Friday, March 28, 2008

- Reunion - "B/Battery 6/14th Artillery "

The Reunion For B/Battery 6/14th Artillery Will Be In June 27-29 2008 - At Fort Hood Texas- The Hotel Where The Dinner Will Be Held And Where Most Of The Reunion Members Will Be Staying Is The Shilo Inn Suites Hotel You Can Call There And Make Your Reservations - Be Sure To Tell Them That You Are With B/Battery 6/14th Artillery-

Shilo Inn Suites Hotel

3701 South W.S. Young Drive

Killeen Texas 76542

Phone 254-699-0999

Fax 254-699-0994

Thursday, March 27, 2008

- Vietnam Veterans Records Online -

Washington D.C. - The National Archives is joining with a Web site to make historical records of tens of thousands of deceased Vietnam War Veterans available electronically for the first time.

The interactive site - www.footnote.com - is a Web re-creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall. The site allows access to thousands of pages of casualty records and agency photos.

People can search by name, hometown, birthday, tour date, or dozens of other categories. Such information now is typically found only at National Archives locations, including the headquarters in College Park. Md. and by poring through files organized by topic.

-Vietnam Veterans Will Get Overdue Honors -

Whittier Calif. - After years of trying to get a day to welcome home the men and women who fought in Vietnam, Jose Ramos will finally see such an event.

"Welcome home Vietnam Veterans" will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday at the California High School football field. The school is located at 9800 Mills Ave. in Whittier.

The free celebration will feature a color guard from different veterans posts, guest speakers including Rep. Hilda Solis, D-El Monte, live music, classic cars, military vehicles and booths.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

- Bush Says "Lives Not Lost In Vain" -

Washington D.C. - President Bush called it a day of reflection. He never explicitly said why, but the reason was clear 4,000 U.S. dead in Iraq.

That is the new toll of the five-year old war, the kind of raw, rounded number that sticks in the public's mind.

So on a day that began with so much lightness Bush hugging the Easter Bunny, cheerful children frolicking on the South Lawn the president ended up offering sympathy for grieving families.

"One day people will look back at this moment in history and say, "Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve, because they laid the foundations for peace for generations to come, "Bush said in unscheduled remarks at the State Department.

Contractor's Bodies Found

Washington D.C. - The FBI said it has recovered the remains of two kidnapped U.S. contractors in Iraq.

The agency identified the contractors as Ronald Withrow of Raring Springs, Texas, and John Roy Young of Kansas City. Withrow worked for JPI Worldwide when he was kidnapped in January 2007. Young worked for Crescent Security Group when he was kidnapped in November 2006.

The FBI said it is continuing in its investigation.

- Philip Jones Griffiths, 1936 - 2008 -

Obituaries: - Photojournalist showed the face of modern warfare to the world !!!!

Philip Jones Griffiths, a photojournalist whose images from the Vietnam War helped crystallize opposition to the conflict, has died. He was 72.

Jones Griffiths, a longtime member and former president of the prestigious Magnum photo agency, died of cancer at his London home, according to Rhiannon Davies, the agency's commercial director.

Published in 1971, his book "Vietnam Inc." was considered one of the most detailed photographic studies of an armed conflict ever published. The first printing of nearly 40,000 sold put immediately and the book became a rare and valued commodity among photography fans and photojournalists.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Okinawa Protest Targets U.S. Forces

Japan - Several thousand Okinawa residents angry over recent reports of crimes allegedly committed by U.S. troops held a loud but peaceful protest. with many demanding the troops be withdrawn from the island.

The protest was followed by a march to the gate of a nearby U.S. Marine base.

The demonstration was sparked by recent reports of U.S. troop-related crimes, including the arrest of a Marine for allegedly assaulting a 14- year-old Okinawan girl in February. The Marine was released from Japanese custody and no charges were filed. Okinawa is home to roughly half of the 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan.

U.S. Deaths In Iraq Over 4,000

Baghdad - A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000.

The grim milestone came on the same day that rockets and mortars pounded the U.S protected Green Zone, underscoring the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shite extremist groups despite an overall lull in violence.

A Multi-National division, also a Baghdad soldier also was wounded in the roadside bombing. The soldiers patrol vehicle was hit about 10 p.m. in southern Baghdad, according to a statement.

Identities of those killed were withheld pending notification of relatives.

The 4,000 figure id according to an Associated Press count that includes eight civilians who worked for the Department of Defense.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Bush: Remember Others At Easter

Washington D.C. - President Bush urged Americans observing Easter Sunday to remember others, particularly in the military who are far from loved ones on a day "that beckons us homeward."

"I deeply appreciate the sacrifices that they and their families are making," Bush said Saturday in his radio address.

He added a special message for the U.S. troops who have been killed while serving their country.

"These brave individuals have lived out the words of the Gospel: Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends," Bush said." And our nation's fallen heroes live on in the memory of the nation they helped defend."

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Air Force Wants To See Coal Fuel Take Off

Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. -On a wind swept base near the Missouri River, the Air Force has launched an ambitious plan to wean itself from foreign oil by turning to an unlikely energy source coal.

At its Malmstrom base in central Montana, the Air Force wants to build the first piece of what it hopes will be a nationwide network of facilities to convert domestic coal into cleaner burning synthetic fuel.

Air force officials said the plants could help neutralize a national security threat by tapping into the country's abundant coal reserves. By offering itself as a partner in the Malmstrom plant, the Air Force hopes to prod Wall Street investors nervous over coal's role on climate change to sink mone into plants nationwide.

We're going to be burning fossil fuels for a long time, and there's three times as much coal in the ground as there are oil reserves," said Air Force Assistant Secretary William Anderson. " Guess what? We're going to burn coal."

Tempering that vision, analysts say, is the astronomical cost of coal-to-liquid plants. Their high price tag, up to $5 billion each, would be hard to justify if oil prices were to drop. In addition, coal has drawn wide opposition on Capitol Hill, where some leading lawmakers reject claims that it can be transformed into a clean fuel. Without controls on emissions, experts say, coal-to-liquid plants could churn out twice the amount of green house gases that oil does.

"We don't want new sources of energy that are going to make the green house gas problem even worse," said House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills).

Doodlittle Raider Took The Gospel To Japan

- Obituaries - Jacob Daniel Deshazer 1912-2008 - The Rev. Jacob Daniel Deshazer, one of the participants in the historic Doolittle Raid on Japan during World War 11, died in his sleep March 15 at his home in Salem, Ore. He was 95.

After spending 40 months as a prisoner of war after the raid, Desjazer retured to Japan intent on forgiving his former captors and converting them to Christianity. During 30 years as a missionary, he helped start 23 churches in Japan.

Deshazer was born Nov. 15, 1912, to an Oregon wheat-farming family. He joined the Army Air Corps at 27, two years before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. A month after the attack, he volunteered for a secret mission. Then a corporal, he was the bombardier aboard the "Bat out of Hell," one of 16 bombers under the command of Lt. Col. James Doolittle that launched a surprise attack on Tokyo and other Japanese targets on April 18, 1942.

- Happy Easter -

I Would Like To Take This Time To Wish Everybody A Very Happy Easter !!!! And Also To Thank Everyone For Their Great Response Concerning This Blog !!!!

Friday, March 21, 2008

Fallouja Rises Again From The Ashes Of War

Fallouja, Iraq - The one lane bridge over the Euphrates River where a mob hung the charred bodies of slain Americans four years ago is now a focal point in th revitalization of this war-ravaged city.

The Iraqi government and the U.S. plan to widen the pedestrian pathways on either side of the bridge so shoppers can stream into Fallouja, western neighborhood and buy food, clothing and other goods from stores that again line the streets of a city once given up for dead.

The comeback of Fallouja, the site of two major battles between Marines and insurgents in 2004, surprises even the most optimistic U.S. planners.

"It continues to outpace all expectations," said Navy Capt. John Dal Santo, part of a State department-funded effort called the Provincial Reconstruction Team for Fallouja.

Monday, March 17, 2008

-Officer's Unit Discovered Enemy Tunnels In Nam -

Obituaries - Robert Haldane 1924 - 2008

Robert Haldane, an Army officer who led the battalion that discovered the infamous Cu Chi tunnels during the Vietnam WAR, died of cancer March 5 at his home in Alexandria, Va. He was 83.

Lt. Gen. Haldane was a lieutenant colonel Jan. 7, 1966, when he was in charge of the American infantry contingent of the 8,000 man U.S. - Australian Operation Crimp. His troops came under fire as soon as they landed near a rubber plantation about 25 , miles northwest of Saigon and were mystified when the large numbers of enemy soldiers seemed to vanish in relatively open terrain.

For three days, the battalion combed the area. They found a large trench, cache after cache of rice and salt, a classroom for 100 men, minefields, foxholes and antiaircraft artillery emplacements. The area was clearly home to a regiment-size force, but few Viet Cong were seen. Yet snipers continually harassed the Americans from within their own lines.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

- Pentagon Says Top Bin Laden Aide Detained -

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - A high-level Al Qaeda operative who helped Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan in 2001 during the U.S. military operation has been captured and sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Pentagon and CIA said Friday.

Muhammad Rahim, an Afghani was captured last July in Lahore, Pakistan, by Pakistani authorities, who quickly handed him over to the CIA, according to sources familiar with Rahim's detention. Ramim was then kept in secret custody by the CIA until he was handed over to the Pentagon and to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay this week.

CIA spokesman George E. Little said he could not comment on where Rahim was held since last summer, what kinds of interrogation techniques he was subjected to, and what he might have told his interrogators.

Some of the other suspected senior Al Qaeda leaders in CIA custody have been subjected to controversial coercive methods of interrogation techniques, including a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.

I cannot characterize what he may or may not have said while in CIA custody, Little said. His detention by the CIA was part of a lawful program that has yielded valuable information in the nation's efforts to fight terror.

Monday, March 10, 2008

- Woman Soldier Honored For Valor -

Camp Salerno, Afghanistan - A 19- year old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second female soldier since World War 11 to receive the silver Star, the nation's third-highest medal for valor.

Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said.

After the explosion, which wounded five soldiers in her unit, Brown ran through insurgent gunfire and used her body to shield wounded comrades as mortars fell less than 100 yards away, the military said.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

-Soldier Arrested After Dual Killings -

Tacoma, Washington - A Fort Lewis soldier has been arrested on suspicion of killing a military couple and abducting their 7-month-old girl, sheriff's deputies said.

The 22 year-old woman was booked into the county jail Sunday night on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of kidnapping, said Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer.

The woman is an active-duty soldier with 1 Corps at the Army base south of Tacoma and a member of the honor guard, Troyer said.

- Sioux Receives Korean War Medal -

Washington D.C. - President Bush apologized Monday that the country waited decades to honor Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson Keeble for his military valor in Korea, giving him the Medal of Honor more than 25 years after he died.

Keeble, a Sioux, is the first full blooded Native American to receive the nations highest military award. But it came almost six decades after he saved the lives of fellow soldiers. Keeble died in 1982.

"On behalf of our grateful nation, I deeply regret that this tribute comes decades too late," Bush said at the White House medal ceremony.