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From LtCol Smith:(to his wife and her friends) Ladies, It is with an extremely heavy heart and with much pain that I report to you the deaths of the following two heroes: 1. LCpl Richard D. Warner, Fox Co, 2nd Bn, 24th Marines, USMC 2. PFC Brent T. Vroman, Fox Co, 2nd Bn, 24th Marines, USMC Both were killed when an improvised explosive device, planted inside a parked vehicle in the market area of Yusufiyah, was detonated on their foot patrol. An Iraqi citizen was killed in the blast, and several more severely injured. The very market where local people...

German luxury automaker Porsche AG expects continued strong profits in its fiscal year ending July 31 despite the potential burden of the strong euro on U.S. sales, company executives said Wednesday. Car sales and revenues should rise in fiscal 2005, driven by the relaunch of Porsche's 911 and Boxster sports cars, chief executive Wendelin Wiedeking said at the company's annual news conference in Stuttgart. "You can assume that we will secure our very strong profitability," Wiedeking said. In its last fiscal year, Stuttgart-based Porsche posted an 8.3 percent increase in net profit to 612 million euros. Sales rose 14 percent...

The first combat casaulty of the war, Marine LT Shane Childres was laid to rest in Powell, Wyoming yesterday. 1,500 people turned out.

The PBS show NEWSHOUR with Tom Lehrer inaugurated a new, subtle, anti-war tactic tonight. They are showing the names and faces of our KIAs from the Iraq war in what they claim is a memorial to our war dead. Apparently they plan to repeat the litany each day with pictures of the accumulated war dead. Imagine the corrosive effect on US morale of showing these personal pictures each day as the battle toll rises. The media CAN defeat our noble purpose in Iraq. Remember VietNam. We won the battles of Tet in the field, but lost the war in the...

'Bunker Busters' Strike Baghdad Tower By DAVID CRARY .c The Associated Press The biggest bombs dropped on Baghdad so far - two 4,700-pound ``bunker busters'' - struck a communications tower Friday in an intense U.S. bombardment. In the south, British officers said Iraqi fighters defending the besieged city of Basra fired on hundreds of civilians trying to flee. U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces traded tank and artillery fire throughout the day in the strategic southern city of An Nasiriyah, one of the areas where resistance has been unexpectedly tough. Several buildings, including the power plant, were ablaze. An Nasiriyah, a...

<p>What can you say about the men in a society that sends women to fight its wars?</p> <p>The temptation is to call them cowards. That might be too harsh (or it might not be). Whatever and whoever they are, they ought to feel shame and mortification when they look upon the photographs of Shoshana Johnson, a 30-year-old single mother of a 2-year-old daughter, languishing in an Iraqi prison. We can only hope that what is probably happening to her, at the hands of men who are taught by their degraded culture and abased religion to regard women as throwaway vessels of their perversions, is not happening to her.</p>

Reports of American and British combat casualties in ambushes and skirmishes, of captured allied soldiers, of "friendly fire" hits, of the grenade attack that a soldier of the 101st Airborne allegedly carried out against his own commanders and other such incidents are just that -- incidental events on the margins of the main event: the almost unopposed advance of U.S. forces toward Baghdad and combined U.S.-British forces on Basra. Each combat death is an infinite tragedy for the individual himself, his family and friends, but, given the scale of this war, the total number of casualties so far can only...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One report reaching the U.S. military said that some of the 12 soldiers whose supply convoy was ambushed near Nassiriya in southern Iraq on Sunday were killed by their captors although they tried to surrender, a U.S. defense official said on Wednesday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the report received from the field said that the U.S. soldiers "weren't given the opportunity to surrender. They attempted to surrender." Some of the U.S. soldiers instead were killed by the Iraqi forces, the official said. The official did not characterize the nature or reliability of...

US report says soldiers killed in Iraq tried to surrender WASHINGTON, March 26 (Reuters) - One report reaching the U.S. military said that some of the 12 soldiers whose supply convoy was ambushed near Nassiriya in southern Iraq on Sunday were killed by their captors although they tried to surrender, a U.S. defense official said on Wednesday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the report received from the field said that the U.S. soldiers "weren't given the opportunity to surrender. They attempted to surrender." Some of the U.S. soldiers instead were killed by the Iraqi forces, the official...