Pentagon Must Stop Iraq Blasts

[thedrifter]

Official: Pentagon Must Stop Iraq Blasts

By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer
WASHINGTON
The Pentagon is not trying hard enough to defeat the makeshift roadside bombs that are the leading killer of U.S. troops in Iraq, the commander of American forces in the Middle East said Tuesday.

Pentagon statistics show that over the past two months, the homemade, easy-to-hide weapons have accounted for a significantly higher share of U.S. battle deaths. In the final 10 days of February, for example, roadside bombs caused at least 15 of the 22 battle deaths.

In the first two months of this year, roadside bombs accounted for 56 percent of all battle deaths. In the final four months of 2004 they accounted for 19 percent, according to Pentagon figures.

Army Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee he was satisfied that the right people, with sufficient funds, were working on the problem.

"But I'm not satisfied that we have come up with the solutions that we could if we really rolled up our sleeves and looked at it the way it needs to be looked at," Abizaid said. That statement was the most direct public challenge to the Pentagon's approach to this deadly problem.

On another subject, Abizaid said that about 3,500 insurgents took part in election day violence in Iraq on Jan. 30, an unusually precise estimate on the threat facing coalition and Iraqi forces.

Abizaid did not cite a source for that estimate.

"It was the single most important day for the insurgents to come out in force and to disrupt," he told the committee. "They threw their whole force at us, we think, and yet they were unable to disturb the elections because people wanted to vote."

The problem of roadside bombs, which the U.S. military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, has bedeviled the Pentagon since they began appearing in the summer of 2003. Since then they have killed and maimed hundreds of U.S. and allied troops, and Abizaid said the threat had grown to the point where it required an international effort, and not just inside Iraq.

"It's an ongoing battle, and this IED threat has migrated from Iraq to Pakistan to Afghanistan, and as long as we are fighting the enemies that we're fighting in the connected manner that they are fighting the battle, we'll see it continuing to migrate," the general said.

In Iraq there is a seemingly endless supply of available explosives and they can be adapted for use against a wide variety of targets. They have proven to be a low-tech counterpoint to the U.S. military's high-powered arsenal.

Many of the most powerful IEDs are made from 155 mm artillery shells. The insurgents have found creative ways of disguising the weapons. Smaller ones are hidden inside animal carcasses or under piles of rubbish along roads traveled by U.S. military convoys and detonated from a distance.

Some have been encased in concrete to make them look like harmless cinder blocks.

In response, the U.S. military has put more armor on its vehicles, including Humvees and supply trucks, and experimented with electronic jammers and other means of detonating IEDs before they kill.

Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday that all U.S. military vehicles in Iraq will be outfitted with the best armor by summer. Until then some will rely on the less effective add-on armor, which some soldiers have dubbed "hillbilly armor" because it is an improvised solution.

"The way it's been described makes it sound like the Beverly Hillbillies, which it's not," Pace said. It has provided a degree of extra protection against IEDs and small arms fire.

Even as the U.S. forces have adapted to the IED threat, the insurgents have changed tactics.

In the past two months, IEDs have tended to be larger and more powerful - designed to kill larger numbers in a single explosion. On Feb. 25, for example, an IED attack in Tarmiya killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded nine. Another on Jan. 5 killed seven soldiers and destroyed their armored infantry carrier.

Gen. Michael Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps, told reporters last week that a fully armored Humvee recently was "ripped apart, just torn apart" by an IED made from three linked 155 mm shells.

Hagee said the Marines have developed a computer program that calculates vulnerabilities against IEDs for Marine vehicle convoys. It uses data such as the location of electronic jamming devices and the location and degree of armor protection of Marine trucks and other vehicles.

"It tells us, OK, do you have any vulnerabilities here? Should you change the arrangement of your vehicles? Should you change where your jammers are located? And if you can't do that, should you reduce the size of the convoy?" he said.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Lejeune Marine receives Purple Heart
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division
Story Identification #: 200522815634
Story by Cpl. Adam C. Schnell



MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (Feb. 18, 2005) -- In 1782, Gen. George Washington wanted to give something back to the soldier who served their country so bravely. This act of appreciation became the Badge of Military Merit, known today as the Purple Heart.

The medal continued its history with Durham, N.C. native Lance Cpl. Joel W. Winkler, an infantryman with Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 2d Marine Regiment.

Nineteen year-old Winkler recently spent seven months in Iraq that led to the fateful day he was wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade that struck the ground next to the vehicle he was driving.

On April 9, 2004, Winkler and his unit, Combined Anti-Armor Team-White, were responding to a possible improvised explosive device along a heavily traveled road. As they made their way to the IED location, they had to pass through a section of road called ‘Ambush Alley,’ a known high threat area for passing Marines.

“We were almost linked up with Fox Company, the ones who saw the IED, when we were hit by RPG and heavy machinegun fire,” Winkler explained. “We had to go past the IED and got separated for a while from the rest of the convoy.”

Not wanting to drive past the IED again, he watched from a distance as the CAAT and Fox Company were in a firefight with insurgents. The rest of the team knew if Winkler and his vehicle were seen alone, a firefight would soon erupt putting the Marines in a bad situation.

Putting their own lives in danger, the rest of the CAAT drove past the IED to link up with Winkler and the rest of his group. After linking up, the whole team drove back down the only road available, ‘Ambush Alley,’ and was hit again by insurgent fire, but this time a RPG hit next to his vehicle and he lost hearing in both of his ears.

“The RPG blew out my hearing for about 30 minutes,” Winkler said. “I had a perforated left ear drum and couldn’t hear out of my left ear for about three weeks. I still have problems hearing out of my left ear sometimes.”

Not being able to hear, the slender-built Marine kept driving his vehicle until it was safe to stop, thus making sure the Marines in the rest of the convoy behind him stayed safe.

“You can’t freak out, you just have to keep doing your job when stuff like that happens,” Winkler said.

Winkler said he gained this attitude since enlisting in the Marine Corps in June 2003. Improving himself and gaining more discipline is also something he hopes to acquire by the time he leaves the Marine Corps.

“I joined to figure out what I wanted to do in the future,” Winkler commented. “I am really into music but I knew it wasn’t going to get me far.”

Music is something Winkler still holds in his heart. He played trombone and saxophone during his years at C.E. Jordan High School and recently taught himself how to play guitar. But soon, his music will most likely have to be put on hold when he goes to Iraq for a second time later this year to help support the Global War on Terrorism.

Winkler plans on attending Appalachian State University in North Carolina after he returns from his second tour in Iraq. He was accepted to the university prior to going to recruit training and hopes to again make music his life emphasis.

“After I get done with college, I’m hoping to get into the music industry and become a recording engineer,” added Winkler.

Ellie

http://www.marines.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/200522815838/$file/050218-M-8231S-002-lowres.jpg

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (Feb. 18, 2004) – Lance Cpl. Joel W. Winkler, an infantryman with 2nd Battalion, 2d Marine Regiment, stands in front of his battalion Feb. 18 after receiving the Purple Heart for injuries in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Winkler suffered two ruptured eardrum while acting as lead driver for his combined anti-armor team. Photo by: Cpl. Adam C. Schnell

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Exceptional Family Member Program helps families with special needs
Submitted by: MCRD Parris Island
Story Identification #: 2005228115521
Story by Cpl. Matt Barkalow



MCRD/ERR PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. (Feb. 25, 2005) -- The Department of the Navy established the Exceptional Family Member Program in September 1987 to mandate that families with special needs be assigned only to areas where those needs could be met.

According to a message from the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in September 1993, the goal of the EFMP is to assist service members in providing for the special needs of their exceptional family member before, during and after relocation required by change of duty assignments.

It stated that all family members identified by a physician or educational authority as showing medical, mental or educational disabilities can be enrolled once the condition is documented.

Enrollment in the program is recommended by the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Central Screening Committees and approved by the Bureau of Naval Personnel.

According to Lesa Didas, EFMP coordinator, Marine Corps Community Services-South Carolina Family Services, Parris Island, MCAS Beaufort and the Eastern Recruiting Region have approximately 350 exceptional family members enrolled in the program, with cases ranging from asthma to down syndrome to special education issues.

She said her main focus is helping ensure family members that have special needs are in places where they can receive the necessary services confidentially.

Didas said the program is broken down into four categories for the family member, based on the level of their needs. A Category Four family has the possibility of keeping service members at specific duty stations so they can be around facilities that can care for their special needs. The Category Four families also receive priority housing.

"[The EFMP] works from base to base to find housing for them," Didas said. "We can help the family that's moving in almost any aspect. We can help make relocation smoother for families."

She added there are still some families not enrolled in the program that should be due to fear of the myths about the EFMP.

According to www.usmc-mccs.org, Marines will not be "labeled" in their records because of enrolling in the program and will not have any hindrance to their promotions or career opportunities. It also states that unaccompanied overseas tours and standard deployments can be carried out without interruption.

The Web site added that the selection of an EFMP Marine's duty station selection is based on the needs of the Marine Corps, the sponsor's career pattern and the special needs of the family.

Holly Brumage, an administrative assistant with the New Parent Support program, MCCS-SC Family Services, said her family has been enrolled since 2001.

Brumage, whose 4-year-old son, Colin, has been diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis, has to constantly worry about hospitalizations and not knowing the outcome of her son's disease.

"[Tuberous sclerosis] affects all the organs in the body, mainly the brain and heart," she said. "It also causes skin lesions and tiny benign cells on the organs."

She said the EFMP has helped her family overcome these obstacles and has taken some of the worry off their shoulders.

"It has put us in places where we can get excellent services for him," Brumage said. "They referred us to doctors and therapists that accept Tricare and they really make sure things run smoothly and that Colin is getting what he needs."

She also dispelled some of the misconceptions about the program, saying that her husband has been promoted to staff sergeant since enrolling and is close to being promoted to gunnery sergeant, and that it has not had any kind of hindrance to their lives or careers.

Didas said that anyone who feels their family is eligible to enroll in the program should go to her office in Building 911, or call her at 228-3188 to discuss the options for them.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

U.S. Offensive Targets Ramadi, Haditha
Three fatalities are reported. Also, a Marine is killed and an Iraqi TV journalist is found dead.

From Times Wire Services


HADITHA, Iraq — U.S. Marines and Iraqi soldiers fought militants in the towns of Haditha and Ramadi in Al Anbar province during a day of scattered violence around Iraq.

Troops in tanks and armored vehicles stormed Haditha in the middle of the night, blowing up a weapons cache and exchanging gunfire with guerrillas. But overall resistance was light.

In Ramadi, witnesses reported fierce gun battles between U.S. troops and insurgents. One said a Humvee was destroyed, although that could not be confirmed. A hospital official said at least three people had been killed and 17 injured.

Since they launched the River Blitz offensive early last week, U.S. and Iraqi troops have arrested about 150 suspected insurgents and seized bomb-making gear, machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

At least four U.S. troops have died, including a soldier assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force who the military said was killed Friday.

In a separate incident, a Marine was killed in action Saturday in Babil province. The Marines gave no details on either death.

More than 1,480 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of the war in March 2003.

In other violence, the body of Raiedah Mohammed Wageh Wazan, a 35-year-old news presenter for U.S.-funded Nineveh TV, was found along a Mosul street, six days after she was kidnapped by masked gunmen, her husband said.

Salim Saad-Allah said his wife had been shot four times in the head.

"This is a criminal act. She was an innocent woman who did not hurt anybody in all her life," he said.

The mother of four had been threatened with death several times by insurgents who demanded that she quit her job, Saad-Allah said.

In Iraq's north, attackers late Friday set fire to an oil pipeline running about 20 miles from fields in Dibis to Kirkuk. An official with the state-run North Oil Co. said Saturday that it would take at least four days to repair the line.

Elsewhere, gunmen opened fire on two Trade Ministry trucks between Baghdad and the southeastern city of Kut, killing two drivers, police said.

Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and nine wounded when a suicide bomber attacked their checkpoint near Musayyib, south of Baghdad, police sources said. Three cars were set ablaze.

A car bomb killed two civilians and injured three in Baghdad.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

MIKE HARDEN: Webcam brings Marines into delivery room

Scripps Howard News Service
Wednesday, February 16th, 2005 12:23 PM (PST)


(SH) - A leatherneck adage reminds the few and the proud, "If the Marine Corps wanted you to have a family, it would have issued you one."
The truth of that chestnut suggested to Marine Lance Cpl. Shad Biffle that his superiors in California likely would not grant him leave in the midst of combat training for Iraq so he could be present at his son's birth in Ohio.

Activated from Columbus five weeks ago, Biffle's unit is expected to deploy to the war zone within the next few weeks.

His wife, Nicole, and the couple's children have been living with Shad's parents in New Albany, Ohio, since early January. Aware of her husband's desire to see his son born, Nicole had hoped to have the birth videotaped.

"They said no camcorders were allowed in the delivery room," she said.

That seemed to settle the issue until several days ago when Sherrie Valentine, the hospital's manager of labor and delivery, received a phone call from Twentynine Palms, Calif.

"I talked to Shad's major," Valentine said.

Shad had found a physician attached to his military unit who had a webcam. The major had called Valentine to see if there was any way a second webcam could be set up in the delivery room.

"We had never done this before," Valentine said, "but her husband is off fighting for our country. There wasn't anything that was going to stop me."

She contacted Steve Smith in the hospital's information-services department and explained her problem.

"Sherrie, I think we can do this," he told her.

"So, we tried it between our two offices," Valentine said, "and it worked."
Late Tuesday night, Nicole's water broke, and when she arrived at the hospital, Valentine was waiting. "I just knew she was going to deliver that night."

Alerted to the impending birth, Shad rushed to the base's officers' quarters, where a webcam and laptop awaited.

In the delivery room, Nicole recalled, "There was a laptop on a little table, and the webcam was looking down on the bed."

Shad and Nicole could see each other.

"I placed it up near the head of the bed where the father usually stands," Valentine said.

"The telephone was brought in," Nicole said, "and we just left it off the hook. I could hear Shad, and he could hear me and the baby. He kept telling me, 'You're doing great. You look great.' I was all grins. I was able to help pull the baby out myself."

By that time, the webcam had been shifted so that Shad could get a better look at 6-pound, 5-ounce Shane Biffle.

"I jokingly looked up and told him, 'I want two more,'" Nicole said. "He said, 'It must be the drugs.' He wasn't able to be there in body, but that he could be there in spirit and talk to me was wonderful."

"I was so thankful at how blessed we were that it all worked out," said Shad's mother, Nancy Biffle. "We have a healthy little baby, and this was the next best thing to Shad's actually being there."

"There is a common thread that binds us all," Valentine said. "In essence, by doing this, I was expressing my gratitude for the men and women over there fighting for my freedom."

After Nicole gave birth, she said, she got to thinking about the seven other pregnant Marine wives married to men in Shad's unit.

All seven are in the Columbus area, and Nicole thought it would be great if - with their husbands shipping out for Iraq - a webcam and laptop could be purchased for them to use in the delivery room.

She kick-started the fund with a donation and hopes that contributors will make out a check to Women's Health Service at Grant-Fund 24773 and send it to Ohio Health Foundation, 3724 Olentangy River Rd., Suite G, Columbus 43214.

Though the fathers-to-be among Shad's fellow Marines won't be able to be in the delivery room, perhaps they'll have the next best thing.

Mike Harden is a columnist at the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch. E-mail mharden@dispatch.com.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Trauma of Iraq war haunting thousands returning home <br />
By William M. Welch, USA TODAY <br />
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Jeremy Harrison sees the warning signs in the Iraq war veterans who walk through his office...

[thedrifter]

The toughest part of helping veterans, Harrison says, is getting them to overcome fears of being stigmatized and to step into a Vet Center. "They think they can handle the situation themselves," he says.

Vet Centers provide help for broader issues of readjustment back to civilian life, including finding a job, alcohol and drug abuse counseling, sexual trauma counseling, spouse and family counseling, and mental or emotional problems that fall short of PTSD.

More than 80% of the staff are veterans, and 60% served in combat zones, says Al Batres, head of the VA's readjustment counseling service. "We're oriented toward peer counseling, and we provide a safe environment for soldiers who have been traumatized," he says.

"A Vietnam veteran myself, it would have been so great if we'd had this kind of outreach," says Johnny Bragg, director of the Vet Center where Harrison works. "If you can get with the guys who come back fresh ... and actually work with their trauma and issues, hopefully over the years you won't see the long-term PTSD."

In all cases, the veteran has to be the one who wants to talk before counselors can help. "Once they come through the door, they usually come back," Harrison says. "For them, this is the only chance to talk to somebody, because their families don't understand, their friends don't understand. That's the big thing. They can't talk to anyone. They can't relate to anyone."


Ellie

[thedrifter]

City, county flags to fly with II MEF
Submitted by: MCB Camp Lejeune
Story Identification #: 2005228112214
Story by Cpl. Sharon E. Fox



MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJUENE (Feb. 28, 2005) -- The American flag is already flying high in many parts of Iraq, but after a recent presentation from the local community to the II Marine Expeditionary Force, a few new colors will be flying overseas.

Jacksonville City Councilman Turner Blunt, Jacksonville Mayor Jan B. Slagle, Jacksonville, Onslow Chamber of Commerce President, Mona Padrick, and Onslow County Commissioners Martin Aragona, Joe McLaughlin, and Paul Buchanan present the city and county flags to Maj. Gen. Stephen T. Johnson, Commanding General, II MEF Forward. The flags were donated on behalf of Project CARE (Community Action Readiness Effort), a program that combines the efforts local government, military, Chamber of Commerce and community organizations to provide assistance to families of deployed military.

“We just want to show our appreciation for the Marines and let them know we support them, miss and worry about them when they are away from home,” said Slagle.

Project CARE was conceived after a large and hard-hitting deployment of local troops in the first Gulf War. The program was fully activated on January 17, 2003, for Operation Iraqi Freedom and continues to provide assistance for military and community needs, according to the official website.

“The strong support Project CARE as well as Jacksonville and [Onslow] county is greatly appreciated, said Johnson. “I’m sure the Marines and sailors will have much comfort and pride seeing the community represented and knowing they have their support.”

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Iraq-deployed Marine ponders boxing future on eve of homecoming



by Sgt. Luis R. Agostini
1st Force Service Support Group


CAMP TAQADDUM, Iraq -- Inside a makeshift weight room in western Iraq, Marine Cpl. Terry Green walks over to the far end - the heavy end - of the dumbbell rack, rarely touched by most of the Marines, soldiers and sailors here.

He scans the rack and selects two 105-pound dumbbells, and prepares for a 10-rep bench press.

Like many of the servicemembers currently serving in Iraq, Green, an administrative clerk with the 1st Force Service Support Group, maintains a strength-training program to improve his physical fitness. However, Green's weightlifting is improving more than just his pull-ups.

Before he deployed to Iraq last August, the San Diegan vowed to keep his boxing skills sharp during his seven-month deployment to Iraq.

Judging by some of the items in his seabag, one might think Green was ready to go twelve rounds with the enemy when he deployed to Iraq last August.

Some Marines pack reminders of home when they deploy, whether it be favorite books, movies or bed sheets. Green packed his boxing gear: three pairs of boxing gloves, two sets of protective headgear, a mouthpiece, handwraps, a jump rope and focus mitts.

Green has been raised on hand-to-hand combat since his sixth birthday, when his father taught him his first combination of the basic punches - jabs, hooks and uppercuts. He registered with USA Boxing two years later, and has been fighting under the banner of the national governing body of Olympic-style boxing ever since.

"I loved it (boxing) right away," said Green, who successfully completed a two-week leadership course in Iraq. "It was the first thing I learned from my dad."

Green, 20, who will return to his wife and two-year-old daughter in Camp Pendleton at the end of February, has reevaluated his priorities during his tour in Iraq, and is still trying to figure boxing into his life.

"It's really hard, but something has to give. I love boxing, but I love my family, the Marine Corps and the country we defend more," said Green.

Green says he'd love to open a boxing youth clinic in southern California. Either way, he plans to stay involved in the sport one way or another - either teaching the trade to others, or competing inside a ring.

Boasting an impressive amateur record of 52 wins and 13 losses, the right-handed boxer continues to be a devout student of the game, keeping and recognizing his weaknesses as a boxer.

Green made it a practice to review footage of the matches and quickly identify his weaknesses and mistakes.

One of Green's more memorable losses - which he uses to fuel his drive to excel at the sport - was a bout against his former sparring partner, Paul Saxon, during a show in Los Angeles.

"I was really outclassed," Green humbly said. "He's got skills."

"My weaknesses are lack of strength and focus, which I have been working on," said Green, who gained more than 20 pounds of muscle in Iraq thanks to a strict strength-training regime. "I've learned how to set small goals and go after them."

Even lessons learned during his two years as a Marine, such as discipline and time management, has helped him improve his boxing game.

"I've learned not to go all out in the beginning, take my time and have the discipline to stick to the basics of boxing," he said.

Although he packed his boxing gear for Iraq, he didn't think he'd have either the time or atmosphere to sufficiently train.

"I thought it was gonna be hot as hell," he said.

However, as the temperatures dipped to from 110 to 60 degrees in a matter of months, Green incorporated shadow boxing and sparring into his daily training routine, and eventually convinced base officials to grant him a boxing clinic aboard the camp last fall.

As a three-sport high school athlete in El Paso - he was a varsity starter in football, wrestling and track - a physically-gifted 17-year-old Green decided to enlist in the Marine Corps, who self-admittedly lacked direction at the time of his decision.

Although committed to the defense of his country, it was his father and grandfather's background of Navy boxing that shed some light on a future of boxing in the military for the 6-foot-2-inch Marine.

"My dad had pure knowledge of the basics and the love of boxing," said Green.

Another man has influenced Green's boxing mentality -former world champion Muhammad Ali, who Green emulates from time to time.

"When it comes to boxing, you can't really afford to be completely humble," said Green, who will renew his registration with USA boxing upon his return to Camp Pendleton, Calif. "I have a tendency to talk trash."

A renewed confidence, along with 20 more pounds behind each punch, Green stuffs his boxing gear back into his seabag, ready to go home.

When asked how the added muscle will fare him in the ring, he smiles slyly before answering: "I'm gonna break some faces," he jokes.

Or maybe he wasn't kidding.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Wolfowitz Explains Why Army Needs Are Emergency


By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Mar. 1, 2005 – Putting Army restructuring in the emergency supplemental request for fiscal 2005, makes perfect sense, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the Senate Budget Committee today.

The Bush administration has come under fire for including the $5 billion request in the $75 billion supplemental request. Many elected representatives believe the funds should be part of the president’s fiscal 2006 defense budget request.

Wolfowitz told the senators that beginning in fiscal 2007, DoD will place restructuring in the budget request. But it was important to begin the process as soon as possible.

“When it comes to restructuring ground forces, the department has made a major commitment to restructuring the U.S. Army, adding $35 billion over the seven years of the FY 2005 to 2011 future years defense plan, on top of $13 billion that was already in the Army baseline budget,” he said.

The restructuring plan will increase the number of Army brigades and convert them into independent brigade combat teams that can conduct operations on their own. The Army will add personnel and equipment to the new brigade combat teams and take assets now at the division level and place them in the units. The Army calls the new units “modules” and the process “modularity.”

The Army effort is a fundamental transformation in the way it organizes and thinks about deploying forces. The changes will mean vast differences in the strain placed on the troops and their families through deployments. The plan will add more deployable units to the Army. On the active side, the number will go from 33 to 43 and in the reserves from 15 to 34. “The most significant consequence of these two expansions is that for any required level of overseas force deployment, active brigades will deploy less often and reserve maneuver brigades will be mobilized much less frequently,” Wolfowitz said.

The 3rd Infantry Division – the division that took Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom – has gone through the process and is deployed back in Iraq. He used that unit as an example of why DoD is asking for funds from supplemental requests rather than budgeting them. “As the 3rd Infantry Division redeployed from Iraq some 15 months ago, we simultaneously reset it from the wear and tear of combat, and transformed it from three brigades to four,” he said.

It was only after the war – and the lessons learned from it – that the proposal came out. It was not planned by the military. If it were part of the fiscal 2006 defense budget request, the proposal could not start until at least Oct. 1, 2006. The Pentagon would lose a good bit of time and place unnecessary strain on servicemembers and their families.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Trial begins for Marine in shaken-infant case <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
By Rick Rogers <br />
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER <br />
March 1, 2005 <br />
<br />
CAMP...

[thedrifter]

Marines recall tough time in Fallujah
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Tue Mar 1,11:17 AM ET

KUWAIT NAVAL BASE, Kuwait (AFP) - Land Corporal Ronald Jones breathed a sigh of relief after four months of "treacherous fighting" in Iraq (news - web sites)'s insurgent stronghold of Fallujah as he prepared to go back hom

"I am very happy, very pleased. It's nice going back home," Jones, 23, told AFP as he boarded a Landing Craft that took him to aircraft carrier USS Essex which will return him to his base in Okinawa, Japan.

"It's tough looking over your shoulder every second. It's tough to get up every morning to look out for what happens," said Jones of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) that has been relieved of duty in Iraq.

The 2,200 marines and sailors of MEU, who arrived in Kuwait over the past two weeks after four months in Iraq, will board three ships of the US Navy's Essex Amphibious Ready Group on a four-week voyage to Japan.

MEU was responsible for a wide range of missions in Iraq's western province of Al-Anbar which included assistance and security for the January 30 elections, limited-scale raids against insurgents and border security.

"The MEU conducted numerous limited-scale raids and knock operations, capturing more than 150 insurgents and seizing more than 60 weapons caches," said Captain Burrel Palmer, MEU spokesman.

Some 50 members of the force were killed, including 27 in a helicopter crash in western Iraq on January 27, while 221 others were wounded, Palmer told reporters.

MEU was assigned to the "largest area of operations in Iraq," a 33,000-square-mile (85,000-square-kilometer) area, almost the size of South Carolina, and was among the first troops that launched a major offensive on Fallujah late last year.

"MEU was one of several battalions to go in first" into Fallujah, the base for hundreds of diehard insurgents before the US onslaught, commanding officer Lt. Col. Michael Ramos said.

"The resistance was difficult at times ... They were willing to die for their cause. They were trying to kill as many Marines as they can," Ramos told AFP aboard the Landing Craft.

"We fought against a treacherous enemy. They would hide behind innocent people ... They were certainly fanatical and very determined" to fight, he added.

Besides controlling security in Iraq's most restive areas, MEU was also assigned to patrol the 800-kilometer (500-mile) long borders with Jordan and Syria from where the United States says most foreign fighters came.

"We have caught too many people, smugglers and fighters, who crossed into Iraq from Syria ... The Syrians have now set up a border post every 1,000 meters," Palmer said.

Ramos said he saw many foreign fighters killed in Fallujah.

"I saw a lot of (dead) insurgents from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and several other countries. The majority of foreign fighters are Syrians," he said.

US-led coalition forces in Iraq use Kuwait as a transit point for their rotation and Kuwait Naval Base, the only one of its kind in the emirate, serves to offload and onload troops and machinery for the coalition.

Kuwait, a staunch Washington ally, is home to between 18,000 and 20,000 US troops who are permanently stationed here, said Captain David Tippet, spokesman for the US army in the oil-rich Gulf emirate.

But due to continuous troop rotation, there are normally around 25,000 US soldiers in Kuwait at any given time, Tippet said.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Gunny delivers on 'Mail Call'
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By JAMES C. LOUGHRIE
Antelope Valley Press Staff Writer

PALMDALE - When he came up with the idea to create a show that answered viewers' questions about the military, R. Lee Ermey said he knew it would be a hit.

Now in its fourth season, "Mail Call," the show starring Ermey, is one of the highest-rated shows on the History Channel.

To accompany the show's success, Ermey recently released a book sharing the show's name. In the book, he answers questions on all things military, combat- or weapons-related. The queries range from, "What kind of weapons did ninjas use?" to "What kind of rations did our soldiers eat before MREs?"

For Ermey, who's also commonly known as "Gunny," it's a perfect marriage of entertainment and educating people about the military.

Ermey has the best job he could want, one that fits him perfectly, combining entertainment and the military. When he talks about it, he sounds like an excited kid.

"I get to fly the planes; I get to drive the tanks; I get to shoot the weapons; and the best part is I don't have to clean them," Ermey said.

Released this year, the book follows the same format of the show, with questions from viewers and answers from Ermey.

It also offers some insight to the show in the introduction, including how it got started and why watermelons fall prey to the weapons reviewed. (While taping the first show on a segment about samurai swords, Ermey wrote he just ate some watermelon with lunch. " 'Hey,' I said. 'Have we got any of those left?' " Ermey wrote.)

Book sales have done well so far, Ermey said, with more than 1,000 copies sold off his Web site, www.rleeermey.com, alone. The book already received a positive review from Booklist, which wrote, "He (Ermey) tackles more than a hundred subjects, 'in the air, on land, and sea,' as 'The Marines Hymn' puts it, complementing that variety of subjects with a large, excellent set of illustrations of things including rations, weapons, vehicles, and himself."

The show's not running short of material, either, with this season taking Ermey to Japan for a one-hour special on Iwo Jima, to Vietnam for a one-hour special, to Guantanamo Bay, home to hundreds of prisoners caught from the Afghanistan war, and to the Cheyenne Mountains in Wyoming to visit NORAD, the Canadian and U.S.-run air defense system.

Some would consider these difficult locations, given the military security and intelligence gathered there, but Ermey has no problem with access.

"I play golf with the Joint Chiefs of Staff," he said.

Ermey added that because the military knows him, they trust him to come on their bases.

"They want someone who's going to tell the truth and not put any slant on it," he said.

The show and parts in movies, personal appearances at auto shows and charity work, have Ermey on planes regularly.

"I had two days off in January," he said.

He took one of those rare days off to sit with a Valley Press reporter in his house west of Palmdale, where Ermey has lived for almost 20 years.

The high desert appealed to him because it was close enough to Los Angeles that he could continue film work and still live in more open spaces. I don't like hearing my neighbors' toilet flush. I don't like hearing their arguments and I don't like hearing their music," he said as the reason he moved to the Antelope Valley.

"I was stationed at Camp Pendleton and I used to come up here on the weekends," he said.

"I had a buddy from up here. We'd come up on the weekends and go to the drag races."

Though he moved to the desert he now calls home, the Kansas native rarely sees it these days.

Ermey spends a lot of time in the air, traveling from a show location to charity events to making appearances at custom car shows.

"If I'm not there doing it, I'm on the airplane to go do it or I'm on the plane coming home to pack a bag and go do it again," he said.

It was the amount of time he has spent on airplanes that brought him to write the book. "I went to Washington (D.C.) seven times last year," he said. "That's 30 hours on an airplane.

"I was trying to find a way to be productive in those hours rather than sit there and just gnash my teeth." And "Mail Call" the book was born.

Ermey said the response he has seen at book signings and car shows has been amazing, with a large number of fans being children and women. While he doesn't think they have the interest in how military artillery work, Ermey said he thinks it's entertainment that brings women, 20% of the audience, to the program.

"I like to bring a little bit of humor into the show," he said, one of his original missions for "Mail Call."

Ermey said when the show was in the planning stages there was talk about bringing former Lt. Col. Oliver North on with him.

That mix, Ermey said, would have made the show too serious.

Children comprise a large part of the audience, which helps explain why the book and show are family-friendly. Some of the kids watching, he said, are little girls, not the first thought when a show about the military comes up.

"I had a little girl wait in line for four hours to bring me a picture she drew in school of the Gunny in a tank," he said about a recent Detroit appearance.

Most moviegoers got their most memorable glimpse of Ermey in 1987, when he played the foul-mouthed, short-tempered Gunnery Sgt. Hartman in Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam War movie, "Full Metal Jacket."

The role was not all acting for Ermey, who was a drill instructor during the Vietnam War. He spent 11 years in the Marine Corps before a taking a medical retirement. After leaving the Marines, he used his GI Bill and spent four years at the University of Manila studying drama. His first role came in 1978 playing a drill instructor in "The Boys of Company C."

Considered his most famous role, Ermey's portrayal of Sgt. Hartman in "Full Metal Jacket" brought some of the most humorous, profane and memorable lines in cinema history. It also garnered him a Golden Globe nomination.

Since then, Ermey has used his celebrity status to raise money for military charities.

The most recent is Unmet Needs, a charity that helps the families of military personnel serving overseas with financial assistance and volunteers who can fix things around the house or in the car or even help tutor children.

"We just got started last year, and we've already helped 300 families," he said about the charity that works with the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Through the Web site, a military family can request help with items that need repair. Unmet Needs contacts the local VFW and sends one of its volunteers to fix the problem. "We've given loans, fixed furnaces, fixed toilets, whatever they need," he said.

Ermey serves as the spokesman for Unmet Needs and includes it as one of the charities that benefits from his annual golf tournament in Washington.

"I think I'm set up for 20 appearances this year," he said of his involvement with the nonprofit.

Inside the recreation room of his house, Ermey puffed on a cigarette while signing DVDs of "Mail Call" that will go to charity. The room has a shelf full of R. Lee Ermey bobblehead dolls, two half-packed suitcases for his next trip and baseball caps that he picks up from each city he visits.

A big-screen television was on in the background tuned to the Fox News Channel; whenever a topic that interested him came up, Ermey put in his two cents.

"I call it like I see it," he said.

A little over an hour later, a news crew arrived for his next interview. He put on a hat that said "Glock," for the gun company for which he also serves as a spokesman.

Fame has been a blessing for Ermey, who said he has no problem with fans approaching him in public. "I've never had a problem. If people want to take a picture I don't have a problem; in fact, I'll have a problem when they stop coming up to me."

As for his future plans, he said he'll keep doing "Mail Call" as long as he can.

"They (the History Channel) said I have to do the show until I die, and that's fine by me," he said. "I'll never retire."


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marine's perjury trial starts <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
March 2, 2005 <br />
ERIC STEINKOPFF <br />
DAILY NEWS STAFF <br />
<br />
Less than two years after one...

[thedrifter]

Iraqi Cat Who Helped U.S. Troops Finds American Home
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 1, 2005

BANGOR, Maine -- A little Iraqi has a new home in Maine.

H.P. the cat was adopted by National Guard troopers serving with the 152nd Field Artillery Battalion. Spc. Jesse Cote said the cat was starving and toothless when they found it.

But the GI's were able to nurse H.P. back to health. The cat ate and slept with the soldiers and even helped them. Cote said H.P. would be the first to react to mortar fire and was their warning of incoming.

When the soldiers were returning to Maine, they raised $700 to fly H.P. to the United States . No one's sure how H.P. got its name -- but Cote said it could stand for Here Puss.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Shiite Resurgence Spills Into Lebanon By PAOLA PONTONIERE News Analysis
By PAOLA PONTONIERE Pacific News Service (03-01-05)

Most observers of the Middle East sensed that the U.S. invasion of Iraq, instead of bringing stability, would bring chaos to the region. The most recent signal of this unraveling was the assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, a Sunni billionaire with ties to Washington and Riyadh, who had been credited with much of Beirut’s reconstruction. Popular protests have now led to the resignation of the country’s pro-Syrian government.
Although Syria is being blamed for the killing—Hariri was a staunch opponent the Syrian presence in Lebanon—the crime is most likely the extension of the Sunni-Shiite conflict that is coming to a boil in Iraq.

The killing has been claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself “Victory and Jihad in Bilad as-Shan.” Bilad as-Shah could be translated as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine.

This should be enough to convince even the most skeptical observer that the demon of Shiite-Sunni tension has escaped the Iraqi Pandora’s Box. It is now spilling into neighboring countries, reviving a religious schism that dates back to the seventh century, to the death of the prophet Mohammed and the rise of his cousin and son-in-law Ali as one of Fourth Rightly Guided Caliphs.

That the fire of the Shiite-Sunni divide would take root so promptly in relatively calm Lebanon is an even more worrisome sign that the chaos may spread quickly to unexpected latitudes in the Middle East.

Lebanon is a pivotal element in the pacification of the Middle East for a number of reasons. First, its geopolitical position makes it a key factor in the unfolding Israeli-Palestinian saga. Second, its governmental instability is the weakest link in the U.S.-led effort to spread democracy in the whole region, its government unable to assert central control of its territory since 1958, making it the best avenue for foreign meddlers.

According to Clement Moore Henry, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, who spent four years in the 1980s teaching at the American University of Beirut, Hariri’s killing should be read as part of an increasingly unstable Middle East.

“I’m not at all convinced that Syrians per se are behind this attack,” Henry explains. Hariri’s assassination was a sign that the power structure in Syria was weakening and that President Bashar was no longer totally in control.

“If a Syrian hand has to be found behind this attack it must be found with the separate faction that operates inside the country’s secret service, like those linked to Lebanon’s Amal and Hezbollah,” Henry says.

The two Shiite resistance organizations both enjoy Syria’s support but are often at each other’s throat. Amal, an indigenous Islamic group, operates mostly in southern Lebanon and some urban areas like Beirut. The Hezbollah is dominant in the Beqaa Valley and the southern districts of Beirut. It was formed in 1982 when Syria, in a horse-trade with Iran for its oil, allowed some 1,000 Pasdran-Iranian revolutionary guards to set up shop in the Syrian occupied eastern part of the country.

The anti-American and anti-Western European Hezbollah is active in southern Lebanon. Iran recruited hundreds of young members of Lebanon’s Al-Da’wa—a Shiite fundamentalist group—and members of Islamic Amal, an offshoot of Amal. In 1985 the leadership of Hezbollah pledged allegiance to Khomeini and to the ideal of an Islamic state in Lebanon. Hezbollah was also responsible for a series of bombings in Beirut, which killed hundreds of French and American Marines and led to the withdrawal of the U.S. and French peace contingents from that country.

The idea that Shiites are trying to muscle in on Lebanon is not new even to King Abdullah of Jordan. Talking to the Washington Post last December, the Hashemite ruler affirmed that Iran was attempting to “create a Shiite crescent from Iran to Syria, and Lebanon.” Although he immediately retracted his remarks following a firestorm unleashed by the Iranians, the monarch gave voice to an unspoken regional concern: Shiite control of Iraq could jump-start militant Shiite-based alliances in other countries in the Middle East.

Even as he tries to disprove King Abdullah’s theory, Mourhaf Jouejati, a Syrian foreign policy expert and director of the Middle East program at George Washington University, admits the king’s thesis isn’t far-fetched. Jouejati writes in an online periodical that Shiite dominance in Iraq could fill the divide—political and geographical —that runs between Iran and Syria, where the Allawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, still holds power and has been wary of the transition of power from Hafiz el-Assad to his son Bashar.

The extent of Iran’s Shiite reach could be bolstered by Lebanese Shiites and the Damascus-backed Hezbollahs. The specter of Iranian-Shiite influence is so credible, says Jouejati, that Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait—which all have a sizeable and repressed Shiite communities -- tried unsuccessfully to delay the Iraqi elections.

Lebanon, where Shiites are among the poorest of the poor, is a fertile ground for the “Shiite crescent.” In a country famous as an international tax haven, poor people are hit with an overbearing gasoline tax—40 percent of the consumer price.

Last May, reacting to a government announcement of a new tax hike on gasoline, Shiites of Beirut’s southern neighborhoods took to the streets, triggering a riot that led to the death of six people and left the neighborhood of Hay al-Soulom ablaze. The speed with which the riot spread, like that of burning oil on water, led many observers to believe a hidden hand was directing it. Then came the Hariri assassination.


Paolo Pontoniere is the San Francisco-based correspondent of Focus, Italy’s leading monthly magazine. e

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Gang-busting Chicago cop now hunts for insurgents
Jim Roussell finds that cracking the case as a Marine in Iraq isn't much different from tracking hometown crooks

By Mike Dorning, Tribune correspondent. Staff reporter David Heinzmann contributed from Chicago
Published February 27, 2005


MAHMOUDIYA, Iraq -- Jim Roussell and the Marines he works with broke the Abu Ali cell of the Iraqi insurgency in much the same way he caught gang leaders on Chicago's West Side.

In the so-called Triangle of Death, where insurgents kidnap and kill along the highways that connect Baghdad to the south, the Marine reservist and Chicago police sergeant is using the investigative skills he honed over years of pursuing street gangs such as the Four Corner Hustlers, the Conservative Vice Lords and the New Breeds.

He sees familiar tactics in his current assignment. Iraq is a world where the enemy hides in plain sight, using street names to cloak his identity and intimidation to protect it.

"The thing they're most afraid of is for us to know who they are and where they sleep at night," said Roussell, a chief warrant officer 5 in the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, a reserve unit with headquarters on the Northwest Side. "They're not so much afraid of airplanes and artillery."

Many of the most effective techniques against those insurgents are more familiar to Roussell's old colleagues in the Chicago Police Department's Austin District than Marines drilled in taking ground from the enemy and defending hilltops.

The tools include painstaking searches for connections between myriad pieces of information and patiently repeated sweeps of neighborhoods to overcome potential witnesses' hesitation to come forward. They depend on quick assessment of truthfulness and the ability to cultivate inside informants who may be motivated by money, a desire for leniency or, often, revenge.

Except for the sandbagged windows and the bunk beds in back, Roussell's makeshift work space would not look out of place in an urban police station. There are wanted posters and maps with pushpins on the walls, fluorescent lights above and, to the side, a large coffee urn that is always percolating.

The diagrams on the computer screens are similar to those used by a big-city gang intelligence unit: solid and dashed lines charting potential ties among suspected insurgents and their mechanisms of support. Colored emblems represent common links such as meeting places, mosques attended, weapons dealers, sources of financing and phone calls made back and forth.

Unraveling a cell

The process of unraveling an insurgent cell can look much like a successful criminal investigation. A lucky break made possible by careful attention to detail. An extended stakeout with long-lens cameras. Call records retrieved from recovered cell phones. Detainees who implicate others once they are in custody. And a slow progression up the organization's food chain.

The parallels, Roussell said, "are not 100 percent. But there are a lot."

Six-foot-3, lean and lanky, Roussell has an expressive face. His eyes dart playfully behind his glasses as he speaks. At 53, his thick, straight hair has grayed.

He is a student of military theory who speaks knowledgeably and enthusiastically about emerging concepts of counterinsurgency warfare. He requested special permission to return from retirement from the Marine Reserves so he could serve with his unit in Iraq.

As part of his annual reserve duty, Roussell sometimes worked as a member of the enemy "Red Cell" in war games at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Virginia and gained a deeper appreciation for the power of insurgent-style hit-and-run attacks.

In the Police Department, Roussell spent 13 years with the gang unit in the Austin District, including the early 1990s, when crack cocaine swept into Chicago and produced an epidemic of violence. In 2001 he moved to an assignment at O'Hare International Airport.

On the force, Roussell "keeps an even head about things," said police Capt. Joe Gorzkowski, his former boss in the Austin District. "He was always very calm and very smart. I've worked with a lot of sergeants over the years and, by far, he would be one of my top guys."

Roussell was almost obsessively organized, Gorzkowski said, creating a system to keep track of the gang players on the West Side, and was adept at understanding "the workings of the gangs and the major individuals involved."

Last August, Roussell arrived in Iraq as part of the advance party for the 2/24. The unit was assigned to 700 square miles between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers just south of Baghdad. An elaborate system of canals, some of them dating to ancient Babylon, crisscrosses the region, irrigating groves of date palms and orange trees.

The area has been a wellspring of support for the anti-American insurgency. It is home to influential families from the Sunni sect that dominated under Saddam Hussein, as well as many former officers in the regime's military and security services.

Straddling highways that function as supply routes to the Iraqi capital from the Persian Gulf ports, the area is the strategic "Throat of Baghdad."

Insurgents have clutched at it, attacking convoys on the highway the military uses. On the main roads that civilians use, insurgents kidnap and kill foreigners as well as Iraqis they suspect of being coalition contractors or members of the new Iraqi security forces. Insurgents reportedly established a checkpoint on a local highway as recently as last week.

Last year the region's Iraqi police force collapsed under pressure from insurgents and has yet to be reconstituted. The Iraqi army is staffing some of the vacated police stations.

Regaining control

When the Marines arrived last year, Lt. Col. Mark Smith, the battalion commander, was determined to regain control. He also wanted to block the insurgents massed across the Euphrates River in Fallujah from falling back to the region once an impending offensive on the city began in November.

Smith decided to break with the previous unit's approach and ordered companies to establish satellite bases in the region's two other main towns, creating a 24-hour presence. He sent out Marines on regular foot patrols in the same areas, with instructions to get to know residents and try to develop sources as a beat cop would.

The commander, an Indiana state trooper in civilian life, describes it as "community policing at a military level." More than 70 of the 1,100-member battalion are police officers, including several from the Chicago Police Department.

That approach provides a steady supply of ground-level information to Roussell, offering a more complete picture of activity in the area.

"It's just an ever-expanding mosaic. You're putting more pieces in it until, finally, you can say, `I see a pattern. I see how it's connected,'" said Roussell, the battalion's assistant intelligence officer.

Though the investigation of the Abu Ali cell did not begin with a tip from a patrol, its twists and turns--and the opening it provided to a larger insurgent organization--illustrate how the unit's work can mirror the flow of a conventional criminal case.

The first break was a video recorder discovered in late November by a Marine sniper team that fired on a vehicle as it tried to attack a military convoy. After crashing into a utility pole, the occupants escaped but left the recorder. Video taken that morning showed masked, armed men threatening an Iraqi police officer and forcing him to write a letter of resignation before releasing him.

A day later, Cpl. Nicholas Cimmarusti was sitting in on an interrogation of a motorist whom Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint had deemed suspicious and detained because he had a handgun. The stripes on the detainee's sweater seemed familiar.

"It hit me like a ton of bricks: This guy is wearing the same exact sweater as in the video," said Cimmarusti, 25, an intelligence analyst who in civilian life is a carpenter in Rosemont, Ill. "We showed the guy the video, and he broke right there. He put down his head and he knew he was beat."

The detainee was Abu Ali, the cell leader. The handgun belonged to the police officer who was forced to resign.

"He told us a lot," Roussell said.

Abu Ali didn't only give up the others in the video. He also identified his weapons supplier and a meeting place that the dealer and others involved in the insurgency used at a market in the nearby town of Rashid.

By mid-December, a 12-member Marine sniper team moved into the second floor of a police station a few hundred yards from the market. For four days they kept the meeting site under surveillance, photographing people as they came and went.

Then the Marines raided the site. Among those detained was a suspected financial conduit, caught with a bank statement showing more than $25 million had passed through his account in a month, Roussell said. The raid provided more leads.

"We're trying to work our way up the chain, the same way you would with a street gang," Roussell said.

In six months, the battalion has detained more than 1,000 people and sent more than 600 to the coalition's prison system for alleged insurgent activity.

They have identified more than 20 insurgent cells, typically small bands with hard-core memberships of 7 to 20 people. But, Roussell acknowledges, "That's the tip of the iceberg. There are probably nine more for each one we've identified."

"Jim [Roussell] really understood the fight here. He had a lot of influence," said Lt. Col. Brian Shinkle, the battalion's judge advocate and Edwards County state's attorney, who is closely involved in decisions on targeting and detaining suspected insurgents.

He added: "He came in, looked around and said, `I know this.' He knew who we needed to pick up, why we needed to pick them up and how that was going to break the cell."


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Picking up pieces of life
By Kwame Patterson Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted 2/26/2005
Under a blanket of gray clouds and swirling winds, a crowd of city officials and residents gathered in front of the Prospect Heights city hall Friday to welcome home one of their local boys.

Lance Cpl. Patrick Hood, 21, returned home Thursday after serving as a U.S. Marine Corps reservist in Iraq for more than two years.

"I'm very happy to be back," Hood said. "It's just like, wow, to be home again. I'm home for good unless activated again."

At 19, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, where he was placed in the Marine Wing Communications Squadron 48 Division.

Mayor Rodney Pace said he has known Hood since he was 4 years old and throwing a thank-you party is the least the city could do for a hero.

"He's a great kid. No, he's not a kid, he's a man now," Pace said.

As a man, Hood said, he will now begin looking to the future for riches and education.

"I want to go to college and major in business and get into real estate," Hood said. "I want to be very rich. It seems those two things together would help to achieve it."

In addition, after being pushed beyond the limit while in Iraq, Hood said, his self-expectations have changed.

"Over there people expect more out of us," Hood said. "As a Marine, you keep up with that expectation."

His mother, Geralyn Hood, is happy her son is home safe, but still worries about those still in Iraq.

There were no casualties in Hood's unit. However, being hurt or killed by an explosive was a constant fear, he said.

"At certain times, our camp got bombed over 137 times and everything shook," Hood said. "No one got hurt, but so many people could have gotten killed."

Now that Hood is back in the arms of his family and friends, he said he is excited to catch up on the things he missed while overseas.

"I turned 21 over there, so I'll be going out tonight," Hood said.

Home: Fear was constant while in Iraq, Marine says

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Breaking the Warrior Code <br />
By John R. Guardiano <br />
Published 2/11/2005 1:07:59 AM <br />
To his liberal blogger critics, he is a dangerous, cold-blooded &quot;psychopath&quot; who derives pleasure from sterile acts...

[thedrifter]

3/4 H&S Co. keeps infantry on track
Submitted by: 1st Marine Division
Story Identification #: 20052279593
Story by Lance Cpl. Paul Robbins Jr.



CAMP ABU GHURAYB, Iraq (Feb. 17, 2005) -- The efforts of infantry Marines are easily recognized through their constant patrols, checkpoints and presence within the city of Fallujah; but the vital support for operations in the city provided by the Marines of Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 1, are hidden to the eyes of the people.

The mission of 3/4's H&S Co. is to provide the line companies of their infantry battalion with the means to up the good fight.

“All of what we do is behind the scenes,” said Capt.Patryck J. Durham, 36, the commanding officer of H&S Co., 3/4, “We’re not the ones putting rounds on target, we’re the ones providing the rounds.”

This mission requires the more than 200 Marines of the company to provide the infantrymen inside the city with everything from transportation to hot food.

“We keep the battalion ready to fight,” said Staff Sgt. Michael N. Tellis, 31, the logistics chief for 3/4.

The company is responsible for the battalion’s food, water, electricity, fuel, ammunition, communication, maintenance, pay, mail, entitlements, transportation, accountability and many other crucial assets for efficiency and morale, according to Tellis, a native of Pensacola, Fla.

In addition to this, the company also provides its infantry Marines with an edge on the battlefield.

“We provide the enemy situation and vulnerabilities to the battalion,” said Staff Sgt. George A. Rogers, 28, the intelligence chief for 3/4.

Scout Snipers attached to the company provide valuable information on activities within the city, which the company uses to keep their Marines a step ahead of the enemy.

“We try and eliminate the fog of war on the battlefield to take away any uncertainty,” said Rogers, a native of Zebulon, N.C.

During any battle involving 3/4's Marines, the company provides another valuable tool to the fight; the command operations center.

The COC tracks the location of all units in the battalion, passes information, coordinates fire support, and keeps records of all radio traffic.

“During a firefight we are command and control,” said Master Gunnery Sgt. Karl W. Nugent, 43, the battalion operations chief, “We coordinate the battle on a larger scale.”

With a bird’s eye view of the battlefield, the COC coordinates artillery support, air support and leads nearby units into the fight.

The efforts of the company, although unseen by the people of Fallujah, do not go un-noticed by the infantry Marines they support.

“It’s nothing for us to go out and do what we do, knowing the support we have from the Marines of this company,” said 1st Sgt. Veney Cochran, 37, a native of Queens, N.Y., who serves as the company first sergeant of Company L.


Ellie

[ivalis]

this lance cpl must of been in iraq BEFORE the invasion, over 2 yrs? baa haa, one little slip in the facts can queer a whole story.

[thedrifter]

Marine's Last Mission Is Finally Over <br />
<br />
A marine has returned to Eagan, Minnesota after spending months on the front lines of Fallujah, Iraq. <br />
<br />
After two long tours of duty, Victor Harris’ final...

[thedrifter]

Doubts Linger on Aristide's Exit <br />
<br />
<br />
A year after Haiti's leader fled, some charge he was deposed by the U.S. Others say he resigned for lack of protection from rebels. <br />
<br />
By Carol J. Williams ...