "Bub," was a religious man, a former church deacon who taught Sunday school and prayed before every meal. He embraced the U.S. mission in Iraq, his widow said. He handed out candy to Iraqi children until the military, concerned about base security, built a wall that stopped him.

Dona said her husband earned about the same amount of money with Halliburton as he did in previous jobs as an auditor with U.S. oil companies.

"He didn't talk with me about the danger, and that was deliberate," she said. "He would joke about having to wear his flak vest to the mess hall. If they'd had a mortar attack, he'd tell me, 'The boys got rowdy last night.' "

Leslie and Dona, married for 35 years, e-mailed each other every night - Leslie's were decorated with U.S. and Texas flags - and they talked by phone almost daily. He spoke often of the fear and anxiety he saw in the eyes of young soldiers. Leslie was 19 in Vietnam, and Dona believes he was reliving his youth in a combat zone far from home.

After a fatal car bombing in Mosul, Dona said, Leslie described encountering a distraught young soldier who had survived.

"He said he wanted to hug that young man but didn't because he didn't want to do it in front of other soldiers," she said. "And then he told me he would rather it be him who died instead of those kids."

The day he died, the family was planning a pre-Christmas dinner. The boyfriend of the Davises' daughter, Angie, 35, intended to propose that night. The dinner was canceled.

"You know," Angie said, wiping away tears that streaked her eye makeup, "the first thing I would have done was e-mail my dad to tell him. He would've been so happy."

Despite the dangers, she said, her father went to Iraq "because that was where he thought God needed him to be."

For Dona, who began dating Leslie when both were in the ninth grade, his death has been devastating. The couple was hoping to travel the world for Halliburton before retiring to watch their grandchildren grow up. Leslie had planned to take time off in March to meet Dona in Rome.

"It's just so hard to think of life without him," she said.

Davis didn't want to go to lunch that day in Mosul, Dona said, but his fellow contractors talked him into it. One of them, Dennis Barcelona, told Dona that he tried to save Leslie as he lay bleeding from a wound in his thigh near his groin. Barcelona said he used a shirt as a tourniquet but was unable to stop the bleeding.

"Tell my wife I'm going to be OK," Barcelona recalled Leslie saying to him.

For her birthday in November, Leslie sent Dona a prayer rug he'd had made in Iraq. Sewn into the rug were the names and ages of the couple's four children and 11 grandchildren.

Dona thought it was typical of her husband to make it harder on himself by trying to remember ages rather than simply listing birth dates. He had to figure everyone's age, rounding some up and some down. The ages he chose corresponded precisely to the ages of his children and grandchildren on the day he died.

"It's almost like he had a premonition," Angie said.

At Leslie's funeral, hundreds of people flooded the chapel, among them the two Halliburton counselors. TV monitors were set up outside to handle the overflow.

"People were drawn to him. He could charm anybody," Angie said. "If you worked with my dad for a week, you were his friend for life."

There was an eagle and an American flag on the casket. Because Davis was a veteran, two Navy sailors were present to salute the casket, play taps and present Dona with a folded American flag.

A few days later, in the living room of their ranch-style home, where the windows overlook several acres of rolling magnolia woods, Dona and Angie did not weep as they remembered their final goodbye.

"That funeral was a celebration of his life," Dona said.

After all the turbulence of Iraq, Angie said, her father was finally at peace.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-15-05, 11:09 AM

Youthful Marines grow up fast at disaster 
 
William Hermann 
The Arizona Republic 
Jan. 15, 2005 12:00 AM 
 
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - A little tired from the heat, I sat under a palm tree to look...

thedrifter

01-15-05, 11:20 AM

Soldier Sentenced For Mercy Killing 
Associated Press 
January 15, 2005 
 
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. military judge convicted an Army Sergeant of murder Friday for the alleged mercy-killing of a...

thedrifter

01-15-05, 12:04 PM

Deployment: Answering the call to serve
Corporal, father to be reunited on Iraq battlefield
Published Wed, Jan 12, 2005

By MICHAEL KERR
Gazette staff writer
Combat deployments usually mean leaving family behind.
But Cpl. Travis Toborg will soon have a familiar face nearby on the battlefields of Iraq: his father.

Toborg, a 20-year-old plane captain with All Weather Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 224, the Bengals, is scheduled to leave Beaufort this afternoon for Iraq, where he'll be stationed at the same base as his dad, Marine Corps Sgt. Timothy Toborg.

"It'll be different," Toborg said early Tuesday, as his squadron's pilots soared away from Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, their F/A-18 Hornets' afterburners sparking through the pre-dawn darkness. "I'll have my dad, and a bunch of my dad's buddies there."

The elder Toborg, a member of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 142, The Flying Gators based out of Naval Air Station Atlanta, will deploy in March.

The young corporal, a native of Milner, Ga., requested the deployment three times before finally landing a spot about two weeks ago with the Bengals, filling in for an injured Marine.

"I'll be on the same base as my father," said Toborg, who has been back in the United States for less than a year after returning in February from a combat deployment aboard the USS Enterprise. "I think it'll be fun."

The Bengals' two-seat Hornets left the air station for western Iraq on Tuesday morning, with about 100 members of the squadron and about 100 members of Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 31 slated to follow today.

Another 100 members of the logistics squadron left for Iraq over the weekend for what is scheduled to be a seven-month deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

"Initially, when we get there we're going to support basically the joint forces over there for the first couple months," said 1st Lt. Michael Greene, a 25-year-old backseat crewman and equipment operator from Newburg, N.Y.

"After that initial role, we'll be strictly devoted to supporting Marines on the ground."

Squadron Sgt. Maj. William Burton, a 20-year Marine Corps veteran from Harlem, N.Y., just attached to the squadron last week, but said he's more than ready to deploy.

"I'm jumping aboard a fast-moving ship," Burton, 44, said, adding that the deployment will be the first of his career. "That's pretty motivating. To get the opportunity to do it after 20 years is pretty motivating."

And the rest of the squadron is just as eager to get on the ground in Iraq, Burton said.

"They're extremely motivated to get into the fight," he said.

While Toborg and his father will be reunited during the deployment, most Marines will have to say good-bye to their loved ones.

Capt. Matthew Markham, a 27-year-old Richmond, Va., native and his wife, Susan, celebrated their first wedding anniversary Jan. 3, less than a week before the pilot left for war.

"She's been a trooper," Markham said before boarding his Hornet on Tuesday morning. "It's kind of setting in today a little bit. She was pretty sad last night and pretty sad this morning. She knows what we're going over there to do is pretty important, and she supports us."

The Hornet pilots of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 122, The Crusaders, also left the air station Tuesday for a six-month deployment to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan. About 200 members of the squadron are scheduled to deploy to Japan.

Contact Michael Kerr at 986-5539 or mkerr@beaufortgazette.com.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-15-05, 04:47 PM

Graner Gets 10 Years in Iraq Prison Abuse 
 
By T.A. BADGER, Associated Press Writer 
 
FORT HOOD, Texas - Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr., convicted of physically and sexually mistreating Iraqis at...

thedrifter

01-15-05, 05:46 PM

'So far away': Lejeune Marines, sailors head to Iraq
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wilmington Star News
Jan. 15, 2005

CAMP LEJEUNE | For 1st Lt. Christopher Isola, the final days of his service in the Marine Corps were bittersweet.

As the Philadelphia native prepares to move to New York City to work for a consulting firm and earn a master's degree in business administration, the Marines he spent time with over the past several years in Iraq and Afghanistan are again en route to Iraq.

On Friday, just hours before his military career ends today, 1st Lt. Isola bid farewell to his comrades from the Camp Lejeune-based 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion.

"In a way, you feel like you're letting them down because you're not going to be with them," he said. "It's real sad to see them go."

Friday and today, about 850 Marines and sailors from the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, are leaving for an expected seven-month deployment. Initially, their mission will be to continue security and stability operations and train Iraqi defense forces. A Marines spokesman wouldn't say where they're going in Iraq.

On Friday, dozens of Marines - some with family and some alone - waited in a Camp Lejeune gym for buses to arrive to take them to the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station, where they would fly out that night.

Among them was 24-year-old Sgt. Jamie Smith, a Hampstead resident who was joined Friday by his wife, Tracy, and their 2-year-old son, Joshua, as well as his parents, Irene and Donnie Smith, of Yadkinville.

For Sgt. Smith, the good-byes are the most difficult part of a deployment.

"I hate to leave my family, but I'm excited about going over and doing some business," he said.

Sgt. Smith, who said he is concerned most about Iraq's heat, said he believed going over there was the right thing to do because of terrorist attacks in America on Sept. 11, 2001.

"It made me mad that someone would come over and take innocent people's lives," he said. "It just made me mad."

For his parents, who waited for his departure in the base gym with teary and puffy eyes, his deployment brought sadness and pride. The Smiths knew the date was coming but didn't find out until last month that it would be so soon.

"Of course, we love him and we're proud of him and we're praying for him," Mrs. Smith said.

Mrs. Smith said she has kept up with news accounts from Iraq until now, but she doesn't know whether she'll be able to while her son is there. Both parents said they support President Bush and the war effort, and that makes it easier to send him off.

This is the first deployment for Pfc. Brian Dunn, 21, of Rock Hill, S.C., who sat under a basketball hoop Friday afternoon in the base gym with his mother, Lori Jacobs, and 16-year-old brother, Clinton Dunn.

Despite the seriousness of his mission, Pfc. Dunn was upbeat and joked that his brother now could borrow his clothes without him knowing.

"We're only allowed to take a couple pairs of civvies (civilian clothing), so everything else is within his grasp," he said.

Such exchanges are what his mother said she'd miss most.

"I'm going to miss his presence, and I'm going to miss his sense of humor," said Ms. Jacobs, a nurse at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte. "He has a good way of lifting people up."

Pfc. Dunn, a machine gunner, said he isn't overly concerned about his safety over there, and he believes his training has prepared him.

"I really think that once I get over there, the training will kick in, and it won't be half as bad as you perceive it's going to be," he said.

Ms. Jacobs said a friend at work told her to tell her son thank you.

"We have a debt to the military," she said. "We take our freedom for granted, and people have paid dearly for it."

Pfc. Shane Willoughby, 24, of Parma, Ohio, said the weapons and methods of attack used by insurgents in Iraq would be much different from in Haiti, where he was previously deployed. He mentioned the suicide bombing of a mess hall on a U.S. base and improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs, used regularly against U.S. forces.

"There's a lot more to watch out for," he said. "You have to have a lot better situational awareness. You have to be on the top of your game all the time."

A short time before the Marines left, Jacksonville radio station WSFL played the classic Dire Straits song, "So Far Away."

By mid-afternoon, the buses rolled out.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-15-05, 08:58 PM

Iraqi Shi'ite Leader Expects Many Sunnis to Vote 
 
By Michael Georgy 
 
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq (news - web sites)'s elections will be legitimate if roughly half the Sunni Arab minority votes...

thedrifter

01-16-05, 07:19 AM

Graner To Speak At Sentencing 
Associated Press 
January 15, 2005 
 
FORT HOOD, Texas - Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr., the reputed ringleader of a band of rogue guards at Abu Ghraib, may tell his...

thedrifter

01-16-05, 07:20 AM

Troops Won't Stay Long In Tsunami Areas
Associated Press
January 15, 2005

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - The United States was eager to end its military tsunami relief operation as soon as other nations are ready to take over, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Saturday. As relief and cleanup continued, the United Nations began paying survivors to clear rubble.

"As soon as our military folks can pass these responsibilities on to other folks ... and make sure the job gets done, we will be happy," Wolfowitz said after meetings in Bangkok to discuss aid efforts for the Dec. 26 disaster.

Later Saturday, Wolfowitz flew to Aceh, where he boarded a U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopter for a tour of the province's tsunami-ravaged coastal areas.

A huge earthquake and the tsunami it spawned killed more than 157,000 people across 11 countries, triggering an unprecedented global response. But Indonesia has expressed unease with the number of foreign troops on its territory as part of the relief effort and wants them out before the end of March.

Wolfowitz said the U.S. military role would wind down by that deadline. "I would hope that we would not be needed (in the region) as a military long before March," he said during the flight to Asia, according to a transcript of his remarks released at the Pentagon.

Wolfowitz, a former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, said cooperation with Jakarta has been very good.

"For any country it is sensitive to have foreign troops on your territory. It would be sensitive in the United States and I can tell you that it is extremely sensitive in Indonesia," he said. "What's remarkable is that it has caused no problems to date."

In Aceh, thousands of tsunami survivors were being paid by the U.N. Development Program 30,000 rupiah (US$3.27; euro2.50) a day to clear rubble and debris.

"They are trying to hire local people to do this as part of stimulating the economy and getting some sort of livelihood back" for survivors," said UNDP spokesman William Bergman. The number of Acehnese involved in the clean up operation was expected to rise quickly, he added.

U.N. refugee organization, the UNHCR, was Saturday distributing 10,000 five-person tents to survivors in Banda Aceh, said spokesman Mans Nyberg. A further 10,000 tents will arrive soon, he added.

The tents are intended as a stopgap solution to provide shelter for hundreds of thousands of refugees in Aceh province while the UNHCR and Indonesian government plan for 24 more permanent camps with barracks-style shelters, Nyberg said.

With thousands made homeless by the disaster, efforts to keep epidemics at bay intensified. The United Nations sped up its measles vaccination drive after 20 cases of the disease were reported across Aceh. Health workers were spraying tents with insecticide to prevent malaria in areas that were swamped by the killer waves.

In Sri Lanka, U.N. World Food Program Director James Morris was traveling to the southern city of Galle. The tsunami killed more than 30,000 people in the island nation.

The WFP is leading a mammoth effort to feed up to 2 million survivors in the countries devastated.

A half a world away in Saudi Arabia, pilgrims streaming into Islam's holy city of Mecca for the annual hajj prayed for the tsunami's victims. Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim nation - was hardest hit by the disaster. But 200,000 Indonesians, the country's quota, still were expected to make the journey.

"I have lost a friend in the tsunami, and I pray for him and the souls of all those that have perished," said Mohamed Saleh, a teacher from Jakarta, outside the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-16-05, 07:20 AM

Military Has Discharged 26 Gay Linguists 
Associated Press 
January 14, 2005 
 
SAN FRANCISCO - The number of Arabic linguists discharged from the military for violating its "don't ask, don't...

thedrifter

01-16-05, 07:23 AM

Air operations milestones in Al Anbar set new standard

by Cpl. Joel A. Chaverri
3rd Marine Aircraft Wing

AL ASAD, Iraq -- The Marine Air Control Squadron team in Iraq is reaching landmarks and setting new standards for expeditionary air traffic control.

MACS-1, Marine Air Control Group 38, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, along with Marines from MACS-2, 6, 23 and 24, are about to reach 200,000 missions in the Al Anbar province since March of last year, all with expeditionary equipment.

"It may not sound like it, but it's an incredibly large number for the resources we have out here," said Lt. Col. Tim J. Pierson, commanding officer, MACS-1. "Everything from manpower to equipment is stretched thin, but we're still pushing hard."

From March to December, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar supported 77,000 air missions; the Marine Corps air base at Al Asad did 81,000 in the same time. Now, Al Asad has reached 100,000 missions and there's no sign of the pace slowing.

"The amount of missions we do out here are rivaling, and sometimes beating, bases in the states," said Pierson. "It shows how much work and effort the Marines out here are putting forth the get the job done."

Each squadron is assigned only a handful of Marines to control the air traffic of hundreds of operations conducted every day throughout the province.

"Our tactical equipment was not designed for long term use," said the 43-year-old from Council Bluffs, Iowa. "We've had to learn to adapt and overcome in many situations to get things working right."

"Permanent" towers have been set up in the back of a HMMWV and, in one case, on top of a can (living quarters).

"My Marines out there are taking the book on expeditionary traffic control and ripping out pages," he said. "The things we have learned and accomplished during this deployment are helping us re-write doctrine and tactics that can better prepare squadrons for future operations."

With challenges around every corner, reaching this point was no easy task. On top of little resources, the Marines constantly had to deal with the harsh and unpredictable Iraqi weather.

"Sand is a big problem out here. You never know when a sand storm will hit and it could mess up gear and decrease visibility," said 24-year-old Santa Cruz, Calif., native Staff Sgt. Phillip A. Rogers, operations chief, MACS-1. "We are always dealing with maintenance problems. Keeping gear up and running is an ongoing battle."

The air traffic control team is responsible for a variety of flight missions that go their area of responsibility.

"We deal with multiple different aircraft, whether fast, slow, big or small," said Pierson. "If it flies, we've got our fingerprint somewhere on it."

"We even deal with civilian companies like DHL and FedEx," said 34-year-old Snowflake, Ariz., native Capt. J. Kalon Langston, operations officer, MACS-1. "There were also a lot of flights that brought in mail for the holidays."

"When the operations in Fallujah started, we had to step up our working hours to make sure everything went smoothly," said Pierson. "We didn't have more men, but we had more work."

If someone was sick or injured, Marines from the different squadrons in the area had to be shuffled around the board to make sure operations didn't slow down.

"Getting moved around was a challenge the Marines took head on," said Pierson. "It seems that the more they're stretched, the better they perform."

The progress made now is laying a foundation for the future Iraqi government.

"We're playing our small part to make sure that the Iraqi people have a solid basis for their systems," said Pierson. "We've renovated a lot of their old towers and repaired much of the flight line."

Pierson feels that the accomplishments and successes of MACS-1 couldn't have been done without the help of the other squadrons in the area.

"It's not just MACS-1, it's MACS-Iraq," said Pierson. "Everything done by the MACS Marines out here has been done as a team, and I'm proud as hell of them."

Ellie

thedrifter

01-16-05, 07:23 AM

1/3 Marines fire enemy weapons during "fam fire"

by Lance Cpl. Will Lathrop
31st MEU

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- Marines with Battalion Landing Team, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit currently assigned to the 1st Marine Division, fired captured enemy weapons during a familiarization exercise on a range outside the city of Fallujah Dec. 30.

In what's known as "fam fire," the Marines were afforded the opportunity to fire foreign weapon systems under the supervision of Staff Sgt. William Hornsby, assistant operations chief, who was responsible for range safety.

"We already know what the business end of an AK-47 does, but we wanted to see what type of skills they (insurgents) must have in order to engage Marines," Hornsby said.

Sixteen Hawaii-based leathernecks took turns firing the weapons at targets approximately 30 meters away from their firing positions.

"We wanted to get a feel for how the enemy handles their weapons," said Sgt. Christopher Anderson, 29, and vehicle commander from Willows, Calif. "It wasn't as impressive as we hoped...they're very inaccurate weapons."

The weapons were captured from insurgents in Fallujah during Operation Al Fajr and were saved from destruction for training purposes.

Between them, the Marines fired more than 500 rounds of ammunition from three different weapon systems that included AK-47s. The Marines also took advantage to zero their own service weapons.

"Our Marines have a stronger sense of satisfaction that they can accurately manipulate their weapons faster than the insurgent enemy," Hornsby added.

The Marines witnessed first-hand the type of control needed to accurately put rounds down range with the enemy "bullet slingers."

"Trying to hit anything more than 75 yards gets pretty tricky," Hornsby said.

Regardless of the weapons' performance, the Marines still had a good time.

"I've never fired an AK-47 before, so it was pretty sweet getting to pop some rounds off on full automatic," said Lance Cpl. Jonathan J. Wheeler, 25, an anti-tank assaultman and Sunnyside, Wash. native.

As the sun dropped below the horizon, the Marines cleared all weapons of any ammunition before leaving the range. They left feeling more confident about their training and their overall ability to engage the enemy and defeat him.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-16-05, 09:05 AM

Camp Lejeune Marines say goodbye
January 15,2005
Eric Steinkopff
Freedom ENC

CAMP LEJEUNE - Cold winter rain drove Marines and their families inside a base gymnasium Friday where they said their goodbyes before leaving for a scheduled seven-month deployment to Iraq.

Members from Camp Lejeune's 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment are scheduled to be gone by Monday. They'll fly from Cherry Point and be in place in Iraq by the end of next week.

Such a unit typically includes about 850 troops. They will be assigned for duties with the West Coast's I Marine Expeditionary Force until the 8th Marine Regiment headquarters arrives, is reinforced and becomes Regimental Combat Team 8.

"Within about 30 to 60, days they will transition to II MEF," said Gunnery Sgt. Sean Wright, 8th Marine Regiment spokesman.

All told, around 14,000 troops from the II Marine Expeditionary Force, which includes Marines from Cherry Point and New River, will leave for Iraq between now and March.

Friday's departure was bumped up a few weeks, perhaps to help maintain security and quell any unrest that might surface before Iraq's Jan. 30 election. Some units, already in Iraq since last summer, have been extended past the elections.

"(The elections) are a concern, but not a show stopper," said Weapons Company Gunnery Sgt. Jeff Dagenhart, 34, of Hickory. As the second-most senior enlisted Marine in his unit, Dagenhart is responsible for logistics and training. He's well aware of current tensions in Iraq, but he expressed confidence Friday.

"We're ready to do whatever mission we are assigned," he said.

Nearby, Dagenhart's mom, Celeste Cullinane of Hampstead, and his wife, Rocio, agreed that much is at stake.

"I think (the elections) are very important, and I hope people in that country realize how important it is that we're there," said Rocio, who was rocking the couple's daughter Randi.

Added Cullinane: "It's the right thing they're doing."

With a slight waver in her voice and her eyes welling with tears, Cullinane proudly displayed a card sent to her son by President Bush. It reads: "The success of our cause will depend on you. Training has prepared you and will guide you. You believe in America and America believes in you."

Cullinane said she will try to keep busy, pray a lot and rely on the help of fellow church members for support during her son's absence.

"Good bless our troops," 5-year-old Randi said in a soft voice.

Since the troops returned last June from Haiti, where they assisted with humanitarian efforts following deadly and destructive flooding, they've been training non-stop for this deployment. Atop their priorities: convoy security, urban combat, identifying improvised explosive devices and manning vehicle and pedestrian checkpoints.

They built their proficiency through live-fire training at Lejeune and Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, desert training near Twentynine Palms, Calif., and nearly a week of urban training at a condemned family-housing area at March Air Force Base near Los Angeles.

All of this preparation, said air officer Maj. Ray Coleman, 35, of Baltimore, will see them through elections security, if necessary.

"They are more than ready to do that kind of mission if called upon," he said.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-16-05, 10:28 AM

U.S. Forces Conduct Raids in Mosul

By JASON KEYSER, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces carried out a series of raids in Iraq (news - web sites)'s troubled northern city of Mosul, the military said Sunday, as American and Iraqi authorities scramble to prepare for elections there in the face of mass resignations of polling staff and police.

.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz acknowledged that the security threat to the Jan. 30 election was worse than in last October's nationwide balloting in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and that it was impossible to guarantee "absolute security" against the "extraordinary intimidation that the enemy is undertaking."

In the Mosul area, the U.S. Army's Stryker Brigade Combat Team detained 11 suspected insurgents, including an alleged cell leader, and seized weapons and bomb making material in several weekend raids — part of the military's strategy to try to secure the city short of launching an all-out offensive.

East of Mosul, a Katyusha rocket slammed into a home near the Kurdish regional parliament building in Irbil where leaders of the two main Kurdish parties were meeting to discuss the election, a police official said Sunday.

The Mosul area has emerged as a major flashpoint between U.S. and Iraqi forces and the insurgents, raising fears that the election cannot be held in much of the city, Iraq's third largest.

U.S. and Iraqi officials are scrambling to recruit new police and election workers in Mosul after thousands of them resigned in the face of rebel intimidation. A new police chief was appointed a week ago to command a force of barely 1,000 police. Last November the city had 5,000 police.

Similar mass resignations are believed to have occurred in other Sunni Muslim areas of northern, central and western Iraq.

"I would underscore that there was intimidation in Afghanistan — the Taliban threatened all kinds of violence against people who registered or people who voted," Wolfowitz told reporters Sunday in Jakarta, Indonesia. "But I don't believe they ever got around to shooting election workers in the street or kidnapping the children of political candidates."

Also Sunday, insurgents attacked an Iraqi National Guard patrol south of Baghdad, injuring two guardsmen, one of them critically, police Lt. Adnan Abdul-Allah said.

West of the capital, in the city of Ramadi, five explosions rocked a joint U.S.-Iraqi National Guard base, sending columns of smoke rising above the area, witnesses said. Sporadic clashes were reported in the city center.

Elsewhere, U.S. troops fired on a car that sped toward them near the central city of Samarra on Sunday morning, wounding two people, the military said. A spokesman said ground troops fired warning shots before aiming directly at the vehicle. The driver and a passenger were wounded.

Iraqi police and several witnesses, however, reported that four people were killed and that the vehicle was hit by tank fire.

A major insurgent group claimed responsibility Sunday for kidnapping 15 Iraqi National Guard members who were reported missing last week. The 15 guardsmen had been pulled from a bus near their base in the town of Hit, 90 miles west of Baghdad.

A statement posted on an Islamic Web site took responsibility on behalf of Ansar al-Sunnah.

"Your brothers were able to carry off a well-turned ambush against the crusaders' right hand in Iraq," the statement said, using "crusaders" as a term for Western forces.

It gave no indication of the men's fate.

Ansar al-Sunnah has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks, including a December suicide bombing that killed 22 people, most of them Americans, at a U.S. military dining tent on a base in Mosul.

The group is also blamed in the August executions of 12 Nepalese construction workers and twin suicide bombings in February that killed 109 members of Iraq's assertive Kurd minority.

Elsewhere, about 300 followers of radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr began a three-day sit-in in front of the Oil Ministry in Baghdad to protest gasoline shortages that have caused hours-long waits at gas stations.

About a dozen of them entered the ministry and complained to Minister Thamir Ghadbhan, asking why U.S. troops have fuel for their vehicles and Iraqis don't.

Meanwhile, the ministry announced that Iraq expects to resume pumping crude oil from its northern oil fields to the export terminal of Ceyhan in 10 days.

The flow of oil through the northern pipeline has halted since an explosion caused by saboteurs on Dec. 18.

A ministry statement said repair work on the damaged export pipeline that carries crude oil from Kirkuk oil fields to the Turkish port of Ceyhan was expected to finish in 10 days and exports were to restart immediately after.

Iraq's northern pipeline, the target of repeated insurgent attacks, was pumping around 400,000 barrels a day before the latest attack. The storage facilities at Ceyhan ran dry last month.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-16-05, 12:02 PM

A Marine's decision is made
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
M. Cristina Medina Adelante
The Monterey Herald
Jan. 16, 2005

A few weeks ago I introduced readers to a Marine from Castroville who was at the crossroads of deciding whether to re-enlist and make the military a career or cash out his time and have peace of mind knowing he'd be far away from war zones.

Last week the military made the decision for Cpl. Victor Maldonado.

He leaves next week for Fallujah, Iraq, where he will serve as military security overseeing the elections. Maldonado's contract was to have been up in February, but the military opted to extend his commitment given that there is a need for soldiers to fill slots of those killed and to prepare to replace soldiers awaiting promises of being able to go home.

"Am I prepared mentally? You have to be. You have to be able to go do what you need to do," said 29-year-old Maldonado, looking anxious and serious early Friday while sitting in a Mexican bakery in Castroville. He had had little sleep after a long night of hanging out at Monterey nightclubs with friends.

Maldonado has been home since early November. He was set to be deployed to Iraq, but two days before heading out, his brother was seriously injured in a car accident in Fresno.

Maldonado was sent home to help his family and support his brother, who suffered a broken neck. His brother had surgery after Christmas that helped to ensure he would not be paralyzed. The time at home gave Maldonado an opportunity to weigh what he wanted out of life.

"I love being a Marine, but it's hard on my family," he said. "And I want to be here for them. You can't have both though."

Maldonado, a graduate of North Monterey County High School and father of a 6-year-old, says he is ready to go to Iraq, even though so many of his friends have been killed in combat.

"My feelings haven't changed. I want to go if I'm needed, even though you see the stories every night of things happening to our guys" said Maldonado, a five-year veteran who served as a mortarman in combat in Afghanistan last year. "I know to expect a lot of crazy things, but I feel I'm going to be part of history being there to help make the elections happen."

Maldonado said his language skills -- he was sent to school to learn Arabic -- are sorely needed. And the military needs people with experience. He'll be joining a different platoon since his crew members of the the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines have made their way out of Fallujah and are slated to return to San Diego.

"My guys are coming home and I'm going over. Yeah, it'll be different with a different set of guys, but we are all there for the same reasons and have a job to do," he said. "We all have to depend on each other and on our training and things should go all right. That's what they train us to do. The biggest things we have to be on guard for are roadside bombs, ordnance or people just looking to take us out with them. It's going to be crazy."

Before he leaves, Maldonado will be busying himself with getting his life organized. His will has long been written and he's getting his bills in order so his parents will be able to pay them in his absence.

"I should be back soon, unless I do decide to stay in, which is still up in the air," said Maldonado. "We'll see how it goes."

Maldonado said he will send dispatches from Iraq from time to time. I hope to share them with you.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-16-05, 02:14 PM

Many Iraqis Say Graner Abuse Sentence Too Lenient

By Mussab al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Many Iraqis reacted angrily on Sunday to news that U.S. soldier Charles Graner had been sentenced to 10 years in jail for his role in prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib jail, saying he should have faced harsher punishment.

But struggling to cope with daily violence, crime, and fuel and food shortages, and fearing more bloodshed ahead of Jan. 30 elections, most said they had paid little attention to Graner's court martial.

Some said members of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime responsible for torture and killing at the notorious prison west of Baghdad before the U.S.-led invasion should also be brought to justice.

"It's too little. This isn't justice," trader Ali Ahmed, 23, said of Graner's sentence.

"Even capital punishment isn't enough. But since it's forbidden to torture him the way he tortured the prisoners, I would have settled for the death penalty."

A military jury in Fort Hood, Texas, sentenced Graner on Saturday to 10 years' imprisonment for his leading role in the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, five years less than the maximum sentence possible.

The sentencing came a day after a jury convicted Graner on 10 counts related to the abuses, many of which were documented in photographs that included naked prisoners stacked into a pyramid and being forced to masturbate.

But Iraqi newspapers had only limited coverage of the court martial and many Iraqis said they had not been following it.

OUTRAGE OVER ABUSE

"As an ex-soldier, I admit that no army is perfect," said 38-year-old meteorologist Ali Mahawi.

"It isn't just the American army that has these things. We had abuse that happened in our army," he said. But he added that he did not think the sentence was sufficient:

"I think 10 years isn't much and a stronger sentence would have produced a more effective deterrent."

Even before the scandal of U.S. abuse at Abu Ghraib erupted, the prison had a grim reputation because many of Saddam's enemies were jailed, tortured and killed there.

Some Iraqis said that should not be forgotten.

"The abuse in Abu Ghraib prison was far worse under Saddam. I don't blame a foreign army ending up abusing Iraqis because they don't care about us, but it hurts me to know that Iraqis were abusing Iraqis with the most horrific torture and it's those I want to see brought to justice," said Salih al-Jubouri, a 33-year-old unemployed man.

He said two of his brothers were tortured during Saddam's rule.

The U.S. prison abuse scandal helped turn many Iraqis who initially welcomed the overthrow of Saddam against the foreign troops who removed him from power.

Some Iraqis said the best punishment was for Graner to suffer the same treatment he subjected others to.

"The torture in Saddam's time was worse than this, but this was also quite bad," said Ahmed Ali, 20, a van driver from Baghdad's Shi'ite Sadr City district.

"What use is 10 years when he humiliated other humans? They should use on him the same torture methods he used on others."

Ellie

thedrifter

01-16-05, 04:42 PM

Army engineers shelter Marines in Iraq 
Submitted by: 1st Force Service Support Group 
Story Identification #: 200511511313 
Story by Sgt. Enrique S. Diaz 
 
 
 
CAMP TAQADDUM, Iraq (Jan. 15, 2005)...

thedrifter

01-16-05, 07:31 PM

Corps to increase strength

By Christian Lowe
Times staff writer

The Marine Corps is set to grow by nearly 3,000 new leathernecks over the next three years, Marine officials have confirmed, marking the first end-strength increase since ongoing deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq have stretched the 175,000-strong force to its limits.
The increase stems from language in the fiscal 2005 Defense Authorization Act, signed into law in October, which allowed for an end-strength increase of up to 9,000 Marines through 2009.

Marine officials say they are not planning to take Congress up on its offer to add all 9,000 troops, though they are leaving the option open.

The additional troops, including more than 1,800 infantrymen, 400 Marines for new foreign military training teams, 275 recruiters, will be brought into the Corps through 2007 and will cost $159 million this year, with the price rising slightly each year thereafter, Marine officials said.

To pay for the increase, the Corps plans to seek funding in supplemental appropriations requests rather than budgeting them into their yearly spending forecasts, according to Marine Corps manpower officials.

Corps officials last summer had indicated they were considering a manpower boost along with a host of other options, including increased use of provisional units and a major reorganization of the Corps’ force structure to give the force some breathing room in the face of ongoing commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa totaling more than 30,000 troops.

The manpower increase is intended to fully staff existing infantry battalions and will help plug gaps in training and recruiting operations at home and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Obviously they have thought this through long and hard,” said retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson, a military strategist and Pentagon consultant. “When you get into [security and stabilization operations] they are very manpower intensive.”

Ellie

thedrifter

01-16-05, 07:42 PM

Two Texas Marines killed in Iraq
By The Associated Press
(01/15/05 - LAREDO, TX) — Two Texas Marines have been killed in Iraq, the Department of Defense said Friday.

Lance Cpls. Juan Rodrigo Rodriguez and Matthew W. Holloway died Thursday as a result of enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, the Defense Department said.
Both were assigned to Marine Forces Reserves 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Corpus Christi.

"He was a wonderful son," Holloway's mother, Shirley, said Friday night. "He had lots of friends, he was a really good person all the way around. He loved to be a Marine, he loved his country."

Holloway, 21, was from Rockport, where he attended high school and played football. He was married in May and his reserve unit was activated this summer.

Holloway's older brother and his father -- a Vietnam veteran -- also were Marines.

"It was kind of in his blood," his mother said.

Military officials told Rodriguez's family that he was killed in an explosion, said his 22-year-old sister, Fatima Rodriguez.

Rodriguez, 23, listed his home of record as El Cenizo.

Fatima Rodriguez said two Marines came to the family's home Thursday afternoon with the news. She said she was at work when they came.

"All they told me was I needed to get home as fast as I could," she said. "As soon as you know you have a major on the other end, you understand what they're going to tell you."

She said her parents were taking it hard.

"He was their only son and yes, it is hard for them to understand and basically for it to feel true," she said.

Before deploying to Iraq, Juan Rodriguez worked at a pawn shop to provide for his parents, who are too ill to work.

He called his family regularly, and last spoke with them on Tuesday. He said he was excited because he was going to be promoted. He was on a seven-month deployment and was expected home in eight weeks.

When his six-year reserve term was up, he planned to go to school to be a police officer.

"He wanted to join the local police department and the SWATs because he was going to have experience from the military," she said.

Juan Rodriguez made his mark as part of the United South High School Junior ROTC Marine Corps.

He helped get the program running, said Zapopan Gonzalez, a secretary who works for the group.

By the time he graduated in 2000, he had become battalion commander and earned the rank of cadet colonel, the highest the unit had given. He helped lead the corps drill team to become the national champion in Daytona Beach, Fla., Gonzalez said, and he received many awards and honors.

"I saw him grow," she said. "He became a Marine."

Steve Villarreal, a Marine medic who served in Iraq last year and is now preparing for possible deployment with the National Guard, remembered Rodriguez as a dedicated soldier.

"Juan was proud to fight for his country," he said in Friday's editions of the Laredo Morning Times. "Unfortunately, this is war. This is a sad day."

Ellie