Free Republic

Before they were known as the “Lost Battalion,” the 1st Battalion was a part of the 36th Infantry Division fighting in Europe during World War II. After a bungled strategic decision sent them deep into German territory in Southern France, the Battalion was surrounded. For six days, the 275 soldiers remained trapped with dwindling air-dropped supplies as the Germans threatened to wipe them out and repelled repeated rescue attempts on the ground. Germany's leader himself is said to have taken a personal interest in seeing the Battalion completely destroyed. In a last ditch effort, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was...

SAQLAWIYAH PATROL — U.S. Marines patrol through a local village to search for hidden weapon caches during an operation in Saqlawiyah, Iraq, Dec. 5, 2005. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Mark E. Morrow)

CAMP PENDLETON --- One of the nation's most battle-tested battalions began returning to North County on Wednesday

BAGHDAD – A Task Force Baghdad patrol was attacked with a roadside bomb in the late evening hours of Aug. 20 and later detained a suspect in the attack. In the wake of the explosion, the Soldiers from B Company, 1st Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division did a hasty search of nearby houses and found a man in one of the homes. The Iraqi man denied having any weapons. However, a search of his residence produced an AK-47 assault rifle, a sniper rifle, 40-50 circuit boards and 10 magazines of ammunition. He also had a pair...

“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...

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...

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- For three weeks, my FOX News team has been immersed in little more than what's been happening around us. Memorial Day isn't, as they say over here, on our radar screens. The soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines we've been covering and living with in Al Anbar Province have been focused on chasing terrorists, avoiding IEDs and staying alive. They call it situational awareness -- being alert to only the friendly and enemy situation in the immediate vicinity is an absolute necessity for these young Americans in harm's way in this hot, dusty and dangerous place. And because...

Soldiers assigned to the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Stuttgart, Germany, are training African soldiers along the outer reaches of the Sahara Desert in support of the global war on terrorism. Special Forces training teams from Special Operations Command Europe are in Bamako, Gao and Timbuktu, Mali; and Atar, Mauritania in northwestern Africa to provide foreign internal defense training for the Pan Sahel Initiative, a U.S. State Department security assistance program. "We're training basic platoon level tasks to one company of the 33rd Parachute Infantry Regiment in Bamako in order to enhance their capabilities to police their...

Iraqi police nabbed two persons Feb. 29 who were apparently preparing to launch a rocket-propelled-grenade attack on a local council meeting in Bajar, northern Iraq. The suspects, according to a Combined Joint Task Force 7 press release, were arrested and then turned over to coalition forces along with one RPG launcher and three RPG rounds. Also Feb. 29, U.S. 14th Cavalry Regiment soldiers detained three persons suspected of anti-coalition activities during an operation in Rabiyah in northern Iraq, and American 23rd Infantry Regiment troops in Mosul seized two persons suspected of stealing and selling weapons in northern Iraq. Meanwhile, in...

News releases from Combined Joint Task Force 7 in Iraq have provided details of recent coalition successes in capturing insurgents and taking weapons out of circulation. Soldiers from Company B, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, raided three locations in Samarra just after midnight Feb. 17 and captured specifically targeted individuals suspected of attacking coalition forces. Residents near Balad asked soldiers from Company B, 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, to remove weapons from their home Feb. 17. The soldiers removed and confiscated an improvised rocket tube, a rocket, three AK-47 assault rifles, one SKS automatic weapon and assorted electrical components similar...

TIKRIT, Iraq, Dec. 29, 2003 — An Iraqi citizen provided information to U.S. Air Force airmen concerning a large weapons cache that he said consisted of close to 600 rockets, according to U.S. Central Command officials. The Air Force in turn asked the U.S. Army for assistance. Air Force personnel and a patrol from 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment went to the identified site in the evening of Dec. 27 to investigate. Officials said the intelligence acquired suggested the rockets could be found hidden in some undergrowth along the river next to a tree line. After a short search, the...