Free Republic

Where danger is all around They started arriving in this dark and deadly part of the world a year ago. Young and old. Men and women. Plumbers, police officers and prison guards. The Virginia National Guardsmen from the 276th Engineer Battalion left their families. They left their jobs. They left their homes to help rebuild and protect Iraq, a country struggling with a robust insurgency. They found and destroyed roadside bombs. They protected other U.S. troops from suicide car bombers. They gave children school supplies and soccer balls. Meanwhile, insurgents persistently attacked the Virginia engineers with rockets, mortars and improvised...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE MAREZ, Iraq - Hunched and haggard, Sgt. Evan Byler hobbled around his camp in Northern Iraq yesterday, wondering how a suicide bomber could have infiltrated the chow hall. "It's kind of a shock that something like that was allowed" on the base, said Byler, a Fauquier County resident and member of the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion. "It is something we have been trying to prevent." "Basically, everyone is going to have to step up their alertness and have an eye out for anything suspicious. Home is coming up, but we still have a long way off." Byler...

In a unanimous decision Friday, the Indiana parole board voted to deny clemency to the country's most arrested man. But Virldeen Redmon, a 75-year-old who's had what seems to be a get-out-of-jail-free card for life, could still get out again. Nearly 400 arrests on Redmon’s rap sheet, nearly 40 are for drunk driving.