Free Republic

Patrick Miller's Untold Story Susan Peters Private First Class Patrick Miller received the Silver Star and Purple Heart last spring. Now the military is recognizing the bravery of the soldier from Valley Center. When most of Kansas first heard about Patrick Miller, it was through the lens of an Iraqi TV camera, just one day after being taken as a prisoner of war. Minutes before his capture the 23-year-old father of two had just performed what some are calling the bravest act of the war. "The way the unit was designed and set up, we were supposed to be toward...

SILVER CITY -- There were no emotional tears shed, only a well-known ear-to-ear smile from former prisoner of war Cpl. Joseph Hudson when he was reunited Monday afternoon with two of the Marines who rescued him from captivity. "I'm just ecstatic," Hudson said with enthusiasm. "It's really awesome. These are my two heroes standing next to me." Hudson, Sgt. Sam Overton and Lance Cpl. Curney Russell, dressed in their Class A uniforms, solidified their friendship during Silver City's 30th annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball. The Marine Corps turned 228 years old Monday. Hudson first met Overton and Russell on April...

Jessica Lynch on now until 10 PM CST....good interview

<p>Nov. 17 issue — The Jessica Lynch blitz isn’t a feel-good celebration for everyone. Lynch miraculously survived the ambush on the Army’s 507th Maintenance Company. First Sgt. Robert Dowdy—scarcely a household name—was killed riding in the military vehicle along with her. His 14-year-old daughter, Kristy, swallows hard at the constant mentions of Jessica’s battle. “Don’t they know it was Dad’s Humvee?” she says. “Don’t they know it was Dad doing stuff?”</p>

Pfc. Patrick Miller stood his ground in battle with a malfunctioning weapon, feeding bullets into it by hand to protect two wounded comrades. Even after he was captured, he foiled his captors' attempts to get his radio frequency codes. For such actions, recounted in a release by the U.S. Army, Miller, a Valley Center native, was awarded the Silver Star -- the third-highest military award for heroism in combat. Miller, 23, also received a Purple Heart and Prisoner of War medals July 2 during an Independence Day celebration at Fort Bliss, Texas. "I'm not real worried about awards," Miller said...

Three Of Jessica Lynch's rescuers are dead. Also a member of the 507th Maintenance Company killed himself. July 7, Josh Speer (AP) A U.S. Marine who was part of the unit that helped rescue Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch died in a car crash on his first weekend home since returning from Iraq.Link to story August 23, David M. Tapper Killed in Afghanistan, the Navy SEAL was part of the Iraq team that rescued POW Jessica Lynch. Tapper, 32, died there Wednesday while conducting combat operations in a lawless province near the Pakistani border - an area where the military believes...

FORT CARSON, Colo. -- Pfc. Jessica Lynch is the celebrity soldier of the Iraq war. Pfc. Patrick Miller, a member of the same company captured with her in a ferocious firefight, remains one of its unsung heroes. Lynch, Miller and others in their convoy mistakenly drove into the vipers' nest of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, early on a March morning and were encircled by Iraqi fighters. In the ensuing swirl of chaos and shouting, wrong turns and unrelenting fire, Lynch's Humvee crashed, and she lay unconscious among her dead and dying comrades. It was Miller, a 23-year-old Army welder from...

Iraq: During one of the war's bloodiest battles, a young private saved fellow soldiers and then kept cool amid weeks of captivity. His name is Patrick Miller. FORT CARSON, Colo. -- Pfc. Jessica Lynch is the celebrity soldier of the Iraq war. Pfc. Patrick Miller, a member of the same company captured with her in a ferocious firefight, remains one of its unsung heroes.

<p>Shoshana Johnson deserves a lot more attention than she is getting. Three days ago, Johnson, an Army specialist who was shot in both legs during the firefight in Iraq that made another female soldier in her unit famous, was honored in Chicago by the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.</p>

507th weapon records gone Laura Cruz El Paso Times The ambush Killed # Pvt. Ruben Estrella-Soto, El Paso. # Chief Warrant Officer 2 Johnny Villareal Mata, Pecos. # Spc. Jamaal R. Addison, Roswell, Ga. # Pfc. Howard Johnson II, Mobile, Ala. # Spc. James Kiehl, Comfort, Texas. # Pvt. Brandon Sloan, Bedford Heights, Ohio. # Pfc. Lori Piestewa, Tuba City, Ariz. # Sgt. Donald R. Walters, Salem, Ore. # Master Sgt. Robert J. Dowdy, Cleveland. # Pfc. Edward Anguiano of the 3rd Forward Support Battalion. # Sgt. George Buggs of the 3rd Forward Support Battalion. Captured # Spc. Edgar Hernandez,...

The story of PFC Jessica Lynch in Iraq has revived the long dormant custom of training non-combat troops to defend themselves in battle. This was because, for the first time in many years, American army non-combat troops found themselves under fire during the Iraq campaign. Over the last twenty years, combat training for non-combat army troops has declined. Since 1978, U.S. Army basic training for men and women has been combined. This has led to a steady lowering of basic training standards so that the women can keep up. When basic training was all-male, it was pretty rugged, the idea...

FORT MONROE, Va., Sept. 4 — The Army is looking to instill the fighting spirit in some unlikely combatants — its cooks, mechanics and other support troops who are normally far from the front lines. Unlike the Marine Corps, whose credo is that every marine is first and foremost a rifleman, the Army has too many soldiers who have lost touch with their inner warrior, said Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, the Army's top training general. And, he said, it is time the Army borrowed a lesson from the Marines. "We've become too specialized," said General Byrnes, the head of Training...

<p>September 5, 2003 -- The father of a soldier killed in the ambush in Iraq that Pvt. Jessica Lynch survived is furious she's getting a $1 million book deal.</p> <p>"I don't have a problem about her writing about her life, but when it involves not only my son, but of the others injured, wounded or killed, why should one person make money over the deaths of other people?" said Randy Kiehl, the father of Army Spc. James Kiehl, who was killed in action.</p>

Slain Soldier's Father Criticizes Lynch's Book Deal Kiehl Says Lynch Is 'A Profiteer' POSTED: 9:02 AM CDT September 4, 2003 COMFORT, Texas -- The father of a Comfort soldier killed in an ambush in Iraq that former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch survived said that Lynch's million-dollar book deal will taint the memory of the soldiers killed in the ambush. "Pretty severe, isn't it?" Randy Kiehl (pictured, left), the father of Army Spc. James Kiehl, said in an exclusive interview with KSAT 12 News Wednesday from his home in Comfort. "That she makes money off the death of my...

SAVING JESSICA LYNCH (NBC) - Benjamin King ("S.W.A.T.") has joined the cast of the upcoming Peacock telefilm. He will play 38-year-old Master Sgt. Robert James Dowdy, who, like Lynch, was with the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Co. based out of Fort Bliss, Texas. Dowdy was one of the soldiers who died when their convoy was ambushed March 23.

The mass media's excessive fawning over Jessica Lynch and the other POW's from the second Gulf War is starting to have an effect on other soldiers, particularly those in the combat arms (infantry, armor, artillery, cavalry). Maintenance units, and other combat support units, such as the one ambushed by the Iraqis when Lynch and the others were captured, are notorious for their poor soldier skills, such as weapons maintenance, map reading, fire discipline, and 'combat driving.' The main reason these skills are not as well-developed in these support units is that for years the attitude of the soldiers has been...

<p>The American occupation authority in Iraq will equip the country's new army and police forces with Russian-design AK-47 assault rifles, officials said Friday.</p> <p>Bidding closed Friday for a contract to buy 34,000 of the rifles.</p> <p>The purchased weapons will supplement thousands of AK-47s seized in raids and other operations since the war started in Iraq in March.</p>

First time account from our soldiers themselves!

<p>Spc. Shoshanna Johnson took the attention in stride Sunday, chatting with well-wishers who asked her to sign autographs or to pose for photographs.</p> <p>A 30-year-old cook from El Paso, Texas, Johnson gained unwanted fame when she and seven soldiers in her unit, the 507th Maintenance Company out of Fort Bliss, Texas, were captured March 23 when their convoy was ambushed by Iraqis at Nasiriyah. Ten of her fellow soldiers were killed.</p>

By Gray Beverley Telegraph Staff Writer LIZELLA - About three days before Pfc. Jessica Lynch returned home to her family in West Virginia, one of her rescuers was visiting his parents in Lizella. Lt. Col. Jean Malone - who got back from the war about a month ago - said he was surprised by the attention given to the rescue operation, which he helped coordinate as deputy operations chief for the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade. "It's kind of surprising for me," Malone said Tuesday from his Camp Lejeune, N.C., home. "We didn't realize it was that big of a deal."...