Free Republic

WASHINGTON, July 20, 2006 — The morning of Feb. 20 was like any other for Air Force Office of Special Investigations Special Agent Adele Loar, who was assigned to the Strategic Counterintelligence Directorate in Baghdad, Iraq. Her mission, along with the joint team assembled there, was to gather information from Iraqi civilian sources to ascertain current threats to coalition forces. Performing a mission for which she is trained and one that she loves, Loar said it did not matter when or where she worked or the dangers she might face. She especially reveled in the opportunity to be working on...

WASHINGTON - On the eve of the nation's noisiest holiday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission responded to growing fireworks injuries by quietly reopening the question of how it should police explosives for backyard entertainment. Without a public meeting, the three commissioners voted unanimously by ballot late Friday to begin a study of whether to tighten their regulation of fireworks, commission spokesman Scott Wolfson announced Monday. Their notice seeking public comment will appear soon in the Federal Register. The notice cited a disturbing increase in injuries and a decrease in compliance with safety regulations as reasons for the first major review...

Her son, 3 others rammed in DWI BY RICHARD WEIR DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER The mother of a young bouncer mowed down by an alleged drunken teen who drove his Jaguar into a crowd outside the Glen Cove Golf Club said yesterday that seeing her son in the hospital is "heartbreaking." Maureen Basdavanos spoke before the arraignment of 19-year-old Sayed Khaled El-Waraky, the Virginia college student accused of turning his luxury car into a weapon and plowing it into her son, Sean, 22, and three other young men. Sean Basdavanos of Glen Cove, a part-time bouncer at the golf club's...

BAGHDAD, June 12, 2006 – Abu Musab al-Zarqawi died of blast injuries sustained by the coalition bombing of his safe house June 7, coalition officials said today. The officials also said that DNA testing proves that the body is that of the terrorist leader. "We have clear evidence he died of blast injuries," said Army Dr. (Col.) Steve Jones, the command surgeon in Iraq. "There is no evidence to suggest that he was beaten and I have no reason to suspect that happened." Jones and coalition military spokesman Army Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell briefed reporters on the results of the...

A man who was competing in a jet boat competition on Lake Ming died after he lost control of his vessel and was thrown to the ground as it went more than 130 mph, authorities said. Edward Jay Wallace, 43, of Las Vegas, was pronounced dead at 8:40 p.m. Saturday from injuries he sustained in the crash earlier that day, according to the Kern County coroner's office. Wallace was competing in the last semifinals race of a National Jet Boat Association weekend event called May Shootout when the throttle on his boat likely got stuck, organizers said. Going more than...

WASHINGTON, May 1, 2006 – For the past two and a half years, veterans of wars past have been helping heal the latest generation of wounded troops every Friday in a basement steakhouse here. Members of Disabled American Veterans help a wounded servicemember before the final Friday night dinner for wounded troops at Fran O'Brien's steakhouse in downtown Washington, D.C. Groups like DAV and Helping Our Heroes Foundation bring dozens of wounded troops out to the Friday dinners, which now will be held at various locations in the nation's capital, beginning May 5. Photo by Paul X. Rutz  (Click photo...

HADITHA, Iraq (April 6, 2006) -- Lance Cpl. Matt Calvert accepts the wound he received March 25 from a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Iraq. It comes with the territory of being a Marine in a combat zone. The infantryman from Blue Springs, Mo., said he was unfazed by the wound, caused when insurgents attacked his unit’s patrol in western Al Anbar Province. “I did not hear the insurgent fire the RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) until the round exploded against the wall near me,” said Calvert, 22. Calvert was injured when shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade caught him in the chest and...

PINE VALLEY – A race to avoid the Border Patrol yesterday ended when a speeding car flipped and ejected five passengers, killing one of them, authorities said. Three of the four survivors were hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, said Officer Brian Pennings of the California Highway Patrol. The fourth survivor was less seriously injured. The car, a blue Ford Probe, failed to stop at a checkpoint on westbound Interstate 8 east of Pine Valley, said Richard Kite of the Border Patrol. He said agents headed after the Probe and came upon it, overturned, on Olde Highway 80 just west of Pine...

Hi ya'll - I'm new here so correct me if I am out of line with posting this here. I invite you to please visit our website (very easy one - only one page plus one additional page for a February newsletter update) to see what it is we are doing. Basically we purchase basic laptops and add webcams with mics on them so they can stay in contact with their family and friends, play games, etc. Also accept PC games and original playstation games as a lady in Georgia packed up her family's playstation and sent it to me...

AL ASAD, Iraq (Feb. 7, 2006) -- On Jan. 5, a suicide bomber tried to interrupt Iraq's rebuilding process at a police academy in Ramadi, but honor, courage and commitment by Iraqis and Marines alike was the only lasting result from the attack. The bond between one Marine, Cpl. Brendan N. Poelaert, a military working dog handler with 5th Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment Provisional Military Police Battalion, and an East Kingston, N.H., native, and his MWD, Flapoor, a 4-year-old Belgium Malinos, came through the carnage unscathed, even if the pair did not. Poelaert, an Exeter High School graduate, joined the...

As if two bad knees aren't bad enough for the Steelers, now this: The thumb on Ben Roethlisberger's throwing hand is causing discomfort. "It is pretty painful," he said prior to Thursday's practice, in which he participated with gloves on both hands. Roethlisberger, who missed three consecutive games while healing from arthroscopic surgery on his right knee, returned to the lineup Monday night in a 26-7 loss to the Colts in Indianapolis, where he sustained the thumb injury. The second-year quarterback wouldn't talk about the extent of the injury. But he said the thumb was sore and that the training...

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (Oct. 25, 2005) -- The Marines of Iraqi Army Platoon, Echo Company, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, clashed with insurgents in the month leading up to the unit’s relief in place. Nearing the end of their seven-month deployment and after spending more than a month in Ferris Town and Al Amariyah in support of Operation Southern Fire, Sgt. Joe Gonsalez, platoon sergeant, IA Platoon, was conducting a familiarization foot patrol in Al Amariyah with the incoming team from 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. On Oct. 2, as the patrol came to a halt in front of Al Amariyah’s...

10/14/2005 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- Should deployed troops need on the spot surgery, there is a five-person mobile forward surgical team on standby, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice to help them. The team -- an MFST -- can deploy in 24 to 48 hours. It is the smallest forward-deployable surgical team that can do field surgery. The team, part of the 379th Expeditionary Medical Group, has been deployed here for a month. It has performed 38 operations and seen 107 clinic patients. Once on location, the team can set up to operate within 15 minutes of arrival....

40 Hurt as Plane Runs into Turbulence Some 40 passengers and crewmembers were hurt when a Korean airliner flying from Bali, Indonesia to Incheon International Airport suddenly lost altitude in turbulence.  Korean Air and the Seoul Regional Aviation Administration said Thursday that Korean Air Flight 630, which took off from Bali's Denpasar Airport at 4:15 a.m., ran into "clear air turbulence" while cruising at 38,000 feet just before entering Malaysian airspace. The aircraft suddenly dropped about 100 meters. Four of the 257 passengers sustained injuries like cuts to their foreheads when they hit their heads on the overhead baggage...

A deliberately set bomb blast has injured 13-2 critically-in the capitol of Trinidan and Tobago. A man was seen placing a parcel in a dumpster shortly before the container exploded.

The Pinellas County medical examiner's office in Florida plans to release its autopsy report tomorrow on Terri Schiavo – findings her family hopes will shed light on the cause of the collapse that left her severely brain-damaged 15 years ago. Schiavo, 41, died March 31, nearly two weeks after the feeding tube that had kept her alive was removed under a court order obtained by her husband, Michael Schiavo. Her death ended a bitter legal battle between Michael Schiavo, who said his wife did not want to be kept alive artificially, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. Both Michael...

As it says in the title. More than a dozen known dead, 100's injured. The danger to our military and to us as citizens due to Newseek's irresponsible lies. They need to be sued individually and as a class action. Unlawful death and injury is serious. The editors and writers also must be sued individually.

TWO people were injured by centipedes, and no fewer than 22 suffered mishaps involving nightwear. Britain is a perilous place in all sorts of unusual ways, according to new statistics on hospital admissions. The Department of Health data, reported in The Times newspaper, also included people requiring hospital treatment in Britain for accidents which happened overseas. Thus, of the near-million people seen by emergency hospital staff in the 12 months to April 2004, six had been stung by scorpions, 451 had been stung by hornets and 24 had been bitten by rats. The house was no haven, with nine needing...

Cynthia Piccione could barely look at her son, a once-strapping Marine lying helpless in a bed from a grenade wound to his head. Lance Cpl. Raymond Preston Warren, 23, couldn't move. Couldn't talk. Couldn't speak. But there was Mom -- from a world far away. "He was like a pumpkin head. His face was so swollen you couldn't see his features," recalled Piccione, 41, of Northridge, of her visit to see her son at a naval hospital in June. "I said, 'It's Mom, it's Mom.' "And a tear came from his eyes as he squeezed my hand." Warren is one...

Running out of places to care for patients, London's busiest hospital emergency room shut its doors to all but the most severe injuries from outside the city for the first time in its history last week. Two trauma patients had to be diverted during the shutdown, with one patient sent to a hospital in Toronto and the other to Hamilton. The situation hit amid recent reports some London patients have had to wait as long as three days for a hospital bed to become available. "We were in a crisis situation," said Dr. Gary Joubert, chief of emergency medicine for...