Free Republic

A state in eastern Mexico is to erect a statue to a small boy suspected as being the first patient of swine flu here, to be modeled on the famous Manneken Pis statue of a child urinating in Brussels. Five-year-old Edgar Hernandez appeared in media across the world after the health ministry in April confirmed that he had contracted, and overcome, the A(H1N1) virus at the start of the epidemic's outbreak here. Hernandez's role in putting his poor village of La Gloria on the map merited recognition in the shape of a small statue -- resembling the famous Belgian landmark...

McALLEN, Texas -- South Texans joined relatives of former prisoner of war Spc. Edgar Hernandez to welcome him back to the Rio Grande Valley on Sunday. "I especially look forward to mom's home cooking," Hernandez, 21, said after arriving at Miller International Airport in McAllen shortly before noon Sunday.

EL PASO, Texas (AP) -- Seven former prisoners of war were on their way back to their home posts Saturday, much to the relief of community members who for weeks anxiously hoped for their safe return. "I think there was a bit of fear with all of us," Fort Bliss contract worker Jennifer Murphy said. "There was a fear they wouldn't be found, abandoned in a cell to rot."The much-awaited homecomings were set for Saturday night, when a C-17 aircraft was to return five soldiers from Germany to El Paso's Fort Bliss, then head to Fort Hood in central Texas...

Mexico-U.S border dwellers celebrate POW's freedom By Deborah Tedford MONTERREY, Texas, April 14 (Reuters) - Mexican and Texan migrant farmers took a break from the sorghum fields on Monday to share prayers and kisses with the family of a Mexican-American soldier freed from his Iraqi captors. More than 150 friends, family members and neighbors from the border communities of Mission, Texas, and the Mexican town of Reynosa gathered at the home of Army Spc. Edgar Hernandez on Sunday and Monday to congratulate Hernandez's family, a family friend said. The family of Army Spc. Edgar Hernandez planned a homecoming with the...

Reuters Seven American soldiers rescued in Iraq were held in separate cells in Baghdad during most of their time as prisoners of war but were moved as US forces advanced on the Iraqi capital, The Washington Post reported today. For 12 to 15 days, the former prisoners could hear the nightly bombing raids as US warplanes pounded Baghdad. They were taken to another location after the prison was rattled by a powerful explosion about 50 metres from the building, the report said. It was the first of many moves. The former prisoners told the newspaper they stayed at a total...

IN STRIPED pyjamas and sandals, seven American prisoners of war limped to freedom in northern Iraq yesterday, after their captors had fled from US forces advancing on President Saddam Hussein’s home city of Tikrit. Blinking from the sunlight as they emerged from 22 days of captivity, the six men and one woman clung to their rescuers, barely believing that they had escaped with their lives. News of the rescue, which included two Apache helicopter pilots shot down over Iraq on March 24, was greeted with jubilation by the soldiers’ families. Some wept with relief as they watched television pictures...

Being reported on CNN - 6 POWs - found alive. No more information.

Families of recovered US servicemen notified WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - Several families of U.S. soldiers captured in the Iraq war said they got official confirmation on Sunday that their relatives were safe, CNN reported. The family of Spc. Soshana Johnson, 30, of Kansas, the only woman officially listed by the Pentagon as a prisoner of war, said the Department of Defense Pentagon told them she had been recovered, according to CNN. Ronald Young Sr., the father of Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Young Jr., a captured Army pilot, said he also received official confirmation that his son was among the...

Seven American POW's, including tewo helicopter pilots as well as members of the 507th Maintenance Company, have been turned over to a Marine unit near amarra without a fight. The unit was in the area for another mission, when an Iraqi policeman apporached and said "I know you are here for the prisoners".

<p>April 12, 2003 -- President Bush yesterday vowed to find the seven missing American POWs, whose whereabouts are still unknown three days after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.</p> <p>"We will use every resource we have to find any POWs that are alive," the president told reporters yesterday. "And we pray that they are alive, because if they are we will find them."</p>

MASHPEE, Mass. (AP) - Massachusetts rallies both for and against the war with Iraq included a ``die-in'' at Boston Common and patriotic songs near a military reservation Saturday in two of many demonstrations across the nation. American flags, patriotic songs and chants of ``U-S-A!'' filled the air in Mashpee, down the road from a military reservation that is home to Air National Guard troops deployed to Iraq. Other demonstrations drew hundreds of war opponents to New York City's Times Square, Denver, Los Angeles and Paterson, N.J. and Boston. On Boston Common, a police-estimated crowd of 15,000 protested the war. Nuns,...