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MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va(Aug. 22, 2005) -- Throughout the annals of Marine Corps history, inspired quotations have framed the heroics of great Marines, transforming passing moments into epic legends to be forever retold and celebrated by the generations of warriors who follow. Never to be forgotten is the rallying cry of Gunnery Sgt. Dan Daly at the Battle of Belleau Wood, France, on June 4, 1918: “Come on you son’s of bitches! Do you want to live forever?” [snip] So too will a contemporary Marine be remembered, not only for his extraordinary act of courage and composure under...

"A Marine Came For Me" David J. Danelo Proceedings, October 2005 Discuss this article in the eForum. The odyssey of Marine Corporal Ross Craft (center) began with his hunt to find his aunt and uncle, Diane and Richard Angelico, who were missing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR On 30 August, the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, shattered two levees, and flooded New Orleans, a local television station ran footage of a Marine on a jet ski zipping through the floodwaters guiding rescue boats to safe evacuation routes. Corporal Ross Craft, a...

The Tohono O'odham Nation is grieving the death of a 20-year-old tribal member killed in action in Iraq. Pfc. Seferino Reyna, an Army combat engineer and father of two, died Sunday when his vehicle was hit by a homemade bomb near Taji, about 20 miles northwest of Baghdad. "This is a tragic loss for the Reyna family, and the entire Tohono O'odham Nation mourns," said Vivian Juan-Saunders, chairwoman of the nation. Reyna was the first O'odham member killed in Iraq. He is the 21st service member of American Indian or native Alaskan descent to die in Iraq or Afghanistan, according...

Special operations forces eye terrorists By Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES August 12, 2005 U.S. Special Operations Command has drafted a war plan that sets up procedures for how its commandos will work with other regional commands across the globe to hunt for senior Islamic terrorists. The complex plan from SoCom in Tampa, Fla., has been in the works since summer 2002, when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed a secret directive authorizing it. His memo directed SoCom to come up with a plan for dispatching special operations forces on quick notice to virtually any spot in the world to...

HIT, Iraq (August 5, 2005) -- Marines with 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment have a new weapon in the war against terrorism and it is simple, effective and voluntary. The tip lines provided by Regimental Combat Team-2 allows citizens here and in surrounding communities to assist in the fight to make their city safe and secure while remaining anonymous and safe from reprisal from insurgents. Since March, a tip line was provided for the Hadithah area, which proved ineffective and unsecure. Two new lines were installed a few weeks ago and are ringing off the hook. “We have been advertising...

New York (July 29, 2005) -- Marines from 6th Communication Battalion joined officers of the 101st and 75th precincts of the New York Police Department in teaching children about leadership and drug awareness through the Drug Education For Youth (DEFY) program held at Floyd Bennett Field, recently. The Marines ran the program from July 5 to July 15. The program, which focuses on building the self-esteem of inner city children ages nine through 13, was created to help the children resist the temptation of drugs and gangs. During the program, groups of children from Far Rockaway and East Brooklyn participated...

In battle, one of the hardest challenges is saving the wounded. Medical professionals encounter injuries not normally seen in peacetime, and many times see multiple life-threatening injures requiring immediate treatment on the battlefield. Another problem is moving patients across hot desert sands on bumpy roads in Iraq, which can be logistically challenging and uncomfortable for the patient. And there is always the danger of roadside bombs. To solve these problems, military aeromedical planners developed what is now an efficient medical evacuation system that moves patients from where they were injured to definitive care quickly and safely. Along the way, patients...

BALAD, Iraq, July 29, 2005 – Bernd and Virginia Zoller are two full-time Army Reserve officers with a lot in common, pulling military duty in an uncommon place. First off, the Zollers share the same rank -- lieutenant colonel -- and both are public affairs officers. "We were promoted together here on Dec. 24 in this room," Lt. Col. Virginia Zoller said during a July 27 interview with American Forces Press Service here. And the pair has the same last name, because they're a couple. The Zollers will celebrate their first year of marriage Aug. 29. Virginia, 42, acknowledged she...

Servicemembers and veterans were among those who got a sneak peek of the film that promotional materials say tells the story of the "most spectacular rescue missions ever to take place in American history: 'the great raid on Cabanatuan.'" The raid was conducted to rescue the more than 500 U.S. prisoners of war who had survived the Bataan Death March through the jungles of the Philippines. Lt. Col. Henry A. Mucci, working from 6th Army Headquarters in Luzon in the Philippines, was charged with figuring out how to free the POWs before the Japanese army's "Kill All" policy was enforced....

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (July 29, 2005) -- The average day of a Marine deployed to a combat zone is filled with dangerous situations. Marines prepare on a daily basis to ensure that each situation is handled skillfully and diligently. Today’s Marines face tough and unexpected situations on a daily basis in combat zones throughout the world in the Global War on Terrorism. Staff Sgt. John M. Kennedy of Junction City, Ohio, was awarded the Purple Heart medal here, July 25, for wounds received while deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom with 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion,...

Turn on your audio and set back on watch this. This is about a real American hero, Captain Brian Chontosh, USMC. Unfortunately our biased news media doesn't cover items like this.

TAHOUA, Niger — Heat exhaustion, dehydration, diarrhea. “Stuff” happens when soldiers spend days in 120-degree desert heat in Third World conditions. That’s one reason soldiers from the 160th Forward Surgical Team were brought to Niger for Flintlock 05. There might still be dust from Iraq on their medical tent, one said, because that stuff is hard to get out. But inside it’s nearly as clean as a hospital. One week into their mission in Niger, the doctors and medics of the 160th FST had treated three cases of heat- or food-related misfortune. Flintlock 05 is a monthlong training exercise for...

<p>KARABILAH, Iraq — U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces battled insurgents on two fronts Saturday in a restive western province, killing about 50 militants in a dusty frontier town in the military's latest campaign to stop foreign fighters infiltrating from neighboring Syria (search).</p>

Marines train with troops from four other nations in Poland By Russ Rizzo, Stars and Stripes European edition, Friday, June 17, 2005 STUTTGART, Germany — For old-timers, it was a sign of the times. Infantry soldiers from Russia and Germany stormed the beaches of Poland, guns in hand, to keep the peace. U.S. Marines and their equivalents from four other countries practiced a beach landing and peacekeeping operations on the northern coast of Poland this week as part of the 33rd annual Baltic Operations maritime training program. Once on land in Ustka, Poland, the nearly 500 troops from the United...

NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. (AFPN) -- U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron, “Thunderbirds,” officials announced their new pilots for the 2006 demonstration season which includes the first female demonstration pilot in the 52-year history of the Thunderbirds. Capt. Nicole Malachowski, of the 494th Fighter Squadron at Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, joins the team as the first female demonstration pilot on any U.S. military high performance jet team. Lt. Col. Kevin Robbins, from the Air Force Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., and Capt. Ed Casey, of the 56th Training Squadron at Luke AFB, Ariz., also were selected for...

Sergeant, 23, Is First Woman Awarded Silver Star Since World War IIBy John J. Lumpkin Associated Press Writer Published: Jun 16, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - A 23-year-old sergeant with the Kentucky National Guard on Thursday became the first female soldier to receive the Silver Star - the nation's third-highest medal for valor - since World War II. Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, who is from Nashville, Tenn., but serves in a Kentucky unit, received the award for gallantry during a March 20 insurgent ambush on a convoy in Iraq. Two men from her unit, the 617th Military Police Company of Richmond,...

BAGHDAD , Iraq – Task Force Baghdad Soldiers provided medical treatment for two Iraqi children injured when a roadside improvised explosive device exploded in northwest Baghdad May 27. The children were hurt when a bomb targeting the Soldiers' patrol detonated prematurely near an Iraqi vehicle. The Soldiers tended to the children's injuries and sent them on their way. While the medics were helping the children, an Iraqi man brought his 4-year-old daughter to Soldiers providing security at the site. The little girl was bleeding from shrapnel wounds. The girl's father told the Soldiers his daughter had been playing with some...

Long lists of soldiers killed in wartime can have great emotional power, as anyone who has been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington can attest. However dignified and moving, though, in the end such a listing can really describe them only as a group: They wore the uniform and died in the service of their country. But who they were individually, how they served, what they left behind — that is more than a catalogue of names can convey. So here is the story behind just one of the names ''Nightline" will enumerate on Memorial Day: Sergeant Rafael Peralta...

“Memory n. 1. The mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experience; the ability to remember. 2. An act or instance of remembrance; a recollection… see smer in Appendix.” “smer – to remember. In Germanic murnon, to remember sorrowfully, in Old English murnan, to mourn.” I remember Chuck Meerholz and the day I was supposed to drive. After four months with B Company, 1st Battalion, 69th Armor; four months of on-the-job-training for a guy trained as an infantrymen, I was being taught to drive our tank. B Company was to participate in a big operation centered on the village of...

Knocked on his back by a burst of gunfire that hammered the body armor covering his chest in November in Fallujah, Marine Lance Cpl. Dimitrios Gavriel gave his corporal the thumbs-up and continued to cover the room where his attacker lay waiting. Within minutes, the 29-year-old Gavriel would be dead, killed by more bullets and a grenade tossed by the Iraqi insurgent who would also draw his last breath that day.

Steve Rasmussen stood earnestly, his voice cracking with emotion describing his father’s love for the U. S. Military Academy and his privilege to witness something that meant so much to his father with the hope it will mean the same to its new owner. His father, James Asa Rasmussen, USMA class of 1945, who died October 26, had a last wish of contributing his class ring to the Class Ring Memorial Program. His ring was included among the 12 present at the ring ceremony conducted at the Pease & Curren Refinery in Warwick , R.I. , March 8. In four...

BAGHDAD , Iraq – Acting on intelligence sources and tips provided by Iraqi citizens, Multi-National forces conducted simultaneous raids in the Rahwah and Karabilah regions to capture or kill terrorists within the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi network. Multiple sources of intelligence indicated that elements of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi terrorist network were operating in the area, including key lieutenants, suicide bombers, and a contingent of foreign fighters. Multi-National forces engaged and destroyed these targets. Operations against suspected foreign fighter strongholds resulted in killing over a dozen terrorists and foreign fighters. Specifically the bodies of three Saudis and one Moroccan have been...

MOSUL , Iraq – Soldiers from 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team) killed several terrorists and captured four people suspected of anti-Iraqi activities in northern Iraq Sunday in combined operations with Iraqi Security Forces. Soldiers from 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment were attacked by terrorists while conducting a raid in a village in northern Al Anbar Province. Iraqi Army and U.S. 2-14th Soldiers quickly overwhelmed the enemy. Following the attack, the units also discovered a weapons cache inside the building the terrorists had used. The suspects are in custody with no MNF or ISF injuries reported.

A British soldier has been killed in south Iraq after a military convoy was attacked, the Ministry of Defence says.Lt Karim Lueibi, of the Iraqi police, told AP news agency that a roadside bomb had exploded near the troops. An unknown number of casualties were airlifted from the scene in the Kahla area south of Amara on Sunday. Earlier this month, Anthony Wakefield became the 87th UK soldier to die during the conflict after a roadside bomb blast in the same area. The MoD says it is investigating the latest hostile action against UK forces and will not identify the...

 EAST BRIDGEWATER — For several weeks, resident Marjorie Winsor could not get Gordon M. Craig off her mind.Neither could American Legion Post 91 Commander Charles Gilbert.Winsor wanted to revive the memory of the hometown hero who sacrificed his life to save four other soldiers during the Korean War. Gilbert was thinking about him while researching his Memorial Day speech.Independently, they both contacted the veterans service office for help.As a result, the town is forming a committee to petition the state to have a bridge near Craig's childhood home named after him.There are only a few people left in town who...

A tribute to fallen HEROES  from the staff and visitors at FreeRepublic.com, FreedomUSA.org and Veterans for Constitutional Restoration (VetsCoR)  During the course of this country's history brave men and women have stepped forward from time to time, answering the country's call to fight against would-be tyrants, dictators and despots,  and to defend the individual freedom that is our birthright.  Many of these brave men and women have paid the ultimate price. It is to these brave men and women of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine that we dedicate this page, and to...

NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds of troops here for Fleet Week took time off Friday to attend two events to commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks - one a very public show of strength, the other quiet and private. Almost 300 members of the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard took part in the first event, a three-mile run around lower Manhattan followed by a wreath-laying ceremony beside the former World Trade Center site. As they stood under a cloudless sky at the site of the terrorist strikes, the group let out a shout that reverberated across the 16-acre...

Perched on a tree stump stool, Sam Ross grinned and cocked his head in the direction of the concrete slab dangling from the enormous crane parked in his newly laid gravel driveway. Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette Sam Ross sits in front of the handicap-accessible home being built for him near Dunbar, Fayette County, by Homes For Our Troops. Click photo for larger image. Moments later, the rectangle of prefabricated concrete swung past Ross' face, then slipped into place in the muddy pit in front of him. "What's happening?'' Ross asked yesterday, anxious for assurance that work truly had begun on the...

WEST POINT, N.Y. - Graduating U.S. Military Academy cadets - who came here just weeks before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks - were told Saturday they were a special group forged by historic events. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the class "one of the few since the early days of the Vietnam War who came to West Point in peace time, saw the nation transition to war and chose to stay, knowing you would raise your right hand and take an oath and swear to defend the constitution of a nation that was still...

ALTAMONT, New York (AP) -- A soldier held in Japanese prison camps in World War II secretly painted stars and stripes on pilfered paper hidden from his captors, then held the flag up high to greet American planes flying overhead when his camp was liberated. After returning home, Cpl. Millard Orsini consigned the object of his secret work to a closet. He rarely mentioned the war or the moldering flag, and died in 1978 from a heart attack. "He was really a hometown hero who got lost in the cracks," said Tony Ferraioli, who led the effort to restore the...

FRAMINGHAM -- When Collin Kelly arrived at Edgell Grove Cemetery to place flowers on soldiers' graves yesterday, he discovered a crowd of people and decades of emotions buried deep. The cemetery visit by the young boy, whose effort to honor dead veterans has made him a national media celebrity this past week, attracted a large group of onlookers: veterans, reporters, patriotic well-wishers and people grieving the loss of loved ones laid to rest at Edgell Grove.

TOMORROW NIGHT, in a special broadcast of ''Nightline," Ted Koppel will call the roll of the more than 900 US troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past 12 months. As each name is read, viewers will see a photograph of the fallen soldier. Executive producer Tom Bettag says the program is meant to remind Americans, ''regardless of their feelings about the war, that the men and women who have given their lives in our behalf are individuals with names and faces." Long lists of soldiers killed in wartime can have great emotional power, as anyone who...

HADITHA, Iraq - More than 1,000 Marines, sailors and soldiers are taking part in a counterinsurgency operation in Haditha, a Sunni-dominated trouble spot 140 miles north of Baghdad, the military said Friday. Two Marines have been killed in the operation, which began Wednesday. U.S. forces returned to Haditha less than two months after they thought they cleaned up the Euphrates River town. But insurgents assassinated the police chief and devastated his force more than a month ago, leaving Haditha without a security force. Iraqi troops also stayed clear of Haditha. Until Iraqi forces can handle security in places like Haditha,...

(snip, snip) "Do you ever take a half step back and say, 'Was this war really necessary?' Or you don't even go there?" asks Safer. "No, on a daily basis. Because it's a responsibility I have to my soldiers, because they're gonna ask me those questions," says Blickhan. "And no reporter can put it as blunt as an American paratrooper. 'Why are we here? Why are we doing this?' And I've gotta be able to answer that. In my heart, I've found an answer that it's worth it. And I've lost soldiers, and Americans are dying over there, and Iraqis...

The recent photo of U.S. Army Major Mark Bieger cradling a wounded Iraqi girl in his arms is one of those indelible images that puncture the often impenetrable fog of the war at the geo-strategic level. (For the story of the photo click here http://komotv.com/news/story.asp?ID=36687). This powerful photo contrasts with the negative media portrayals riveted into our minds about the Viet Nam War. One memorable Viet Nam war photo is the picture of children fleeing down a road from where a napalm bomb was dropped by the South Vietnamese Air Force on the village of Trang Bang where Viet Cong...

Sunday, May 01, 2005 The Battle For Mosul The Deuce-Four Fighting for Mosul Mosul, Northern Iraq As the new map of Iraq unfolds, a picture of progress emerges. The Iraqis who want freedom and democracy are gaining ground. From what I hear about the news back home, this might sound unreal. Nightly tallies of roadside IEDs and suicide car bombers driving headlong into crowds, like the Vietnam body counts on the Huntley-Brinkley Report, are the main summary of events, while most of this country is peaceful. There are seventeen provinces in Iraq, and more than ten are quiet. They are...

<p>Students at Kendall Demonstration Elementary School at Gallaudet University had used e-mail and a school Web log to get first-hand accounts of the insurgency in Iraq and the daily survival of a U.S. Marine stationed there.</p> <p>Yesterday, the 42 students met their personal link for the first time.</p>

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2005 – America today honored eight American servicemen who died trying to rescue American hostages in Iran 25 years ago. A ceremony here, on the 25th anniversary of their deaths, brought together the families of those killed, their comrades and those servicemembers who carry on the special operations mission. In November 1'7' Iranian militants took 53 Americans in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran hostage. It was the most egregious violation of the principles of diplomacy in the history of statecraft, L. Bruce Laingen, the highest-ranking American taken hostage, said at today's ceremony. On April 25, 1'80, the...

Sadly, watching the end of Hardball tonight, I just realized that today is the 25th anniversary of Operation Eagle Claw, the heroic, but doomed mission to rescue the American hostages held for over a year in the US embassy in Tehran.

The sergeant stationed just west of Baghdad was once again recounting the dangers of being on the front line - sometimes with dark humor. He referred to how the "muj" (mujahideen or insurgents) were the gang that couldn't shoot straight, but still represented a considerable threat. "They're horrible shots," he wrote in an e-mail to his family, "but every once in awhile they get lucky. We lost another Marine the other day." This is the first war in which American GIs and military families can communicate freely and in real time via e-mail and cellphone, while gathering endless amounts of...

WASHINGTON - It was a quarter-century ago this month, April 24, 1980, that the secret American raid into Iran to rescue 53 hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran collapsed in disaster on a make-shift airstrip in the middle of the Iranian desert. The embarrassingly public failure of the raid, code-named Operation Eagle Claw, was a low-water mark for the Carter administration and for our military as well, still struggling to get back on its feet in the wake of the debacle in Vietnam just five years before. Eight American servicemen died when the raid came apart with the fiery...

Seaman (SW) Brit L.J. Garrett stood in front of his family, friends and shipmates April 4, aboard USS Preble (DDG 88), and was awarded the Navy/Marine Corps Medal, the naval service’s one of the highest awards for extraordinary heroism. Garrett was awarded the medal for heroic acts he performed Aug. 31, 2004 while on a six-month deployment to the Arabian Gulf in support of Maritime Interception Operations. What happened that Tuesday in August, Garrett will never forget. While training a seaman on the destroyer’s flight deck, a mechanical failure caused a helicopter to crash onto the ship’s flight deck during...

WALTER REED ARMY MEDICAL CENTER, WASHINGTON - Members of the NFL's Denver Broncos football team and the team's cheerleader squad came to visit recovering war wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. and National Navel Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. on April 7. "We came to show our support for our heroes," said one player. He was speaking of the same group of "heroes" that former NFL football player Pat Tillman belonged to before he was killed while serving in the Global War o Terrorism in Afghanistan — the United States military. "This has been a very...

Johnny finally came marching home again on a rainy day in late March in the town of Quincy, Mass. The town turned out to pay its respects to Edward Alan Brudno and to 47 other hometown sons who made the ultimate sacrifice in a war no one wanted. Al Brudno was one of the longest-held American prisoners of war during Vietnam: He endured nearly eight years of torture and solitary confinement that began when he was shot down over North Vietnam in October 1965. He was 25 then. He survived to come home with the other POWs who were freed...

April 10, 2005 Hiram Lewis Announces Candidacy for U.S. Senate Against Byrd   by HNN Staff Charleston (HNN) — On the second anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to American forces, Hiram Lewis IV, an Army National Guard Captain, Iraq War Veteran, lawyer and 2004 Attorney General candidate announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate from the base of the Robert C. Byrd statute inside the State Capitol rotunda Saturday afternoon, April 9, 2005.   Stated Lewis: "My candidacy is not a personal vendetta against the senior Senator; rather it is simply time for a change. I am offering up...

Wounded in Fierce House-to-House Fighting, a Marine Tries to Recover. By NICK WATT TAOS, N.M., April 10, 2005 — Huddled in an abandoned house last November, Sgt. Jason Arellano gave his platoon a pep talk as they prepared to push deeper into insurgent-occupied Fallujah. "So they're right here in this area. There are going to be more and more as we push further down," he said. Arellano gave the speech after a Marine on an adjacent street had both his legs blown off by insurgents' grenades. "You don't want other squads giving speeches to their men about one of us,...

Michael Paterson was 45 years old when his Navy Reserve unit arrived in Iraq. He was virtually at the end of his Navy career. Paterson was more than a little surprised when he discovered he wouldn't be based at some rear area hospital where he could practice his advanced skills. He was headed to the front lines. His brothers in arms were the same age as his children. The other hospital corpsmen called him "Grandpa," and it was true. He had young grandchildren at home. When Paterson deployed into Iraq in 2003 with "follow-on" forces just behind the main invasion...