Free Republic

ST. LOUIS (Map, News) - Federal airline regulators said Wednesday that 24 jets operated by commuter airline company Trans States Airlines Inc. were grounded because they do not meet safety standards. Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Cory said the airline reported the problem Tuesday and the aircraft were being checked.

 Some girl soldiers just want to have fun By KATHLEEN PARKER IT’S BEEN 25 years since Goldie Hawn played the unlikely military enlistee, Pvt. Judy Benjamin, who discovered the Army wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she signed up for travel and adventure. But that was then, and it was fiction besides. Now, we know that women soldiers are just like men soldiers. Or so we’re supposed to believe. Flashback to two weeks ago: I’m washing my hands in an airport restroom in Columbia, S.C., wedged at the sink between two blondes gleefully applying makeup. When I ease past...

More body-bag bait? Posted: January 20, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 David H. Hackworth The 81st Brigade is rated as a combat-ready fighting outfit. But when it came time for this federally activated Washington state National Guard unit to ship out to Iraq, the high brass ruled that it was nowhere near ready to rock 'n' roll down where the bullets fly and people die. The brigade's foxholes, in one of the most vicious contemporary killing fields in the world, were filled instead by regular units from the combat-worn 82nd Airborne. Wait a minute! Isn't the 81st one of...

WASHINGTON US troops facing extended deployments amid the danger, heat, and uncertainty of an Iraq occupation are suffering from low morale that has in some cases hit "rock bottom." Even as President Bush speaks of a "massive and long-term" undertaking in rebuilding Iraq, that effort, as well as the high tempo of US military operations around the globe, is taking its toll on individual troops.Some frustrated troops stationed in Iraq are writing letters to representatives in Congress to request their units be repatriated. "Most soldiers would empty their bank accounts just for a plane ticket home," said one recent Congressional...