Free Republic

SACRAMENTO — Amid yellow ribbons and farewell banners at a ceremony for Iraq-bound troops here last week was one anonymous combat veteran waging a last-minute federal court battle to stay home. The California National Guard soldier, identified as "John Doe" in a lawsuit filed Oct. 1 in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, contends that the military's controversial "stop-loss" program to involuntarily extend enlistments is illegal when applied to National Guard soldiers, about 40,000 of whom are deployed in the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Coupled with a similar action filed Aug. 17 in San Francisco that involves another California National Guard...

Ben Coutts (Filed: 03/01/2004) Ben Coutts , who died on Monday aged 87, was a hard-living and convivial Highland farmer widely respected as a judge of livestock. He also became a noted broadcaster on rural affairs. But "Big Ben", as Coutts was known, only narrowly survived a series of hair-raising experiences in the Second World War, culminating in his escape from the liner Laconia after its sinking in the eastern Atlantic on September 12 1942. Coutts's war had begun when he sailed to North Africa as a 23-year-old sergeant-major with the Surrey and Sussex Yeomanry, a gunner unit. He served...