Free Republic

Calling Blood Type AB Donors We have received an urgent request from the United States Department of Defense for type AB plasma. We will be shipping them 100 units a week thru mid-August. We ask for your help at this time. As a blood type AB donor, the plasma in your body is universal – it can go to anyone of any blood type. Who uses plasma? Burn patients, trauma patients, even our troops wounded in battle. Type AB is also rare. Only 4% of the population is type AB, so you can imagine how in-demand your plasma must be....

Armed Forces Day "America Supports You" Saturday, May 19, 2007 President Harry S. Truman led the effort to establish a single holiday for citizens to come together and thank our military members for their patriotic service in support of our country. On August 31, 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced the creation of an Armed Forces Day to replace separate Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force Days. The single-day celebration stemmed from the unification of the Armed Forces under one department -- the Department of Defense.

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md., May 18, 2007 – Ask someone serving in the military, and you might be surprised to hear them tell you just how much Armed Forces Day means to them. As the country commemorates its 57th Armed Forces Day tomorrow, soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines say they’re grateful for a special day set aside to recognize them and their service. It’s particularly important, they say, while the country is at war. After 14 years in the Army and two deployments to the Middle East, Army Sgt. Robert Clark said he welcomes a day honoring the...

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2007 – Today’s servicemembers reflect the same determination shown by those who fought for America’s freedom more than 200 years ago, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in a message issued as the annual Armed Forces Day observance approaches. Armed Forces Day -- always the third Saturday in May -- is observed May 19 this year. Gates said many people are familiar with the opening of Thomas Paine’s treatise called “The Crisis,” written in defense of the then-fledgling American Revolution: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Less familiar, he said, is a later passage...

A jeweller shot in the chest during an armed robbery escaped injury because the bullet hit his mobile phone, a court heard yesterday. Shop manager Darren Prior, 25, was chasing the raider who had looted his shop of diamond rings worth £50,000. Despite the raider firing a "warning shot" past him, Mr Prior continued the pursuit down an alleyway, where the gunman suddenly stopped and turned before firing at him from just 20 feet away. Store manager Darren Prior was shot during an armed robbery, but escaped injury because the bullet hit his mobile phone

ABC’s "20/20" Seeking "Armed Citizen" Stories Friday, April 06, 2007 Gun ban groups often claim that private citizens rarely, if ever, use guns in self-defense. ABC News’ "20/20" is now putting that claim to the test, asking viewers to submit their own real-life "Armed Citizen" stories. ABC’s website asks: Have you ever defended yourself from a crime in your home, in your business, or in public by using a gun? Perhaps you warded off a potential attacker by simply showing a gun? If you’ve personally used a gun in a legitimate act of self-protection against a criminal attacker, we encourage...

Armed woman holds suspected burglar Friday, March 30, 2007By NADIA M. TAYLOR Staff Reporter A mother who had just dropped off her daughters at school Wednesday morning held a suspected robber at gunpoint after she returned home to find him in her south Mobile driveway, Mobile police said. Lelia Richardson left her Parkway Drive home at about 7 a.m. to take her two daughters to school, police spokesman Officer Eric Gallichant said Thursday. When she returned about 50 minutes later, she saw an unfamiliar car under her carport and the door to her home open. The door frame was busted...

Armed US police could be on London streets By Brendan Carlin and John Steele Last Updated: 10:01am GMT 06/02/2007 Armed foreign police could patrol the streets of London during the 2012 Olympics under an unprecedented scenario outlined by one of Scotland Yard’s most senior officers. Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, the man in charge of security preparations for the Games and Britain’s most senior Muslim police officer, also raised the prospect of British troops being drafted in to help with the huge security challenges. Security experts are privately debating how to protect the Olympics from terror attacks from Islamic extremist “jihadi”...

We are pleased to announce that Richard A. Wannemacher, Jr., Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs – National Cemetery Administration, has accepted our invitation to address the audience attending EchoTaps Worldwide 2007 at Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis, MN on May 19, 2007. VA Memorial Affairs is responsible for providing burial space for Veterans and their eligible family members; maintaining National Cemeteries as national shrines, sacred to the honor and memory of those interred or memorialized there; marking the graves of Veterans with a Government-provided headstone or marker; providing Presidential Memorial Certificates in...

President Bush says the U.S. needs to increase the size of Army and Marines, and says strategy and tactics in Iraq will change to meet the situation on the ground. Bush also said Wednesday that insurgents in Iraq thwarted U.S. efforts at "establishing security and stability throughout the country" in 2006. At a year-end news conference, Bush said the United States will "ask more of our Iraqi partners" in 2007, and he pledged to work with the new Democratic Congress, as well. Bush sidestepped one question _ whether he would order a so-called surge of troops in Iraq as a...

President Bush says the U.S. needs to increase the size of Army and Marines, and says strategy and tactics in Iraq will change to meet the situation on the ground. Bush also said Wednesday that insurgents in Iraq thwarted U.S. efforts at "establishing security and stability throughout the country" in 2006. At a year-end news conference, Bush said the United States will "ask more of our Iraqi partners" in 2007, and he pledged to work with the new Democratic Congress, as well. Bush sidestepped one question _ whether he would order a so-called surge of troops in Iraq as a...

Bolivia is on fire. The fiery democratic revolutionary babes of Santa Cruz are no more. Now, it’s angry citizens of The Media Luna - four provinces, led by Santa Cruz, fighting to the last man against the brutal expansionary communism of Evo Morales’ Bolivia. This is going well beyond peaceful demonstrations to the first stages of insurgency and maybe war. Revolutionary war. They are fighting tyranny. They’re fighting with axes, fists, and cudgels, in an action that began with a general strike Friday in four provinces against Morales’ effort to rewrite the constitution to maximize his own power. Attendence was...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2006 -- The Defense Department is focusing efforts to ensure servicemembers stationed overseas and in the United States know their options for voting in the 2006 congressional and local elections. Sept. 3-9 is Armed Forces Voters Week. Officials caution that this is the last safe week to submit a Federal Post Card Application, or request voter registration forms and absentee ballots that meet most state deadlines. The Defense Department is responsible for ensuring the right to vote for military members and their families, and also for U.S. citizens living overseas. It accomplishes this through the Federal Voting...

7/12/2006 - SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) -- Political freedom is something the military has defended since the founding of the United States. But, while free to participate in the political process, there are some rules military members need to know. "Our main job is to follow the orders that come down our chain of command, which has an elected official at the top," said Maj. Frank Minogue, chief of civil law for Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. "It would undermine our whole command structure if it appeared that the Air Force was supporting one side,...

WASHINGTON, July 3, 2006 – Major League Baseball's Washington Nationals honored members of the U.S. armed forces yesterday during pre-game festivities that highlighted the organization's annual military appreciation day. Eighteen new military recruits took the oath of enlistment; five veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Hurricane Katrina were honored; and fans were asked to show their support by sending a text message of support to the troops through the Defense Department's "America Supports You" program. "Baseball has a long history with the American military, dating back to World War II," said Josh Golden, the Nationals' manager for entertainment. In fact, more...

WASHINGTON, May 11, 2006 – The Armed Services YMCA honored individuals and organizations for their support of military families in 2005 at its 19th Annual Recognition Luncheon here today. Bryce Moorehouse, 11, shows Navy Force Master Chief Dave Pennington his art contest entry that earned first place during the Armed Services YMCA 19th Annual Recognition Luncheon in Washington. Bryce's mother, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Andrea Palermo, is stationed at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington. Photo by Samantha L. Quigley  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The ASYMCA provides social and support services for military families, organization officials said. Last...

Lawmakers seek to expand self-defense rights Associated Press ST. PAUL - Several Republican lawmakers are introducing legislation to expand the right of citizens to use deadly force against attackers. Court rulings in Minnesota have already recognized what's known as the Castle Doctrine, which is the notion that a person's home is their castle and they have a right to defend it against an imminent threat. But Representative Tony Cornish and Sen. Pat Pariseau want to enshrine that right in state law. They also want a broader definition of castle that includes personal vehicles, businesses and even public places. The lawmakers...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - David Copperfield has magically escaped getting robbed. The 49-year-old illusionist was walking with two female assistants to their tour bus after his show Sunday at a performing arts center when four teens pulled up in a black car, a police report said. Two armed robbers allegedly got out of the car and demanded the group's belongings. One woman handed over $400 from her pockets and the other gave up her purse with 200 euros, $100, her passport, plane tickets and a cell phone. Copperfield refused to empty his pockets, the report said. Copperfield says he...

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2006 – Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pointed today to two events that occurred on this date in history -- Col. Jimmy Doolittle's 1942 air raid on Tokyo and the San Francisco earthquake in 1906 and its aftermath -- as examples of America's spirit in the face of adversity. "I mention these moments of triumph and tragedy because they remind us of the character of the American people and how Americans, over time, can and do overcome what might seem to be insurmountable difficulties," Rumsfeld told Pentagon reporters. It's a spirit Rumsfeld said is embodied in today's...

Ultra-small particles loaded with medicine - and aimed with the precision of a rifle - are offering a promising new way to strike at cancer, according to researchers working at MIT and Brigham and Women's Hospital. In a paper to appear the week of April 10 in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team reports a way to custom design nanoparticles so they home in on dangerous cancer cells, then enter the cells to deliver lethal doses of chemotherapy. Normal, healthy cells remain unscathed. print this page email this page The team conducted...