Free Republic

2/25/2010 - SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) -- The members of Sheppard Air Force base learned about the legacy of Buffalo Soldiers during a banquet Feb. 19 here. Buffalo Soldiers were the first African Americans to serve in the "regular" U.S. Army immediately after the Civil War. "The Buffalo soldiers were mostly former slaves from all over the nation, but a lot of them were from the South," said Trooper Fred Gray, the former president of the Lawton-Fort Sill, Okla. Chapter of the 9th and 10th Horse Cavalry Association of the Buffalo Soldiers. "They made up about 20 percent...

A statement shown on screen on An-Nabaa television, regarded as close to the Islamists, said: "Fajr Libya announces that it totally controls Tripoli international airport." Earlier on Saturday, leaders of the Islamist coalition, partly comprising men from Misrata, east of Tripoli, said their forces were advancing on the airport, having taken a bridge and a military base. The strategic site 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the Libyan capital, has been shut since July 13 amid skirmishes between the Islamists and the Zintan force, allies of rogue general Khalifa Haftar, based at Benghazi in eastern Libya and hostile to the...