Free Republic

I worked on the PGK project while I was at Yuma Proving Ground.  A year ago, this article was published in defensenews.com: WASHINGTON — The US Army has awarded Orbital ATK with a $120 million contract modification to make kits that turn conventional 155mm artillery into a near-precision shell. The kits are meant to limit civilian casualties and collateral damage, allowing the use of artillery where it would have otherwise been ill-advised — in a congested area or near friendly forces.The guidance fuzes would be fielded to the Army, the Marine Corps, Australia and Canada. Deliveries are scheduled to...

On March 19, U.S. Marine Corps staff sergeant Louis Cardin, a field artilleryman assigned to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, died during an attack on Fire Base Bell outside of Makhmur, Iraq. Coincidentally, the U.S. Army is hard at work developing a farther-firing howitzer that could help keep artillery troops out of range of enemy forces. The Army is cooking up a suite of improvements could double the range of the existing M-777 howitzer. Right now the 155-millimeter gun, in service with the Army and Marines, can lob shells at targets up to 18 miles away.

PATERSON - For Father Joseph Orlandi, a U.S. Army chaplain recently stationed in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the potent declaration "War is hell" is no hollow cliche.  Over the past year, this tough-as-nails Army colonel, who also is pastor of St. Michael Parish here, lived in real time the horrors and stresses of war that TV cameras can't begin to capture adequately. While tending to the spiritual needs of U.S. troops in the deserts of the Middle East, Father Orlandi witnessed unspeakable images - like the carnage strewn across a Baghdad street after a car-bomb blast.  In both war-torn nations,...