Free Republic

When I would think of her over the years, I would think of a blue bird. I never knew why. It's just what I felt. She had an aura. Maybe because her eyes were blue and she could sing like no other. She loved music. It took nothing to make her sing. She expected all her children to sing. We did. Even if she didn't know the words, she would make them up and dance in place. She was the reason I came to write songs. When I was nine years old, I was chosen to sing a solo at...

A baby's cries were the only sound that broke the hush when the soldiers of the 257th Transportation Company marched out Saturday before an overflow crowd of hundreds of relatives and friends who had come to say farewell. For many of the more than 200 men and women who make up the Army Reserve unit, that sound will be one of the things they miss the most when they deploy, first for two months of training in Indiana, then for the Middle East. They have deployed before, but they have become parents since that last deployment, or added new children...

Chaplain (Capt.) Anthony Kazarnowicz says a prayer asking for God's care over a group of soldiers deploying from Fort Huachuca to Iraq as Blanche Livingston wipes tears from her eyes. Standing behind her is her husband, Pfc. Joe Livingston, one of the soldiers who is expected to depart today to provide unmanned aerial vehicle support for the 1st Infantry Division. (Mark Levy-Herald/Review) FORT HUACHUCA - Blanche Livingston got some good news Thursday. Her husband would not be leaving that day for Iraq. Instead, Pfc. Joe Livingston and nearly 20 other soldiers of the first unmanned aerial vehicle platoon trained...

<p>A hundred medical professionals spent a last hour with their families in Coraopolis yesterday morning before hoisting duffle bags and boarding buses for a destination unknown.</p> <p>Their status as reservists of the 339th Combat Support Hospital had suddenly shifted their lives when they were called up this week.</p>