Free Republic

JERUSALEM – The Nazi soldiers made their orders very clear: Jewish American prisoners of war were to be separated from their fellow brothers in arms and sent to an uncertain fate. But Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds would have none of that. As the highest-ranking noncommissioned officer held in the German POW camp, he ordered more than 1,000 Americans captives to step forward with him and brazenly pronounced: "We are all Jews here." He would not waver, even with a pistol to his head, and his captors eventually backed down. Seventy years later, the Knoxville, Tennessee, native is being posthumously recognized...

Last August, a 28-year-old former US soldier traveled to northern Iraq where he joined the Assyrian Christian militia Dyvekh Nawsha which means “self-sacrifice” in Aramaic. It's a privately funded group numbering in the hundreds under the command of the Kurdish peshmerga that is fighting ISIS in northern Iraq and eastern Syria. Martin Himel reports.

A US soldier based in South Korea has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping a teenager near his base. The 21-year-old broke into the studio room of the woman and carried out a sexual attack lasting several hours, threatening her with scissors. The judge called it a "violent and abnormal assault". The sentence was one of the longest given to a US soldier in South Korea. US government and military officials have apologised publicly for the rape. Crimes committed by US soldiers in the past have sparked public protests against the American military presence in South Korea....

An Afghan policeman has shot dead an American soldier and wounded three others in the southern province of Helmand. A member of the Afghan national police opened fire on the Americans on Thursday during a full scale scuffle in the provincial capital city of Lashkar Gah, located about 555 kilometers (344 miles) south of Kabul, a Press TV correspondent reported. The shooting marks the second incident of its kind in less than a month. On April 27, a veteran Afghan army pilot opened fire on foreign troops at Kabul airport, killing eight US-led soldiers and a contractor. Several US-led foreign...

The U.S. Army has graduated its first Sikh (seek) enlisted man in a generation after granting a rare religious exemption for his turban and beard because the military needs his language skills. The turban, unshorn hair and beard are tenets of the Sikh religion. Army policies since 1984 had effectively prevented Sikhs from enlisting by barring those items. Spc. Simran Lamba was recruited under a special program seeking speakers of two Indian languages, Hindi and Punjabi. The 26-year Indian immigrant from New Delhi completed basic training Wednesday at Fort Jackson outside Columbia and became a U.S. citizen. He will be...

WASHINGTON – The American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed captured, appeared on a video posted Saturday to a web site by the Taliban, two U.S. defense officials confirmed.

KABUL — A young American soldier who walked off his remote combat outpost in a volatile region of eastern Afghanistan has been captured and is believed to be in the hands of the Taliban network headed by Sirajuddin Haqqani, American military officials said Thursday. Large numbers of American and Afghan forces fanned out in eastern Afghanistan to shut down routes the kidnappers could use to transport the soldier, officials said. A senior American defense official said there had been no direct negotiations with the kidnappers but that American forces were reaching out to tribal leaders and local Afghan government officials...

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE Awesomely Awesome: US Soldier Calls Out Mahdi Sympathizers in Iraqi Police You thought Christian Bale could toss the f-bomb with aplomb and threaten to kick someone's ass? That was just a cameraman. This cat threatens to kick Mahdi army's asses personally. He uses the Paul Anka style of leadership to awesome effect. A lot of f-bomb here, but worth it. Newsworthy, so you can get away with it, I think.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – An Army translator kidnapped two years ago Thursday is still unaccounted for, the only U.S. servicemember who remains missing in the current Iraq war. Ahmed Kousay al-Taie was visiting his wife's family in central Baghdad Oct. 23, 2006, when a group of armed, masked men dragged him to a waiting car. Al-Taie, a 41-year-old specialist when he was captured, is now 43 and a sergeant. The last public news of him came in February 2007, when a Shiite militant group called Ahl al-Bayt Brigades released a 10-second video of him on the Internet. The military is...

A U.S. soldier’s controversial blog is receiving international attention for its alternative perspective on the war in Iraq. The blog’s creator, Alex Horton, has been both praised and accused of treason for his writing. Horton spoke with KUTV.com to explain why some people are angered at his sincerity.

WASHINGTON, Sept 22, 2006 (AFP) - The remains of a US soldier killed in France during a key World War I battle have been identified through techniques involving mitochondrial DNA, the Defense Department said Friday. The soldier was identified as Private Francis Lupo, who was killed near Soissons, France, during the Second Battle of the Marne, which turned back the final German advances of the war toward Paris. The Pentagon said it was the first time it had identified a soldier killed during the 1914-1918 war. A French archaeological team recovered a military boot fragment and a wallet bearing Lupo's...

An American Encounter Upon pulling up to drop my wife off at Orlando International airport, I witnessed a very young white U.S. soldier being dropped off by his upper middle class parents. Both parents bravely maintained their composure, but emotions were visible as they gave their son farewell hugs. He smiled and disappeared into the terminal. The mom got back into their car and silently kept wiping stubborn tears from her eyes. With a handkerchief, the dad discretely chased a tear from his eye. Their emotional goodbye felt wholesome and good. Without thinking, I ran over to their car as...

FORT HOOD -- An Army staff sergeant was acquitted of murder Thursday in the death of an unarmed Iraqi he said he shot to save a fellow soldier. A jury of four soldiers and two officers deliberated for less than three hours before finding Staff Sgt. Shane Werst not guilty of premeditated murder. He had faced a maximum of life in prison without parole. Before the jury announced the verdict, the judge found Werst innocent of obstruction of justice, so the jury's verdict on that charge was not revealed. Col. Theodore Dixon said he decided to rule on that charge....

A homemade bomb explosion south of Baghdad has killed four U.S. soldiers, the military said Tuesday. The soldiers were attacked on Monday in Haswa, 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Baghdad, the military said in a statement. The soldiers were assigned to the 155th Brigade Combat Team, II Marine Expeditionary Force. Their identities were not released pending next-of-kin notification.

As the Palestinian media slowly return to their regular routine following Arafat's death, their well-documented hate promotion and incitement are likewise reappearing. One common theme that has quickly returned due to the war in Iraq is the depiction of the US, verbally and visually, as the cruel and inhuman enemy. A cartoon in today's official PA daily, Al Hayat al Jadida, shows an American soldier raping a young girl, while the Arab world looks on with amusement and even offers support. The most recent Friday sermon on PATV depicts the US as the creator of international terror. In a third...

Hey everyone this is the long email I had been working on. Today I got a chance to pull guard duty in a tower on the wall over looking a middle class Iraqi neighborhood. This place looks like about at war torn as you can get. Most of the kids and adults in our area got around in carts made of pickup truck frames pulled by Donkeys. The only cars are really bad 1970 bombs.They get a few hours of electricity after dark then its gets shut off. Today they had off for their Christmas celebration so they all looked...

One American soldier was killed and two wounded when their convoy was attacked with an unidentified explosive device near rebel-held Fallujah in Iraq. The attack happened yesterday at around 9:45pm local time. All three soldiers were wounded in the blast, but one later died of his injuries at a military hospital in the capital, Baghdad. The other two remain at the hospital. One is listed in serious condition and the other stable. The named of the dead soldier was withheld pending notification of the family. The attack is being investigated. As of Wednesday, 1,064 members of the US military had...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Assailants ambushed U.S. troops with rocket-propelled grenades and bombs in a series of attacks in the Iraqi capital, killing one U.S. soldier and wounded several others, the U.S. Army said Tuesday. The attacks took place Monday in the east of the city, and three armored vehicles were disabled in the assaults, the Army said in a statement. The wounded were evacuated to a medical treatment facility and the damaged vehicles were recovered. The name of the soldier killed in that attack was withheld pending notification of next of kin. No other details were immediately available. At...

Most of us rely on the media to tell us what's happening in Iraq. Now you'll read about a Pearl native who spent almost a year there fighting against enemy forces and rebuilding the city of Baghdad. Last March, U.S. Army soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division were packing and preparing for war. Almost a year later, one of those soldiers was able to come home to tell others about his time in Baghdad. "The experience out there, I wouldn't trade for anything," said Sgt. Derrick Brownlee of Pearl. "Being with my team and being with those guys ...we're like...

SEATTLE - A member of a U.S. National Guard armored unit in Washington state sent details of military weak points to what he thought were Al-Qaida operatives in an effort to help them kill American troops, according to Army charges disclosed on Wednesday. Army Specialist Ryan Anderson, 26, who had been slated for deployment to Iraq with his unit based at Ft. Lewis, near Tacoma, Washington, is being held there on three charges of attempting to aid the enemy. Anderson, who was arrested on February 12, faces a possible death penalty if convicted of the charges by a military court....