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Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

All too often all we get are the bad stories about this war on terror from our Mainstream Media. Not only that but we only hear about our allies when they are quitting their support for US led efforts to combat terror in the world and never when they are in support or do something to help the effort. So, I suppose it isn't beyond belief that we never heard this heartwarming story anywhere in the US Media. For the last two years, Fran O'Brien's Steak house in Washington D.C. has treated our wounded servicemen from Walter Reed Army Medical...

Joe Gromelski / S&S Italian Ambassador to the U.S. Gianni Castellaneta and his wife, Lila, talk with Sgt. Neil Duncan, right, of Minneapolis, Minn., and Spc. Rob Lliteras of Tampa, Fla., during a dinner Friday night for wounded U.S. servicemembers at the Italian Embassy in Washington, D.C. Click here for more photos from the event. ARLINGTON, Va. — Grazie, Italia. You have fulfilled the wish of American Sgt. Timothy Gustafson. “Now I can say I’ve eaten real Italian lasagna,” Gustafson, a Tennessee National Guardsman, said Friday night at the Italian Embassy in Washington, D.C.Gustafson, forward observer for the 278th...

Italian Ambassador Welcomes Wounded Troops for Dinner By Paul X. RutzAmerican Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, May 20, 2006 – Beneath the Italian Embassy's clear glass rotunda, wounded servicemembers and their families accepted the ambassador's offer to host them for an evening of food, fellowship and song here yesterday. Italian officers speak with American troops and their families at the Italian Embassy in Washington, May 19. The American servicemembers are severely injured patients recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the Naval Medical Center in nearby Bethesda, Md. Photo by Paul X. Rutz  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution...

“You’re killing us,” a Hilton Deputy CEO told a JINSA supporter who managed to break through the telephone blockade. Would that it was true. You - our readers plus thousands of others infuriated by the Hilton’s tossing of Fran O’Brien’s Stadium Steakhouse Restaurant in Washington, home of dinners for wounded Iraq and Afghanistan vets - made Hilton’s life extremely unpleasant for a while. They turned off e-mails and fielded phone calls from former Hilton Honors cardholders. They got negative - and soldiers got positive - media coverage from The Washington Post, The Washington Times, NBC Nightly News, National Review Online...

Iraqi troops smash alleged terror cell in BaghdadBaghdad, November 19 - A terrorist cell planning an attack on the Italian embassy in Baghdad has been smashed by Iraqi security forces, American military officials in the Iraqi capital said on Saturday . The officials said Iraqi troops acting on US intelligence information moved against the alleged terrorists four days ago, arresting five suspects . The Iraqi soldiers also seized two vehicles which the group was planning to use in the attack on the embassy building, they said . The officials gave no other details of the operation . The Iraqi Defence...

A rocket or mortar round has struck the Italian embassy in Baghdad causing structural damage but no injuries, Italian news agency ANSA reported late on Wednesday. Witnesses said the missile hit the second floor of the building, ANSA reported. Italian forces and representatives have been on high alert in Iraq since a suicide attack killed 19 Italians in the southern city of Nassiriya earlier this month. Last week the US military said they found several rockets stashed in a street close to the Italian embassy in Baghdad. About 2,300 Italian troops are in southern Iraq, many based in Nassiriya which...