Free Republic

During the time Governor Palin electrified the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, she dined with a defense contractor at a restaurant owned by a former US Marine. The venue and the dinner guest could not have been more Providential. Cathy Maples, President, R & D Electronics won the dinner with a $63K bid in a Ride2Recovery charity auction to benefit wounded soldiers, which we covered in a prior interview. Devito: When we last spoke, I had asked, “Though the principal purpose of a dinner such as this is to help wounded veterans, you will be in Gov. Palin’s company for up...

FORT HOOD -- This is the latest information on the injured. There are 16 people still hospitalized, including the alleged shooter. Seven victims are still in intensive care unit and 9 others people are still being treated.

At a morning press conference after a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, Barack Obama got caught up in the web of lies his campaign has spun about the cancellation of his planned visit to wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany on Friday.Obama stated: "We had scheduled to go, we had no problem at all in leaving, we always leave press and staff off -- that is why we left it off the schedule."Not true, Washington Post reported this morning: When Obama arrived in Germany on Thursday, a printed schedule said he would fly...

From NBC's Jim Miklaszewski In his official capacity as a sitting US senator, Obama has every right to stay in touch with America's men and women in uniform. According to Pentagon officials, the problem was that Obama's request to visit Landstuhl included two members of his campaign staff -- retired Major General Jonathan S. Gration and Jeff Kiernan. US military officials in Germany informed the campaign the two political operatives would not be permitted on base. Pentagon officials say Gration was the campaign's point of contact at Landstuhl in arranging Obama's visit and "got torqued" when he was told he...

SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo., April 6, 2007 – Sgt. Luke Murphy stretched out his prosthetic leg as he sat on the ground beneath the ski roster hoping beyond hope that someone would be a no-show and he’d get their slot for another spin down the mountain. Army Cpl. Shane Parsons, a 4th Infantry Division soldier who lost both legs and suffered a traumatic brain injury in Ramadi, Iraq, shimmies up the rock-climbing wall at the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic in Snowmass Village, Colo. Photo by John Buehler  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The 101st Airborne Division soldier...

Troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were treated here last night to a once-in-a-lifetime experience: an inaugural ball in their honor, with a big lineup of celebrities, entertainers and defense brass thanking them for their sacrifices. The guests of honor at the first Heroes Red, White and Blue Inaugural Ball were about 150 patients from Walter Reed Army Medical Center here and the National Naval Medical Center in nearby Bethesda, Md., and their guests. Most came in dress uniforms they hadn't worn since before their deployments to Southwest Asia, some wore borrowed or rented tuxedos, but all came ready to...