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WASHINGTON, May 10, 2006 – More than 5,000 U.S. and Canadian servicemembers are working with authorities in five U.S. states and two Canadian provinces to test their response capabilities to crises ranging from a major hurricane to a terrorist attack to a pandemic flu outbreak. Ardent Sentry 2006, a two-week U.S. Northern Command exercise, kicked off May 8 to test military support to federal, provincial, state and local authorities while continuing to support the Defense Department's homeland defense mission, according to Air Force Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh, a NORTHCOM and North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesman. The Canadian part of...

After 155 years, Marine sentries removed from Naval Academy to be sent to war Saturday January 14, 2006 ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) A Naval Academy tradition that lasted 155 years has come to an end: The Marine Corps sentries who guarded the gates and the crypt of Revolutionary War Capt. John Paul Jones have been withdrawn and sent to war. The four dozen Marines were released from their security duties in a ceremony on Friday and are being replaced by Navy enlisted personnel. ``Pray for them, for many of them are going into harm's way,'' a chaplain said in an invocation...

But sentry duty at Annapolis has been a 155-year tradition for Marines. Naval tradition is the lifeblood of the Corps, and I believed – until my former Marine Corps commandant disabused me of that belief – that to remove Marines from the guard posts at Annapolis would somehow lessen the potency of that lifeblood. Other Marines I’ve spoken to have felt similarly.

/begin my translation S. Korea: Robot Sentry Developed For DMZ Duty After a recent shooting accident inside guard post at DMZ, (S. Korean) military is looking into the possibility of installing unmanned intelligent robot sentry. On July 7th, at Dodam System inside Daeduk Research Park, Taejon City, a research team is testing a cutting-edge intelligent sentry and combat robot 'Aegis.' Armed with thermal imaging and infrared sensors, Aegis can remotely target and shoot enemies up up 1 km away. It would help relieve the burden from soldiers at guard post, and help reduce the number of soldiers stationed at guard post. [Lee Ok-hyun in Taejon, Yonhap News, 2005.7.7]   /begin my translation

Air Force testing robot vehicles for guard duty EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., (AP) -- The Air Force wants to take away Staff Sgt. Miguel Jimenez's job, and that's just fine by him. The Miami airman was plucked from his normal security duties at nearby Tyndall Air Force Base to help test whether a robotic vehicle can take the place of humans in guarding air bases and troops. ``If somebody wants to spend the money and send something like that out there instead of my life, I'm all about that,'' Jimenez said Tuesday of the robots that cost from $200,000...

US sentry saves troops by killing suicide bomber By Jack Fairweather (Filed: 10/12/2003) Sixty soldiers were hurt in Iraq attacks yesterday. One man halted a bloodbath, reports Jack Fairweather in Talaafar Hundreds of American soldiers owe their lives to the prompt action of a 23-year-old sentry. In the faint pre-dawn light Specialist James Ross saw a car, its headlights on, accelerate towards his guard tower at the entrance of the Talaafar military base, near Mosul. The vehicle had already cleared the first line of defence, barrelling over a coil of barbed wire 80 yards away and was heading straight down...