Free Republic

A Eulogy for Rene Schmidt, Soldier of the CrossLast Thursday night, Feb. 1, 2007, my brother in Christ, Rene Schmidt, Soldier of the Cross, was honorably discharged from the battle of this life at age 89. It appeared God just stilled his great heart and his soul departed in peace. What an uncommon blessing for an uncommon saint! I know he’s never been happier, nor I for him. Without ever shirking God’s call on his life, he spoke often to me, in the five years I knew him, of his longing to be in heaven with Jesus and reunited with...

Teenager that he is, Tadd Fujikawa already has exhausted this month’s allotted minutes on his cellular phone. What do kids talk about these days that take up so much time? Well, golf for one. And Fujikawa, far from your typical teen, can be forgiven for any fits of loquaciousness that have seized him in the last few days. People ask questions and you want to give them answers. The folks asking the questions are members of the national media, who have been ringing up Fujikawa constantly the last few days since he became the second-youngest person ever to qualify for...

Good morning, FReepers. I thought a thread for placing personal tributes to veterans, especially those you personally know (or knew), would be nice to have today. Please post photos, images, and links to pay tribute to our Vets, alive and fallen.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) greets people as she arrives for U.S. President George W. Bush's the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington January 31, 2006. REUTERS/Jason Reed

THE TROPHY KILLUSS Queenfish (SS393)Sixty-four years ago, on Dec. 7, 1941 my dear friend, Jack Bennett, survived the attack on Pearl Harbor by an inch or two when a bullet clipped his thumb in front of his face as he adjusted his broken helmet. His ancient WW I helmet, with a broken chin strap, was a microcosmic metaphor of the sorry state of our country’s military preparedness back then. You may read the story of Holocaust Sunday and Jack’s miraculous survival as it appeared here last year on this day of infamy. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the...

Each year around Thanksgiving, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals makes the evening news with some new campaign to get people to stop eating turkey. This year PETA wants me to believe that if I enjoy my annual serving of turkey at Thanksgiving, then I'm probably going to get the Asian bird flu. In order to make sure I'm aware of the threat, PETA members will "lie naked in flower-decorated coffins outside the Department of Agriculture" — just in case I walk by. As an alternative, PETA says I should ingest something called "tofurkey."Although I'll pass on the tofurkey,...

Commander: Southeast La. Still in CrisisPORT SULPHUR, La. - The commander of the military's hurricane-relief effort saw firsthand Saturday the double punishment dealt by Katrina and then Rita to the land running southeast of New Orleans down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico. "To these people, the crisis is still going on," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, touring Plaquemines Parish by truck and helicopter. "They haven't gotten to the recovery part yet." Parish President Benny Rousselle said about 16,000 of 28,000 residents remained displaced. The parish, a major seafood producer and home for oil refineries, took a...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Northwest Airlines Corp.(NWAC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, according to court documents. Delta, the No. 3 U.S. airline, which earlier this year said it did not have enough cash to meet its liquidity needs in 2005, filed for protection in U.S. bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New York. "The action we have taken is a necessary and responsible step to preserve Delta's value for our creditors, customers, employees, business partners and other stakeholders," said Delta Chief Executive Gerald Grinstein...

This morning, Fox and Friends had a short conversation with Shemane Nugent (wife of rocker Ted Nugent) from Crawford, TX. She is there with the Nugents' charity group for veterans, 'Freedom's Angels'. I had not heard of this charity before, but it looks like a great thing for our veterans. From the official website: "Recognizing the tremendous sacrifice military members and their families make for America, Freedom's Angels is a non-profit charitable foundation dedicated to enhancing the lives of America's military members and their families through a variety of activities such as building recreational facilities at military hospitals, donating leisure...

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed five Palestinians in an overnight West Bank raid, the army's first deadly strike since it removed Jewish settlers from occupied lands this week. Palestinian militant leaders vowed revenge. A new wave of violence would jeopardize a truce that largely held while Israel scrapped 21 settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank and make it harder to capitalize on the pullout by reviving Middle East peacemaking. Hours before the raid a Palestinian stabbed to death an ultra-Orthodox Jew and wounded another in Jerusalem's walled Old City in an attack police said...

Al-Jazeera in talks to sign Frost Arabic satellite television news channel al-Jazeera is in talks to sign up veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost. The broadcaster is keen to boost its profile as it gears up for the launch of its global channel, al-Jazeera International, next year. Since announcing plans to open a London office and launch an English-language service, al-Jazeera has signed up a number of staff from the BBC, ITV and Sky to join the station. It is believed that within the last year it also tried an approach to ITV star Sir Trevor McDonald, but failed. Signing up...

SPACE CENTER, Houston - NASA said Wednesday a chipped thermal tile on Discovery's belly does not appear to be a danger, and it cautioned the public against overreacting to every speck of damage sustained by the shuttle during liftoff. The space agency expected some debris to fall off during launch, and some did. The big question is whether any of it harmed Discovery, and the answer is still a few days away, NASA said one day after the ship blasted off on the first shuttle mission since the Columbia tragedy 2 1/2 years ago. Flight director Paul Hill said it...

I've come to have a strange new pride in the American left's practice of flag-burning. This is not to say I like the practice. In fact, I think I'm with many Americans when I say that burning the American flag should amount to "fighting words" under the First Amendment. But, rather, the fact that burning the flag is considered fighting words by so many is a sign that the Stars and Stripes still arouses passion and meaning for all Americans. In other words, one could say flag-burning is a sign of cultural health. It's only when the people don't care...

During Eric Rudolph's five years on the lam, despite a nationwide manhunt and a million-dollar bounty, a transient appears to have come closer to catching the serial bomber than did any federal agent. The search for Rudolph, sought in four bombings that killed two people and injured more than a hundred, always focused in this region - a densely wooded area in the western part of North Carolina. Rudolph had spent his teenage years here and had returned as an adult in the early 1990s, supporting himself doing carpentry. In letters to his mother written from a jail cell in...

What a weekend! What a holiday! Millions of Americans celebrating the very freedom they fear, and that nice man Bob Geldof telling us evil Americans what we should be doing with the money we work so hard for! Why, we should be sending it to Africa, that's what. Lets give thanks that Live 8 is over. What a bunch of sanctimonious, self-righteous, narcissistic jerk-offs. They top off their great multi-venue circle jerk Sunday with a demand that the United States cough up some more money for something they refer to as "aid and justice for Africa." These rock stars have...

1776, A Reviewby JD Wetterling Be forewarned. I wouldn't write a review of a book I did not like. I have suffered too much rejection as a writer to ever publicly cast negative aspersions on a fellow scribe’s blood, sweat and tears. I’ve read and raved about David McCullough’s first two Pulitzer Prize winning works—John Adams and Truman—and I think 1776 (Simon & Schuster, 2005) is a cinch for a third. It opened a month ago at the top of the nonfiction bestseller list and is still there. All of the reviews I have read have been laudatory, accept for...

US soldiers and Coalition Forces Celebrate Independence Day Running World’s Largest 10K in AfghanistanBagram Airfield, Afghanistan– Marc Lenoble (center in white t-shirt), Master Sergeant in the French Army, and Meghan Hughes (#275), Civilian, won the Men and Women’s Divisions of the first-ever Peachtree Road Race to be held in Afghanistan. The location was Bagram Airfield, home to more than 6,000 US and Coalition troops from over ten countries. Participants included runners from France, Germany, Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Puerto Rico, and Panama. The runners were among more than 500 who ran the 10,000 meter race. The race began...

Fellow Freepers, I need your prayers. Living in the Atlanta suburbs, I use my mountain bike, along with public transportation, to commute to and from work. I use sidewalks to stay out of traffic, when it is convenient. I consider myself a pretty good rider, and wear my helmet all of the time (almost). Last Thursday, as I was on my way to the Lindbergh MARTA station, I made a manuever off of the sidewalk to go around two pedestrians. Upon my transition back onto the sidewalk, I made an error in approaching the curb (too parallel), my back tire...

KABUL (Reuters) - A total of 178 Taliban fighters were killed and 56 captured in three days of fighting in south Afghanistan, one of the group's bloodiest setbacks since their 2001 overthrow, the Defense Ministry said on Saturday. But senior Taliban commanders thought to have been in the area of the U.S.-backed operation, in the region where the provinces of Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul meet, escaped, ministry spokesman Mohammad Ishaq Paiman said. "From the start of this joint operation, on June 21, until last night, 178 Taliban were killed and 56 arrested," he said. The Interior Ministry, which on Friday...

WASHINGTON — Advocates for the homeless already are seeing veterans from the war on terror living on the street, and say the government must do more to ease their transition from military to civilian life. Linda Boone, executive director of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, said about 70 homeless veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan contacted her group’s facilities in 2004, and another 125 homeless veterans from those conflicts last year petitioned the Department of Veterans Affairs for assistance. “It’s not a big wave, but it’s an indicator that we still haven’t done our job,” she said. “I...