Posted on 11/27/2006 8:07:09 AM PST by MNJohnnie
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1744168/posts
Great picture of some troops homecomming posted on this thread.
Oh, he’s here!’ Strykers return to open arms
It was 32 below zero on Fort Wainwright, a 102-degree difference from Baghdad, where hundreds of soldiers with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team had been just prior to their return to Fairbanks on Saturday.
But even with foggy and icy windows on the buses that brought them in from Eielson Air Force Base, all the soldiers knew was the warm welcome of friends and family.
Before the soldiers arrived at Fort Wainwright, Col. Robert Ball, deputy commander of U.S. Army Alaska, briefed the anxious and excited crowd of family and friends.
“Go easy on them. They’re tired and a little chilly,” Ball said.
When the soldiers arrived, they lined up in formation about 50 feet in front of the crowd, with families and soldiers facing each other and loud cheers echoing throughout the large building.
“Oh, he’s here!” said Tamatha Zavodsky, jumping up to get a glimpse of her husband, Sgt. Maj. Dennis Zavodsky, in formation.
A sign on the Richardson Highway outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, greets a bus load of 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team soldiers returning from Iraq on Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006. The first plane loads of the brigade began arriving Saturday as the 3,800 troops return from their extended deployment. (AP Photo/Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Sam Harrel) Ball commended the soldiers and their families in his 37-second speech, timed by one of Zavodsky’s sons. And finally, after 16 months of being 5,620 miles and a war apart, the distance between families and soldiers closed in as they rushed into each other’s arms.
Just over 600 soldiers arrived in Fairbanks between the two flights Saturday. An additional 200 were bound for Anchorage. About 3,800 soldiers with the brigade are scheduled to arrive in Fairbanks over the next 10 days. Twenty six died during the 16-month deployment.
The brigade served the first year of its tour in northern Iraq, being based out of Mosul, and was extended four months and moved to Baghdad to help combat violence there.
Reunions between families varied Saturday between seriously romantic to boisterous and joyous. Soldiers coming home to young children sank to their knees to embrace their toddlers or cradled infants they had never met. Young couples shared long, steamy kisses. Single soldiers were introduced to their buddy’s wife and kids and promised a hot meal in the next couple days before lining up for buses to their hotel rooms or barracks.
At least two-thirds of the first flight Saturday were single soldiers, many who did not have family members waiting to greet them. The Family Readiness Groups for the battalions had prepared the single soldiers’ barracks, supplying blankets, snacks, razors and shaving cream and other comforts. And even though some families couldn’t be there in person, many across the country were breathing sighs of relief as they received word their soldiers were in Alaska.
Molly Nava and a group from the brigade Support Battalion were busy on their cell phones, calling families across the country letting them know their soldier was en route to Fairbanks.
“That they are on a plane out of Iraq, that’s all they care about,” Nava said.
In some cases, single soldiers were met by the families of other soldiers.
Zavodsky, who was on hand with two sons to greet her husband, also had been tasked with finding Capt. Jerry O’Dowd, who didn’t have any family to greet him. O’Dowd’s mother in Georgia had sent up a box of cookies to give her son. O’Dowd’s girlfriend in Savannah had sent a banner welcoming him home, hanging among the dozens of signs in the building.
U.S. Army Sgt. Nick Ramsey of the 4th Battalion 23rd Infantry, kisses his wife Devan during a homecoming celebration for soldiers with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Fort Wainwright, Alaska Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006, after serving 16 months in Iraq. (AP Photo/ Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Eric Engman) O’Dowd was pleasantly surprised when Zavodsky gave him the cookies and told him about the banner.
“Wow,” was all he said, tearing up as he looked at his mother’s handwriting on the box of cookies and walked off to find his banner.
Even families who didn’t have a soldier returning on the first flights came just to gear up for their reunions. Sue Ulibarri brought her two children Saturday. Her husband, Sgt. Maj. William Ulibarri, isn’t due in Fairbanks until later in the week.
“But this is the most exciting thing happening in Fairbanks,” she said.
Newsbusters.org | November 27, 2006 - 11:03.
I actually have a soft spot for Good Morning America's Robin Roberts, finding her among the most even-keeled of the morning news show hosts. But again this morning she evinced a tendency to get star-struck in the presence of a big name, and wound up lavishing praise on Jimmy Carter and his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which depicts Israel as a second-rate South Africa from the bad old days.
Roberts actually began with what amounted to a DNC disclaimer:
"Now to your book, which many people find surprising, that you come down a little hard on Israel and that there have been key Democrats who have distanced themselves a little bit from your view on Israel. In fact, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [jumping the gun there just a tad, Robin] said it is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionizes ethnically-based oppression and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously. What is your response to that?"
Carter replied by claiming that he has spent the last 30 years trying to find peace for Israel and its neighbors, but adding "you can't find peace unless you address the existing issues honestly and frankly." Translation: it's all Israel's fault.
Carter then patted himself on the back: "I think the most important step toward peace for Israel was when I negotiated a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979."
Carter then went off on this Israel-bashing spree:
"There is no doubt now that a minority of Israelis are perpetrating apartheid on the people in Palestine. This occupation and confiscation and colonization of land on the West Bank is the prime cause of the continuation of violence in the Middle East."
Really! So Sunni is slaughtering Shia in Iraq over Israel's intransigence? Who knew? And not a word from Carter about the Camp David meeting at which Israeli PM Barak offered Arafat 97% of the land he had demanded. Not only did Arafat refuse the offer, he didn't even deign to make a counter-proposal.
Continued Carter:
"What is being done to the Palestinians under Israeli domination is really atrocious. It's a terrible affliction on these people."
Timidly and haltingly, Roberts did try to respond: "Some would say by electing Hamas, the Palestinians are in effect, kind of, the reason why there is a sumbling block for peace."
The vainglorious Carter: "I was there and the Carter Senate was in charge of the election. . . And there hasn't been one day of substantive negotiations between Israel and her neighbors in the last six years. So you can't say that the election of Hamas interfered with any sort of peace effort because no peace effort has been going on. And the prime choice by the United States and Israel of an interlocutor that was known as a voice of moderation, that is, Abbas, was chosen as prime minister when Arafat was there and for three years he was not called upon to negotiate and then when he became president he still hasn't been called upon to negotiate. So there is no effort being made in the Middle East at all to bring about an accommodation between Israel and the Palestinians."
Translation: repeat after me - it's all Israel's fault. That's when Roberts caved, with this fawning goodbye: "President Carter, always optimistic, and your book reflects that. I know the Carter Foundation, you are trying to find world peace and this book is part of that." Right. If your definition of peace is the elimination of a viable Israel.
Listen .... I'm on your side here .... but I'm pissed that our guys in charge cannot seem to find the cajones to tell everyone about these headways. It's as if Bush and Co. are afraid of the MSM.
The reason why folks like me ... strong conservatives that give a sh*T is because the messaage isn't getting out. Reagan would have never had the pr nightmare that is the Bush bunch.
Then after these structures are built ... why aren't we iceing the bastards that threaten to destroy them?
LOL! thanks Ali...I owe the Army a new keyboard now.
I love that site. I'm hooked on that show.
" We underestimated the Viet Cong because we didn't think like Asians ....
This is a cluster flub of monumental proportion."
Both points right straight out of the MSM.
"They understand one thing ... and we are too soft to deliver it."
What's this "we" stuff, FI? You got a mouse in your pocket?
Miami-Dade area the worst?
How about little lunch please?
Wel tell them. We damn near shout it from the rooftops.
The DBM *yawns* goes back to drinking their expresso in the Green Zone and send the local nationals they hire to shoot video for them out to cover the carnage.
The PResident isn't afraid of the media...he doesn't trust them and rightfully so...but the fact of the matter is that the Media HATES this president...dislikes the military and despises Conservatives.
W could find the cure for AIDS, CANCER and bring world peace and the DBM would STILL cover the story negatively.
Just got home Johnnie....and turned on Fox...the "panel" on the show..4 people ALL, ALL are saying how great it will be to get the "neighbors" around Iraq together to 'fix the problem'...
Of course they include Iran and Syria...
WTF....why do we have such stupid people on TV making these pronouncements???
I'm a bit older than that ... but I'm of the ilk that doesn't want to display an ounce of mercy toward our enemy. It just seems ... from my seat anyway ... that Rummie couldn't gather the balls to be friggin' brutal in Iraq.
Now I get the fact that I'm not there .... not smelling the cosmoline ... and everything is clear from this vantage point. But if we are in fact kicking asses in Iraq ... why can't the PR weenies from our side smashing heads and pushing to the front of the line to get that news out?
WTF??? I guess he thinks the U.S. is redy for it's first black, socialist, muslim president all in one fell swoop huh?
I don't know what Putin has up his sleeve. I put nothing past him though.
Thanks
Yo Fighting Irish, you are a PERFECT example of a never been Freeper General. Sit down shut up and actually listen to people who know what they are talking about.
Basically here is what the Freeper Generals would have us do in Iraq. Counter Insurgency Doctrine done the Dinocon way.
Americans: Yo, all you Iraqis. Now we know you all have been oppressed and terrorized by Saddam and his goons for about 40 years so we came over here to show you a better way. So gather round and we are going to teach you this thing called Democracy. We want to teach you this cause we figure if we get can get enough of you following this ideology you will not follow the ideology that preaches it is a good thing to fly airplanes into buildings full of our Civilians.
Now the first things you need to learn is this part about the Rule of Law. Study the sub chapters on Innocent until prove Guilty, Trial by Jury, Right to Legal Representation and really important, the chapter on outlawing Cruel and Unusual Punishment. Ok, now while you do that, we are going to arbitrarily round up and kill any Iraqis who we think maybe have ever talked mean about us.
What? No we are not going to bother with any of that messy Democracy stuff cause we are at war. And according to our Holloweird Movie guide to Military Action flicks any time you are at war you can waste anyone who pisses you off for what ever reason you want any way you want to do it. According to Hollyweird, we don't need nothing like proof or nothing we can just go wack that little Al Sadr freak cause he pisses us off. Evidence? We don't need no stickin' evidence. Our action movie heros never bother with any evidence. In the Movie we watch on TV says we are just suppose to go kill him because he pisses us off so that what we want to do here. Now quit talking back and learn our lessons on Democracy.
Iraqi 1. Hey Mahmoud, why are we helping these clowns?
Iraqi 2. What do you mean Achmed, they got rid of Saddam!
Iraqi 1. They did? Looks to me like they just took his place.
Iraqi 2. Well ya so?
Iraqi 1. Well at least the old thugs were from around here. These guys are not only from out of town they are not even Muslims. We may has well have Muslim thugs if we got to have thugs.
Iraqi 2. You right, time to join the Jihad!
That is what Freeper General Counter Insurgency doctrine as learned from watching TV Sitcoms would produce. It is utter stupidity but forget trying to penetrate their welded shut minds. They are too busy screaming what Democrat Campaign Contributor Mike Savage told them to say to do any thinking about Iraq.
Way past time the Freeper Know Nothings sit down, shut up and actually finally learns some BASIC facts about Iraq. Why are you all so afraid to actually LEARN something? Afraid you might have to finally admit you all have been wrong about Iraq from the start?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Security_Forces
http://icasualties.org/oif/
http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx
http://www.jodavidsmeyer.com/combat/military/actors_in_wwii.html
http://www.palletmastersworkshop.com/flipside.html
This site also has some folks... sportsmen and others that served.
http://forums.wildbillguarnere.com/lofiversion/index.php/f39.html
I have to dig up video from WWII as well... I have many CDs I made of radio shows for the troops back then as well... swing and more goodies.
I fought for a long time, the idea the the MSM and the dems hate President Bush SO much...that they would rather have us lose this war on terror...than let him "win"..
I have decided that they ARE willing to put this country in total danger, just for the "thrill" of taking down this fine man.
I know a lot of Republicans didn't vote...in order to take down the GOP party for all of their 'sins'....
But, I hope when this war ends up on our shore again...they feel good about teaching them a lesson.
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