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FOB KALSU — For 56 Iraqi noncommissioned officers (NCO), their recent graduation from the Task Force Marne NCO Academy on FOB Kalsu is just the starting point. The class of NCOs included 55 Iraqi Army NCOs and one Iraqi Police NCO; they are the first class to graduate from the course, which began Jan. 14. The hope is that these leaders will take lessons learned and pass them on to troops they lead. Additionally, lessons learned from the class will be used in future training after the academy’s official grand opening, Feb. 12. “What do you do now? You go...

Students Graduate From Agricultural Course Students learn how to help others improve farm production. By Capt Vince King Jr. 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Jan. 11, 2007 -- More than 50 students from Kapisa and Parwan provinces graduated from the Comprehensive Agricultural Course for Soils, Crops, Agronomy and Animal Sciences, Jan. 6. "The hard work and dedication demonstrated by the students emphasizes the commitment local officials have on improving the lives and increasing the prosperity of the people of their community," Army Maj. Don Johnson The 20-week course, taught by Dr. Mike Gangwer, a Department...

Monday, 01 January 2007 A new Iraqi Army officer receives his rank insignia from his father and uncle. AL RUSTAMIYAH -- More than 200 cadets were promoted to the rank of second lieutenant in a graduation ceremony Thursday at the Iraqi Military Academy Al Rustamiyah. The new officers completed a year-long military leadership development course based on the United Kingdom Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, which focuses on building command, leadership and advanced military skills that the graduates will implement at their units throughout the Iraqi Army, according to IMAR’s NATO advisers.”I am glad today because I will become...

Iraqis Graduate from Police Academy New recruits will help make Kirkuk area safer. By U.S. Army Capt. Janet Herrick KIRKUK, Iraq, Dec. 19, 2006 -- New recruits, who graduated from the Transition Integration Police Academy on Dec. 17, will join Iraqi police stations throughout the 37 districts of the province to help make the Kirkuk area safer. “In front of me are men that understand what duty, honor and country mean,” said Lt. Col. Samuel Whitehurst, deputy commander, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division. “They have pledged themselves that the Kirkuk people will live in peace.”The 53 graduates...

By Lance Cpl. Ben Eberle1st Marine Logistics GroupThe Iraqi Army’s newest soldiers march past an Iraqi and American audience during their graduation ceremony at Camp Habbaniyah Sept. 30. CAMP HABBANIYAH -- More than 300 Iraqi recruits graduated boot camp in a ceremony here Sept. 30. The Iraqi Army’s newest soldiers endured five weeks of training to learn the fundamentals of marksmanship, urban patrols, search and clear operations, as well as how to make the transition to a military lifestyle. A national recruiting initiative plans to bring in 30,000 soldiers by May 2007, said Col. Joel P. Garland, the basic...

An Iraqi soldiers shakes hands with a fellow soldier during the graduation ceremony. Seventy soldiers from the 8th Iraqi Army Division graduated Friday from a course on maintaining accurate and reliable personnel and security records. The soldiers who graduated from the two-week Unit Transition Point course were all assigned to the either brigade or battalion personnel departments. The training was conducted by instructors from Iraqi Ground Forces Command in Baghdad and monitored and supervised by Multi-National Division Central-South military transition team officers. The first week of the course was devoted to training on high-technology devices for fingerprinting as well...

FORT BLISS, Texas (Army News Service, June 9, 2006) – Sixteen Afghan pilots, crew chiefs and flight engineers graduated the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy today at Fort Bliss, Texas. The first Afghan aviators to graduate the academy, they will use their new knowledge to help combat narcoterrorists in Afghanistan. “This is a great day for the people of Afghanistan and for the people of the United States,” said Richard J. Douglas, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics. “This sets the stage for what you have accomplished here at Fort Bliss …by helping President Hamid Karzi’s efforts to suppress...

AL ASAD, Iraq (May 19, 2006) -- Since Cpl. Haider Mohammed Jender joined the Iraqi Army a year ago, he has learned how to combat insurgents and provide security to his people. Now, the 34-year-old Iraqi soldier has completed what he says is the most important training he’ll ever receive – how to save lives. Jender was one of 20 Iraqi soldiers who recently graduated from an Iraqi Army’s Basic Medical Course here – the first in western Al Anbar Province – five weeks of lectures, written examinations and practical application on what U.S. medical personnel deem as crucial life-saving...

CAMP HABBANYAH, Iraq, May 1, 2006 – Nearly 1,000 Iraqi army soldiers graduated from boot camp yesterday, beginning the first step toward an integrated army in Iraq's Anbar province. "The movement of an integrated army in al Anbar is the only future," said Col. Larry D. Nicholson, commander of Regimental Combat Team 5, based in Fallujah. "When people look out their window and see the army, they need to be able to say, 'It's my army.' Today, we took a very positive step in that direction." A total of 978 Iraqi soldiers, who were recruited from across Anbar province, graduated...

A police recruit at the Sulymania Training Center demonstrates tactics learned at the academy during his graduation ceremony. U.S. Army photo Iraqi Police Recruits Graduate Coalition Forces, Iraqis train recruits in police science, self-defense, drill and ceremony. By U.S. Army Spc. William Jones 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment SULYMANIA, Iraq, April 18, 2006 — Sixty-three Iraqi recruits graduated from the Sulymania Training Center and earned the right to be called police officers following a morning ceremony April 13, 2006. The training center, operated jointly by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and Coalition Forces, teaches the recruits police science, weapons,...

PALOMINAS — The Naco Border Patrol Explorer post added four new members Wednesday with a ceremony at Valley View School honoring the newest graduates of its training class. “You came in as individuals and now you graduate as a team,” Darcy Olmos, Patrol Agent in Charge at the Naco Border Patrol station, told the graduates. The new Explorers are Alexalyn Hardgrave, 15, of Sierra Vista; Sammy Collins, 16, of Sierra Vista; Devin Humphries, 16, of Hereford; and Christopher Tillman, 15, of Sierra Vista. Humphries was honored for having the group’s highest test score average at 91 percent. Hardgrave also was...

CAMP AL ASAD, Iraq (March 21, 2006) -- Iraqi soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 7th Iraqi Army Division received 24 High Mobility, Multi-wheeled Vehicles (Humvees) March 20, 2006, after graduating from a three-week Humvee licensing and preventive maintenance course. More than 20 enlisted soldiers were recognized in a formal graduation ceremony, where they received certificates of completion from the commanding general of the 2nd Brigade and the commanding officer of Regimental Combat Team 7, Col. W. Blake Crowe. The ceremony marked another milestone in the 2nd Brigade’s progress toward eventually relieving Coalition Forces in western Al Anbar Province of all...

WASHINGTON, March 7, 2006 – More than 150 police recruits and a company's worth of Iraqi soldiers graduated from training in Iraq in recent days. A graduation ceremony was held for Iraqi soldiers of the newly formed Headquarters and Support Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division, at the Al Kindi military compound in Mosul, Iraq, March 5. The company is made up of three specialized platoons. The scout platoon, the medical platoon and the maintenance platoon were individually tasked to complete their specific skills training, U.S. officials in Mosul said. U.S. soldiers from the 172nd Stryker Brigade...

11/23/2005 - WASHINGTON -- More than 90 Airmen stood next to Soldiers when the first “bluesuiter” graduated from the U.S. Army Intelligence Center’s interrogator school at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. The Airmen -- with youth ministers and Scout leaders in their midst -- graduated Nov. 10. The Airmen volunteered after the Army asked the Air Force to help it meet its continuing need for qualified interrogators. “[I volunteered for this] because I wanted to go out, talk to the bad guys and really make an impact by getting information and details needed to fight the global war on terrorism,” said Will,...

N.Korea provides nuclear aid to Iran -intel reports By Louis Charbonneau Wed Jul 6, 9:18 AM ET Recent intelligence reports accuse North Korea of secretly helping Iran develop its nuclear program, raising fresh concerns about Pyongyang's nuclear proliferation and Tehran's atomic intentions. The United States and the European Union fear Iran is using its nuclear energy program as a front to develop nuclear weapons and have called on Iran to cease all sensitive atomic work. Tehran says its program is peaceful and refuses to give up its sovereign right to a full atomic program. "In the late 1990s, cooperation began...

NEW YORK - Anne Bancroft, who won the 1962 best actress Oscar as the teacher of a young Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker" but achieved greater fame as the seductive Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate," has died. She was 73. She died of uterine cancer on Monday at Mount Sinai Hospital, John Barlow, a spokesman for her husband, Mel Brooks, said Tuesday. Bancroft was awarded the Tony for creating the role on Broadway of poor-sighted Annie Sullivan, the teacher of the deaf and blind Keller. She repeated her portrayal in the film version. Yet despite her Academy Award and...

Today I officially become a college graduate!!

LOU DOBBS TONIGHT QUICKVOTE Should doctors who graduate from foreign medical schools be licensed to practice in the United States?

TIKRIT, Iraq (CNN) -- "Ready! Take position! Fire 10 rounds!" The smell of gunpowder hangs in the air as Iraqi police recruits train -- some for a second time around -- to patrol the restless city of Samarra. Many of these men are former Iraqi Army soldiers or had been officers in the Samarra police force that fell apart last November.

Others may have sympathized on learning that Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Middle East studies at Columbia University, felt threatened by a graduate student at his own university, but not me. The incident began late on Sept. 27, 2004, when Victor Luria, a Ph.D. candidate in genetics and a former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, wrote Dabashi an e-mail taking strong exception to what Dabashi had written about the IDF in an article, "For a Fistful of Dust: A Passage to Palestine," he published in the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram. In response, Luria wrote to Dabashi: I have rarely seen...