Please join us in this FLY THE FLAG campaign and PLEASE forward this Email immediately to everyone in your address book asking them to also forward it. If you forward this email to least 11 people and each of those people do the same ... you get the idea.

On Thursday, September 11th, 2010, an American flag should be displayed outside every home, apartment, office, and store in the United States . Every individual should make it their duty to display an American flag on this seventh anniversary of one our country's worst tragedies. We do this honor of those who lost their lives on 9/11, their families, friends and loved ones who continue to endure the pain, and those who today are fighting at home and abroad to preserve our cherished freedoms.

In the days, weeks and months following 9/11, our country was bathed in American flags as citizens mourned the incredible losses and stood shoulder-to-shoulder against terrorism. Sadly, those flags have all but disappeared. Our patriotism pulled us through some tough times and it shouldn't take another attack to galvanize us in solidarity. Our American flag is the fabric of our country and together we can prevail over terrorism of all kinds.

(1) Forward this email to everyone you know (at least 11 people). Please don't be the one to break this chain. Take a moment to think back to how you felt on 9/11 and let those sentiments guide you.

(2) Fly an American flag of any size on 9/11. Honestly, Americans should fly the flag year-round, but if you don't, then at least make it a priority on this day.

National Gulf War Resource Center 20th Anniversary Gulf War Reunion and Health Fair

David K. Winnett, Jr., Captain, USMC (Ret.) Chairman, Funding Development, NGWRC

Good evening, and welcome to the National Gulf War Resource Center�s 20-Year commemoration of Iraq�s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait; an event that led to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which as we all know resulted in the liberation of Kuwait and its people.

My name is Dave Winnett. I am a retired Captain of Marines and a proud member of the National Gulf War Resource Center.

We don�t celebrate a war tonight; we celebrate America�s decisive victory in one of the most successful military campaigns in our country�s history.

More importantly, we celebrate the heroes who achieved that victory. We honor their sacrifice and recognize the extraordinary price that many of these heroes paid in accomplishing that feat. This event will honor our comrades in arms who gave their lives in the Persian Gulf War, as well as those who came home safely but have since paid a huge price as a result of their service.

We�re lost in a cloud With too much rain We�re trapped in a world That�s troubled with pain But as long as a man has the strength to dream He can redeem his soul and fly

Deep in my heart there�s a trembling question Still, I am sure that the answer�s gonna come somehow Out there in the dark There�s a beckoning candle So while I can think, while I can talk While I can stand, while I can walk While I can dream, please let my dream Come true, right now.

These are words from a famous Elvis song entitled, �If I Can Dream�. I believe that the lyrics to this song are very relevant to a battle that many of us now face. The fight for answers to the daily pain and suffering that many of us face, and the many more thousands who could not be with us here tonight.

We don�t seek answers alone; we seek solutions. Speaking personally, the illnesses that I now live with are by far the toughest ordeal I have ever faced in my life. But I do not intend to give up willingly. Not only that, I don�t intend to stand idly by while my brothers and sisters-in-arms are suffering, many in much worse condition than me.

So, while we can think; while we can talk; while we can stand; and while we can walk; we are together in this fight for solutions, and we will not rest until we have won this battle.

As members of the Armed Forces of the United States, we�re all taught that in war, we�re to leave no one behind. Not the dead, not the injured, and not those taken prisoner by our enemies. Everyone must come home. No matter the cost.

For those of us who have returned safely to the United States after surviving war, home is defined as a way of life;

For those seriously injured or made ill from war; home is defined by quality of life.

And for those who have given all, home is defined as an honorable and peaceful resting place.

Until that day comes, each and every one of us, regardless of our personal circumstances; whether we�re blessed with good health, with great wealth, or have very little of either � each of us has an obligation to never leave our comrades behind. This obligation does not end when you take your uniform off for the last time. It is not a legal obligation, it is a moral obligation, and moral obligations are forever.

Whether our comrades are on the battlefield, in enemy hands, or back here in the United States facing serious illness or life-altering disability, every one of them who is not yet truly �home�, must be given the benefit of every resource that we can collectively muster in order to assist them in restoring to the greatest extent possible, a decent and dignified quality of life. Our obligation is to get them home. We�re the frontline warriors in that effort.

Our country�s obligation is to provide the logistical, medical, and financial resources needed to accomplish our objective. This mission cannot and will not succeed without a team effort on both sides; we the Veterans, and those who represent our government in the area of Veterans Affairs.

Only when each and every one of our warriors is truly �home� can we say that we have fulfilled our moral obligation.

So, the next time you start to feeling sorry for yourself, please remember our brothers and sisters-in-arms who are much less fortunate that we are.

Remember the many thousands of brave American men and women who were not able to join us tonight because they gave their lives for us.

Remember those still missing in action or held prisoner who rightfully belong seated at the table we have reserved in their honor.

And remember the heroes who were unable to be here tonight due to serious illness, financial difficulties, or both. There are far too many Veterans who in the true sense of the word have yet to make it home. Our mission is to get them there as soon as possible.

I�m proud to stand before such a distinguished group of Americans tonight. I speak not just of our distinguished guest speakers and awardees, but to each and every one of the world champions that occupy every table in this room. I�ve been blessed beyond words for the honor of MC�ing tonight�s program. I hope that I won�t let you down.

Those of us who have served were provided lessons in history that enlightened us as to the accomplishments of those who came before us. For there is no better way to convey leadership skills and traits than by lessons in history that teach us of the high achievements of those who have led by personal example. Not just in the military, but in the lives that these heroes have led long after they returned to civilian life.

Once learned, these lessons become an integral part of who we are as human beings. We become forever changed, for the better. We�re taught first and foremost to look after the welfare of those we are charged to lead, and to never leave our comrades behind in battle, alive, wounded, or deceased. We�re taught that the noblest act one can achieve as a leader is to risk, and if necessary, lay down your own life in order to rescue your comrades.

The man, the American hero we honor here tonight is the epitome of leadership by example. A man who over many decades has demonstrated a fierce commitment to his military comrades and to his country.

If I were to read Mr. Ross Perot�s entire resume, the amount of money we�d end up owing this hotel for overstaying our visit is something that I�m not sure even Mr. Perot could afford to cover.

His first accomplishment was that he was born in June of 1930, in Texarkana, Texas.

He was an Eagle Scout; in fact a Recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.

While at the Naval Academy, he served as Class President, Chairman of the Honor Committee, and Battalion Commander. After graduation, he served four years at sea on a destroyer and on an aircraft carrier.

Upon his honorable discharge from the Navy in 1957, Mr. Perot joined IBM as a salesman in their Data Processing Division in Dallas. In 1962, he started Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Over the next 22 years he built EDS into one of the world�s largest technology services firms. In 1984, Mr. Perot sold EDS to General Motors.

In 1988, Mr. Perot founded a new technology services company, Perot Systems Corporation, where he served as Chairman Emeritus until November 2009, when it was acquired by Dell, Inc.

For his efforts to help improve treatment of U.S. Prisoners of War in North Vietnam, Mr. Perot received the highest civilian award presented in 1974 by the U.S. Department of Defense.

In 1979, Mr. Perot directed a successful mission to rescue two EDS employees who had been taken hostage by the Iranian government. The mission was successful and Mr. Perot brought his employees safely back home to their families. The true life story of this heroic endeavor is told in the best-selling book, and later the motion picture of the same name, �On Wings of Eagles�.

Mr. Perot chaired the Texans� War on Drugs Committee, and led the effort to reform the Texas Public School System.

In recognition of his humanitarian efforts, Mr. Perot received the Winston Churchill Award, presented by Prince Charles and First Lady Nancy Reagan, the Raul Wallenberg Award, and in 1990; the Patrick Henry Award, presented by President George H.W. Bush. In 2004, Mr. Perot received the Eisenhower Award, in appreciation for his more than 40 years of support for the United States Military.

In January of 2009; for his lifetime of service to Veterans and the Military, Mr. Perot received the VA Secretary�s Award, presented by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Mr. James Peak.

As most of you know, Mr. Perot was twice a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. It�s interesting to note that central to Mr. Perot�s campaign were his concerns about the amount of debt that the United States was accumulating. The national debt at that time was 4 trillion dollars. Today it�s quickly approaching 16 trillion dollars.

The Perot family is actively involved in numerous charitable and civic activities. Through the Perot Foundation, funds have helped wounded soldiers and funded medical research, particularly for illnesses associated with Operation Desert Storm.

Margot and Ross Perot have five children: Ross, Jr., Nancy, Suzanne, Carolyn and Katherine. The Perots have 15 grandchildren.

In summary, the man I�m about to present to you is one of America�s premier patriots. He has proven this time and time again through his personal bravery, moral courage, and his commitment to preserving the freedoms that far too many Americans take for granted.

To us Mr. Perot; the Veterans of America, more specifically the National Gulf War Resource Center, you are a national treasure, and a Godsend to American fighting men and women.

And so, without any more of my tortuous ramblings, and to ensure that Mr. Perot does not end up having to purchase this hotel; it is with the utmost of pride and respect that I introduce to you the recipient of the National Gulf War Resource Center�s 20th Anniversary �Desert Storm Patriot Award; Mr. Ross Perot. =

The comedian will broadcast two special episodes of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" to celebrate the end of combat operations in Iraq and to honor returning troops.

On Sept. 8 and 9, the show will fill its audience with Iraq War veterans and active duty service men and women. Others will be beamed in via satellite from Iraq, Afghanistan and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

"The Report," which likes to parody over-the-top cable news graphics, is calling the episodes "Been There: Won That: The Returnification of the American-Do Troopscape."

Guests will include Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Jim Webb and the U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno.

Odierno famously shaved Colbert's head - on President Barack Obama's orders - when the comedian broadcast four episodes of "The Report" from Baghdad last year. On that visit, Colbert donned a camouflage suit and reported from a desk supported by sand bags.

One of those Iraq episodes earned "The Report" an Emmy nomination for writing for a variety, music or comedy series. The show has three nominations, including for outstanding variety, music or comedy series, heading into the Emmy Awards on Aug. 29.

The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which exited Iraq on Wednesday, officially was designated the last combat brigade to leave Iraq under Obama's plan to end combat operations there by Aug. 31. Some 50,000 members will stay another year in what is designated as a noncombat role.

With the WristStrong bracelets he's promoted since falling while running around his desk and breaking his wrist, he has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Yellow Ribbon Fund, a charity that assists injured service members and their families. He's a board member of DonorsChoose.org, which is raising money for the education of children of parents in the military.

"Sometimes," Colbert said earlier to The Associated Press, "my character and I agree."

Actors playing troops on TV shows normally get up and dust themselves off after the fake explosions die off and the directors yell "cut." But "Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan" isn't fake; it's a reality show inspired by the movie "The Hurt Locker" and it's about to bring a war that's claimed more than 1,000 American lives into a living room near you -- courtesy of the U.S. Navy and G4, a subsidiary of Comcast and leader in computer gaming.

While the Navy certainly green-lighted the show based on its potential to highlight the courage and skills of dedicated Sailors, it's not likely everyone is going to see it that way.

Cameras and crew will follow a Navy explosive ordnance disposal team from their training in the U.S. to the Afghan theater, G4 said in an announcement. The show is scheduled for the spring TV line-up.

The Navy acknowledged it has been working for some time with the G4 production company to develop "Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan," but was not able to provide Military.com with any details beyond that.

According to the G4 press release, viewers will actually "get to know members of the EOD team as individuals," at home and during the deployment.

"Camera crews will be fully embedded in the operations of the featured EOD Mobile Unit platoon, providing G4 viewers with an insider's look at this world that has never been seen before," the G4 statement said. "While one day's patrol could result in the successful disarmament of a 50-pound roadside bomb via remote-controlled robot, another could put an EOD tech wearing a 70-pound protective bomb suit in direct contact with a potentially deadly IED."

The announcement avoided any details surrounding how the show intends to deal with possible EOD casualties, and a G4 spokeswoman told Military.com that she did not know how the company would handle those situations.

G4 President Neal Tiles was quoted in the release as saying "Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan" will be "a rare opportunity to showcase the work of the courageous men and women on the front lines � G4 viewers will see these real-life heroes putting their lives on the line as they go through what, for them, is just another day at the office."

A retired Army EOD officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity told Military.com that he sees no benefit in the show.

"I've had friends killed over there," the officer said. "It's like entertainment [what the show is doing]. I know why the Navy is doing it -- for recruiting."

The former EOD officer, who asked not to be named because he works in federal government, said it's obvious the show is building on the appeal of "The Hurt Locker," which last year won an Academy Award. The movie, he said, "was pretty good up front, but there were plenty of things the character was doing that would have got him relieved for being an idiot" in a real unit.

While the Navy certainly green-lighted the show based on its potential to highlight the courage and skills of dedicated Sailors, it's not likely everyone is going to see it that way.

The Navy acknowledged it has been working for some time with the G4 production company to develop "Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan," but was not able to provide Military.com with any details beyond that.

According to the G4 press release, viewers will actually "get to know members of the EOD team as individuals," at home and during the deployment.

A retired Army EOD officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity told Military.com that he sees no benefit in the show.

"I've had friends killed over there," the officer said. "It's like entertainment [what the show is doing]. I know why the Navy is doing it -- for recruiting."

The Army is not drugging its troops to cope with combat, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli said during an Aug. 8 interview on ABC�s �This Week with Christiane Amanpour.�

Chiarelli, referencing a July Army report showing a sharp increase in Soldier suicides and an increase in serious crimes committed by GIs, said the study�s claim that �data would suggest [the Army is] becoming more dependent on pharmaceuticals to sustain the force� is a concern. The report continues: �In fact, anecdotal information suggests that the force is becoming increasingly dependent on both legal and illegal drugs,� with about one-third of Soldiers on some kind of prescription drug.

Chiarelli acknowledged that more than 106,000 Soldiers were on prescription medication for three weeks or more last year -- including antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication. But he said the drugs were authorized by U.S. Central Command�s medical personnel after a claim that the report �raises the specter of a significant number of people out there, heavily armed, afraid, under fire, IEDs [around], and drugged.�

�But we know,� Chiarelli said, �that the drugs we�re talking about are cleared by CentCom surgeons for Soldiers to be taking when they�re down-range. So we�re not sending any Soldier into harm�s way who is taking any drug that we feel would somehow endanger him or some others.�

Chiarelli didn�t address the report�s claim that some Soldiers are self-medicating with illegal drugs, but said many of the troops on prescription medications -- 14 percent, the report states -- were taking them for physical pain and had nothing to do with a Soldier�s behavior.

�There are Soldiers who have been on two, three, four deployments, humping a rucksack filled with equipment that may weigh 70 to 80 pounds at 8,000 feet, and they've got a knee injury or a leg injury that is painful,� Chiarelli said. �Probably [they] should stay home and get operated on, but they go back for the second deployment and they're on some kind of a pain medication. We have Soldiers who suck it up all the time and hide from their leaders when they're hurt.�

The report, which Chiarelli had requested, says the high number of suicides among Soldiers reflects a rise in �risky behavior,� including illegal drug use and alcohol consumption. But it also laid responsibility for the problem on Army leadership, which has failed to see warning signs or looked the other way because sidelining troops over behavioral issues might interfere with mission and deployment schedules.

According to the report, there were 160 Soldier suicides in 2009 -- a record that put the rate of Army suicides well over the rate for the civilian population. The report also noted 146 deaths last year linked to murder, drug use and other behavior, The Associated Press reported July 30.

Chiarelli has conceded that the faster pace of deployments and troops having to make multiple combat tours are part of the problem, but he said the spike in suicides is not solely because of the frequent deployments. About 60 percent of the Soldiers who committed suicide, he said, were on their first enlistment and the deaths occurred early in their tour.

That said, Chiarelli also believes that giving troops more time at home between combat tours will help. The Army�s goal is to have Soldiers back home two months for every one deployed -- and eventually to get that garrison time up to three months for each one deployed, he said.

�We�re not there yet,� he told Amanpour. �We know when that happens many of the problems that we�ve seen will in fact meliorate themselves.�

The Army is not drugging its troops to cope with combat, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli said during an Aug. 8 interview on ABC�s �This Week with Christiane Amanpour.�

�We�re not there yet,� he told Amanpour. �We know when that happens many of the problems that we�ve seen will in fact meliorate themselves.�

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/08/25/morning-bell-a-war-we-cant-afford-to-lose/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Morning Bell: A War We Can�t Afford to Lose Posted August 25th, 2010 at 9:03am in American Leadership, Protect America with 0 comments Print This Post

In December 2009, President Barack Obama delivered his long-awaited decision on the way forward in the War in Afghanistan and pledged 30,000 additional troops for the effort under the condition that they would begin to come home in 18 months. While praising the President�s decision to send more troops, conservative lawmakers blasted the President�s announcement of a deadline for withdrawal, arguing that it would undermine our allies and embolden our enemies. Yesterday, the President�s policy met with another high profile critic, retiring U.S. Marine Gen. James Conway, who told reporters that the July 2011 withdrawal date has given a morale boost to Taliban insurgents who now believe they can simply wait out NATO forces.

General Conway confirmed what Heritage Foundation analysts have been warning about for the last nine months, that the deadline is �giving our enemy sustenance.� Conway revealed that indeed the U.S. has intercepted communication of Taliban insurgents telling each other that they only needed to hold out for so long.

Conway is right. As we noted last year, the President�s decision to impose a timeline was purely a political one, meant to appease the leftist base of the Democratic Party, not to ensure the security interests of the American people. But there are signs the Obama administration now recognizes the damage the timeline has done to U.S. strategy and is seeking to walk it back. That�s good news for America as it fights a war we must win.

Last week, Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, indicated that any troop withdrawal would depend on the �situation on the ground,� and on Monday, he noted that next year�s deadline is �not the date when the American forces begin an exodus.�

Vice President Joe Biden, during a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Indianapolis earlier this week, also signaled the Obama administration is changing its message on Afghanistan. During that speech, the Vice President said, �We are not leaving in 2011, we are beginning a transition.� Biden also called for allowing the new strategy in Afghanistan time to succeed and gave a ringing endorsement of Gen. Petraeus. Biden said, �Don�t buy into that we have failed in Afghanistan�We are now only beginning, with the right general and the right number of forces, to seek our objectives�We needed the best general we had, and we now have him.�

Announcing a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops even before they had deployed was bad policy. Hopefully the Obama administration now recognizes this fact. But in order to reassure our allies and signal our enemies of U.S. commitment to the war, President Obama must unequivocally revoke the timeline.

Succeeding in Afghanistan will require more patience from the American people. A summer of high casualty rates and reports about corruption of Afghan President Hamid Karzai�s administration are casting doubt among Americans about the effort. A recent poll shows six in ten Americans oppose the war. But the United States and its allies cannot walk away from Afghanistan before the job is done. The military�s new strategy is sound, and our troops should be given the opportunity to succeed. As The Heritage Foundation�s James Carafano writes:

Fighting terrorists in South Asia is not easy. But it is a worthwhile effort that offers the promise of a more enduring peace and a safer world for our civilians and allies. Now is the time to vanquish al-Qaeda and its affiliates, not give them a second lease on life. Running away would end nothing. Indeed, it would be but the prelude to more 9-11 style misery.

Maintaining that commitment won�t be easy, either. While President Obama is facing criticism for imposing a withdrawal deadline from the right, he is also facing criticism from the left for backing away from his withdrawal pledge. But there is more at stake for the President than scoring political points. Hanging in the balance is the future of Afghanistan, where failure would spell the return of the Taliban, a resurgent Al-Qaeda, a new wave of terrorism in South Asia, increased potential for conflict between Pakistan and India, and the makings of the next 9-11.

For the United States, failure is not an option, it�s a choice President Obama shouldn�t make, and it�s a result the American people should not accept.

Navy Emphasizes Zero Tolerance

Week of August 23, 2010

Due to increased use in designer drugs, the Navy has added new guidelines to its existing drug policy that emphasizes zero tolerance of drug use by its Sailors. Designer drugs were created to get around existing drug laws and often can be deadlier. The new guidelines in the policy, which were released in March, now include products that contain cannabinoid synthetic compounds, such as spice, blaze and spark. Additional information concerning spice and salvia divinorum can be found at the Navy Personnel Command website.

All 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia will hold general elections Nov. 2. Those residing outside the U.S. who have not registered or requested an absentee ballot this year should do so as soon as possible by using the Federal Post Card Application. Visit the Federal Voting Assistance Program website, and follow the prompts to register and request an absentee ballot for the Nov. 2 election. Some states allow submitting the FPCA by email or fax, in addition to regular mail. The instructions will tell you how to fax or email the form. You can also obtain a FPCA from your unit or installation voting assistance officer.

The U.S. Army has awarded more than $51 million in Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps scholarships at colleges and universities across the country. ROTC is the largest source of Army officers, commissioning more than 60 percent of new officers each year for the active Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard. Cadet Command awards its ROTC scholarships on a "whole person" concept, and officials look for what they term the "Scholar-Athlete-Leader." For more information on Army ROTC scholarships, visit the Army ROTC website or contact the Army ROTC program at your local college or university.

Remember: Not applying for scholarships is like turning down free money. Get started on your search for scholarships today -- visit the Military.com Scholarship Finder.

The Army Surgeon General, LTG Eric Schoomaker, charted the Pain Management Task Force in August 2009 to provide recommendations for an Army Medical Command comprehensive pain management strategy. The Pain Management Task Force Report is available under Reports on the MEDCOM web site in .pdf format. The report recommends that the Army's pain management strategy be integrated with the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program, the Army Suicide Task Force recommendations and other Army and DoD initiatives.

The new Military Advantage Blog offers Servicemembers, Veterans and their families a great resource for news and information on a wide variety of benefit subjects including changes to state and federal benefits, pay and compensation, health care, seldom used benefits and more. You can find the new blog in the Military.com benefits section.

The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010 (S 3447) is on track to making the current Post-9/11 GI Bill even more valuable and easier to use. The bill, which made it through the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, includes almost every change sought by veterans' service organizations, institutes of higher learning, trade unions, vocational schools and VA administrators. The only two key elements missing are an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office on what these reforms will cost, and a plan to pay for them as worries over deficit spending mounts in Washington D.C. Read the full article.

There are big differences between GI Bill programs, find out which program best fits your situation with Military.com's GI Bill Calculator.

TO ALL Active, Reserve and Retired Military Personnel: Enjoy FREE Admission to the 2010 Deutsche Bank Championship and the Tournament�s new Military Patriot Outpost Hospitality Tent!

The Red Sox Foundation is proud to have a charitable partnership with the Deutsche Bank Championship, played at The Tournament Players Club in Norton, Massachusetts. This year, we are honored to share with you news that the Deutsche Bank Championship is providing FREE admission to the Tournament to all active, reserve and retired military service members AND their dependents from August 31 � September 6. Also new to the Championship this year is the "Military Patriot Outpost" located along the 17th fairway. This air-conditioned venue is open to all servicemen and women and veterans, and will offer complimentary snacks, beverages, seating, televisions and some great views of the Back 9 action at TPC Boston. The Outpost will have information available to servicemen and women about community, regional and national resources available to them, including information about our own Red Sox Foundation and Mass. General Hospital Home Base Program.

Please note that military members and veterans and their family members are also invited to come watch the �Deutsche Bank Red Sox Legends and Friends Pro-Am� to benefit the Red Sox Foundation. This annual, fan friendly event with PGA Pros and New England Sports Legends is at the TPC on Tuesday August 31st and will begin with a shotgun start at 8:30 a.m and will likely end around 12:30. This year�s Pro-Am will feature Red Sox Legends including Jim Rice, Dennis Eckersley and Carlton Fisk among others. Military and Veterans and their families are invited to join us to watch the Pro Am and Championship - the opening ceremony is on Tuesday August 31st at 8:00 a.m. in front of the TPC Boston Clubhouse at 400 Arnold Palmer Blvd in Norton, MA. A Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony will follow at 9:30 a.m. at the Military Patriot Outpost to inaugurate this new facility.

Given this exceptional hospitality offer to the men and women who serve and have served our nation, we respectfully ask for your help in forwarding/sharing this information with your extensive contacts with military members, veterans and their families. For more information and to reserve your Deutsche Bank Championship Tournament Tickets FREE to Military and Veterans, please click on any of the links below. Please note: Common Access Card or Retired Military Card will be necessary for free entry. EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO WATCH THE RED SOX LEGENDS AND FRIENDS PRO AM on Tuesday Aug 31st.

3:00pm Mtn - Mr. Alvin Plucker: Mr. Plucker is Vice-President of the USS Pueblo Association and he will be discussing the reunion for USS Pueblo crewmembers coming up September 8-11, 2010, in Eureka, CA. On January 23, 1968, USS Pueblo, was attacked and captured by North Korean naval vessels in international waters off the coast of North Korea. The crew was taken in captivity and spent the next 11 months enduring intense interrogation, severe torture and grossly insufficient rations. The incident and their defiant resistance has been well documented over the years. Reunions have been held throughout the years to help the crew by providing group support and camaraderie. Note: there is still an effort to get Pueblo back from the North Koreans. She remains a commissioned ship in the US Navy. Please visit the web site of the USS Pueblo Veteran's Association web site at http://www.usspueblo.org/ for more information. Please also visit the National Cryptologic Museum web site at http://www.nsa.gov/museum/ . They have a large display dedicated to USS Pueblo.

4:00pm Mtn - Mr. Phil Jennings: Mr. Jennings an author, US Marine Corps Vietnam Veteran and former pilot for Air America, flying helicopters in Laos. His recent book is The Politically Incorrect Guide to The Vietnam, a compilation of historical facts that show the Vietnam War that we were not allowed to win. He exposes the myths about the War in Southeast Asia that have been perpetuated by scores of so called historians over decades of biased reporting. Phil has also written two critically acclaimed comic novels, Nam-A-Rama and Goodbye Mexico. His fictional short story, Train Wreck in a Small Town, garnered him the Pirates Alley Faulkner Society first prize for fiction. He is currently a successful entrepeneur working on the development of technology to detect and disarm Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's). For more information, please visit: http://www.phillipedwardjennings.com/ .

IMPORTANT NOTE: House Resolution 111 currently has 285 co-sponsors. Yes, we need to continue to get as many new co-sponsors as possible, but we need to contact our reps who have co-sponsored, thank them and ask them to push to have this resolution brought up on the floor of the House for a vote! Please visit http://www.nationalalliance.org for additional information on how you can make this legislation successful.

Anonymous, in honor of Peter Matthes - GX2527 Anonymous, in honor/memory of Major Martin Massucci and Major Eugene L. Wheeler Chained Eagles of Ohio

Listen to POW/MIA Radio every Sunday on The American Freedom Network, http://www.americanewsnet.com . We also broadcast with 10,000 watts on KHNC-AM, 1360khz, Johnstown, Colorado. If you are unable to get the show on the website, please re-enter the URL in your browser address line and try again. Please note our show call-in number, 1-877-254-7524.

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!" Patrick Henry, 1775

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD -- A 24-year-old woman pleaded guilty Monday to killing two fellow Soldiers and kidnapping their baby in March 2008.

Army Spc. Ivette G. Davila, of Bakersfield, Calif., entered the pleas at the start of her court-martial for the fatal shootings of Staff Sgt. Timothy Miller, 27, and Sgt. Randi Miller, 25, in the couple's Parkland home.

Army prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty against Davila, in exchange for her pleas to two counts of premeditated murder and one count each of kidnapping and obstruction of justice.

A military judge, Col. Stephen R. Henley, accepted the guilty pleas after questioning Davila for nearly three hours. The plea deal means Davila will be sentenced to life in prison, but the sentencing phase of her court-martial will determine whether she will be eligible for parole.

The sentencing phase, which began Monday afternoon, is scheduled to resume Tuesday morning.

Davila shot the couple, poured muriatic acid on their bodies and then kidnapped their 6-month-old daughter, Kassidy, who was found unharmed at a base barracks.

Kassidy, now nearly 3, is being raised by Timothy Miller's mother, Ami Gray, of Gardnerville, Nev.

Authorities were led to Davila after she told a fellow Soldier she was caring for the child because she had killed the Millers, according to court documents that were originally filed in Pierce County Superior Court before the Army asserted jurisdiction over the case.

Prosecutors alleged that Davila, who had been a specialist in the I Corps and a member of the Fort Lewis color guard, was angry with Randi Miller because she believed the woman was having an affair with Davila's ex-boyfriend.

After the slayings, Davila cleaned the crime scene and took the baby to Home Depot, where she purchased muriatic acid, according to court papers. Davila then returned to the home and poured the acid on both bodies "to get rid of them," court documents say.

Davila told Henley, the military judge, that she did not kill the Millers in a "fit of rage," but instead had carefully planned out the slayings.

The night before, Davila packed a bag with clean clothes, her Glock handgun, a silencer and hollow-tipped bullets, she said during the court-martial. She said she then took a cab to the Millers' house, where she dropped her bag off while the taxi waited. When the couple didn't show up, she took the cab to a nightclub where she thought she would find them.

She had a couple of drinks, but was not intoxicated, she told the court. The couple wasn't there, however, so she called them for a ride.

Randi Miller, according to Davila, picked her up and took her to the couple's house, where Davila said she played video games with Timothy Miller and lay with the couple in their bed.

Around 5 a.m., Davila said, she retrieved her handgun, went into the bedroom and shot Randi Miller in the head.

She said she then went to the bathroom and shot Timothy Miller several times while he was in the shower.

During the sentencing phase of Davila's court-martial, friends and relatives of the victims took the stand to testify about their loss.

They reminisced about the Millers and talked tearfully about how their lives have changed since the slayings.

"I wished I'd had the relationship they had," said Army Staff Sgt. Shawn Bobbe, a close friend of the couple. "They were cheery, loving, kindhearted people, and after Kassidy was born, you could see a glow."

'Pain Beam' to Be Installed in LA JailUpdated: 5 days 12 hours ago Print Text Size Sharon Weinberger Contributor

AOL News (Aug. 23) -- An invisible heat-beam weapon developed in secrecy by the military is set for use in a U.S. jail.

Law enforcement officials recently revealed plans to use the nonlethal device at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Pitchess Detention Center, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. The weapon, which shoots an invisible beam of energy, would be used in the prisoners' dormitory to stop an assault or break up a fight.

Called the Assault Intervention Device, it uses millimeter waves to heat the top layer of skin, causing an intense burning sensation that forces the person being targeted to move away immediately. View more news videos at: http://www.nbclosangeles.com/video.

"I equate it to opening an oven door and feeling that blast of hot air, except instead of being all over me, it's more focused," said Bob Osborne, commander of the Sheriff's Department's Technology Exploration Program, according to the Daily News.

The weapon being installed in the jail is a smaller version of a technology originally developed by the military for use on the battlefield. The military's weapon, called the Active Denial System, can be put on a Humvee or truck, and researchers are also working on a aircraft-mounted version.

Raytheon, which makes the Assault Intervention Device, markets several versions of the weapon on its website.

The smaller version of the weapon being installed in the jail creates pain on a single part of the body, rather than all-over heat like the military version. A local news video showing the device being tested features a laughing test subject clutching a single part of the body where he has been hit, and then moving out of the way.

The device's use at the Pitchess Detention Center is part of a six-month evaluation being conducted by the National Institute of Justice to look at possible widespread use of the technology in jails. If that happens, then it will place law enforcement agencies well ahead of the military.

Despite spending years and tens of millions of dollars to develop the nonlethal technology, the military has not yet deployed the Active Denial System, in large part because of concerns of a public relations backlash against using a "microwave weapon." Ironically, a former Air Force secretary even suggested that the weapon should first be used in the United States before being deployed abroad.

The Pentagon this year did send a truck-mounted version of the weapon to Afghanistan for testing, but it was sent home without ever being used. Filed under: Nation, Tech,

DENVER -- A law that makes it illegal to lie about being a war hero is unconstitutional because it violates free speech, a federal judge ruled Friday as he dismissed a case against a Colorado man who claimed he received two military medals.

Rick Glen Strandlof claimed he was an ex-Marine who was wounded in Iraq and received the Purple Heart and Silver Star, but the military had no record he ever served. He was charged with violating the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime punishable by up to a year in jail to falsely claim to have won a military medal.

U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn dismissed the case and said the law is unconstitutional, ruling the government did not show it has a compelling reason to restrict that type of statement.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Denver said prosecutors are reviewing the decision and haven't decided whether to appeal. The spokesman said that decision would be made by the U.S. Justice Department in Washington and prosecutors in Denver.

Strandlof's lawyer, Bob Pepin, said he hadn't spoken to Strandlof since the ruling was issued. Pepin said he would advise Strandlof not to comment publicly because the case might be appealed.

"Obviously, we think this is the right decision, or we wouldn't have been making the objections to the statute to begin with," he said. Pepin said Strandlof has been living in a halfway house in Denver while his case is in the courts.

The law has also been challenged in California and in a case now before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Denver attorney Christopher P. Beall, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, said the Stolen Valor Act is fatally flawed because it doesn't require prosecutors to show anyone was harmed or defamed by the lie.

"The government position was that any speech that's false is not protected by the First Amendment. That proposition is very dangerous," Beall said.

"It puts the government in a much more powerful position to prosecute people for speaking out on things they believe to be true but turn out not to be true," he said.

Beall said the ACLU was not defending the actions Strandlof is accused of, but took issue with the principle behind the law.

Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., who sponsored the Stolen Valor Act in the House, predicted the decision will be overturned on appeal.

"This is an issue of fraud plain and simple," Salazar said in a written release. "The individuals who violate this law are those who knowingly portray themselves as pillars of the community for personal and monetary gain."

Pam Sterner, who as a college student wrote a policy analysis that became the basis of Salazar's bill, said the issue isn't free speech but misrepresentation. Sterner, a former Coloradan who now lives in Virginia, said authentic medal winners' credibility suffers when impostors are exposed because the public becomes suspicious of even true stories of heroism.

The Pensacola chapter of Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge and the Pensacola Council of the Navy League will host the 12th annual Prisoner of War Luncheon in September.

The event will begin at 11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 16, at Seville Quarter�s Heritage Hall in downtown Pensacola.

The honored guests and speakers at the event will be retired World War II Air Force veteran Colonel Velfort J. DeArmond Jr., and retired Vietnam Navy veteran Capt. Collins H. Haines.

County launches Grant boat facility Meant to ease traffic, site 10 years in making BY BRITT KENNERLY � FLORIDA TODAY � August 28, 2010

GRANT � Boaters in South Brevard long have squeezed through heavy traffic and thick mud to push off from the one public boat launch between Sebastian and Melbourne.

The tide rolls in their favor today with the grand opening of Christenson's Landing, which covers about 700 feet of coquina-dotted, restored shoreline on a 4.5-acre site off U.S. 1. The facility was approved by voters in 2000 through a South Brevard recreation special district bond referendum that OK'd $3.2 million, followed by a 2006 referendum adding $3.1 million. Ten years and a "permitting nightmare" later, park officials are confident that the second public launch in the area will meet the initial needs of boaters, said Greg Minor, Brevard County parks operations manager.

Four boats can launch at the same time and a floating ramp that's accessible for people with disabilities addresses a frequent complaint, Minor said.

"This is a far cry from what this originally was," Minor said, looking out across a parking lot with spaces for 45 vehicles with trailers.

"We are extremely proud of this. We wanted to make sure that since we're using taxpayer dollars, they got the best bang for their buck. I think they do. This was a long time coming."

The public boat launch was built on the former Couch Pump site purchased in 2005 for $4.5 million via eminent domain. While a total of $8.8 million was available through bond and grant funds, the construction market went down as the project progressed, bringing it in at $7.3 million.

"We were actually anticipating a higher bill," said Joan Van Sickle, parks construction manager.

During the last days of the Civil War, Confederate forces built a prisoner of war camp in Millen, Ga., to relieve the horrific overcrowding at nearby Andersonville.

Though Camp Lawton eventually held 10,000 prisoners, it was barely six weeks old in November, 1864, when Gen. Sherman's troops arrived in south Georgia. The camp was abruptly abandoned, the prisoners evacuated in the middle of the night, and the stockade was partially burned by Union troops.

A pine forest grew up and Camp Lawton disappeared. Over the years, archaeologists have "shovel tested" the area to locate the stockade walls, but because the camp existed so briefly it was considered to be a low priority, a footnote to the nightmare story of Andersonville.

That changed early this year when a Georgia Southern professor and a graduate student located the stockade, and in the process unearthed hundreds of artifacts in what's being described as a significant find.

�This is one of the most exciting and intriguing Civil War discoveries of the modern era,� said Dr. Sue Moore, anthropology professor at Georgia Southern.

In January, working from documents of the era, Moore and graduate student Kevin Chapman began using ground radar to locate the stockade walls at the site, south of Augusta, that had become a U.S. Fish and Wildlife hatchery in 1948, and had ceased operations in 1996.

Chapman expected to find some post holes. But during his first day of sifting dirt, he found a Union button, then a musket ball, then a large U.S. cent, the size of a half-dollar. "The results have been stunning," he said.

As a part of the Bo Ginn National Fish Hatchery, the site has been protected from amateur diggers, which increases its value, said Mark Musaus, deputy regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "It's one of the most significant finds in recent decades because of its pristine nature."

Chapman said the stockade and other occupied structures comprise less than 10 percent of the 42-acre camp. Of that stockade area, only 1 percent has been studied, he said.

Among the artifacts unearthed is an improvised tobacco pipe, with a bowl made from melted lead bullets and a 3-inch clay stem that bears the teeth-marks of the prisoner who used it.

"When you hold that pipe, you can reach back through history and feel that man," Chapman said. "I'll never get to know his name, but I'll be able to tell a little of his story."

Prisoners were hustled out of the camp with no warning and left most of their meager belongings behind. Researchers found iron nails, a tourniquet buckle, an empty picture frame, bullets, a pocket knife and eating utensils. They were temporarily displayed at the adjoining Magnolia Springs State Park, and later will go on display at the Georgia Southern museum in Statesboro.

While the federal government plans to reopen the hatchery, the Civil War site has been fenced off and will be the subject of continued archaeological surveys for years, Musaus said. U.S. officials postponed announcing the find until this month so that the area could be secured against pilfering.

Chief Petty Officer Collin Thomas, 33, of Morehead, Ky., died Wednesday during a combat operation in eastern Afghanistan, the department said.

So far we have hear that he will be buried in Arlington. If I hear anything about any arrangements I will send them out. Click on the link below for more information.

We will be assisting the family on the funeral. As soon as more is known I will send it out. Click on the link below for the DOD release.

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Spc. Christopher S. Wright, 23, of Tollesboro, Ky., died Aug. 19 in Pech, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit using small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Hunter Army Air Field, Ga.

For more information, the media may contact the 75th Ranger Regiment public affairs office at 706-545-4260 or the USASOC News Service: http://news.soc.mil.

Chris Wright of Tollesboro, KY, who was killed in Afghanistan, will be returning to Kentucky on Thursday, August 26th at 9:00 AM. We need everyone, motorcycle, car, or truck, to meet us on Thursday, August 26th at the Marathon station on the Flemingsburg By-pass before 8:00 AM. We will leave the Marathon station at 8:00 AM to go to the Fleming-Mason Airport to escort Christopher Wright to the Barbour Funeral Home in Tollesboro, KY. Please remember to proudly display your American flags for this escort.

Thank you to the 30 or so Task Force Omega members who showed up and helped escort Chris. You and everyone who came out and showed their support did a good thing for a fallen hero yesterday. Click on the link below for the story in the Maysville Ledger.

We will have a flag line on the road leading to the cemetery. The funeral for Chris Wright will be on Saturday, August 28th at 11:00 am at the Christian Church in Tollesboro, KY. We will leave the marathon Station on the Flemingsburg bypass at 9:45 AM and the service station at the intersection of the AA Highway ( Rt.9) and Hwy 57 at 10:30 am on Saturday. We are asking anyone that would like to pay their respects by being in the flag line, meet us at one of the stations. We will stage on the road that leads to the cemetery where Chris is going to be buried. We have some American flags but we will need more so bring any you may have. We will have people with American flags on both sides of the road as the funeral procession goes by. Everyone is welcome to be in the flag line. Visitation for Chris will be at the Tollesboro Christian Church Friday, August 27th from 2:00 PM - 8:00 PM.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (Aug. 23, 2010) � Gov. Steve Beshear today recognized the sacrifice of a Kentucky native soldier who died while supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

According to the Department of Defense, Spc. Christopher S. Wright, 23, of Tollesboro, Ky., died Aug. 19 in Pech, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit using small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Hunter Army Air Field, Ga.

The Governor will order that flags at all state office buildings be lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset on the day of Specialist Wright�s interment for which arrangements are still pending.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Sgt. Jason D. Calo, 23, of Lexington, Ky., died Aug. 22 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Mitchell bomber A Mitchell B-25D bomber from Everett's Historic Flight Restoration Center flies at Boeing Field, in Seattle, on Saturday, June 12, 2010. (Jeremy Lindgren/NYCAviation.com)

The Pentagon has identified the remains of a U.S. serviceman missing in action since his North American B-25C Mitchell bomber crashed during World War II.

U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Ray F. Fletcher, of Westborough, Mass., was one of five people aboard the B-25, which was reported missing on May 13, 1944, after taking off from Ajaccio, Corsica, on a routine courier mission to Ghisonaccia, Corsica, the Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office said in a statement Tuesday.

Two days after the crash, French police reported finding aircraft wreckage on the island's Mount Cagna. The U.S. Army's Graves Registration Command visited the crash site in 1944 and reported remains were not recoverable.

In May 1989, Corsican authorities notified the U.S. Army that they had found wreckage of an American WWII-era aircraft and turned over human remains collected at the mountainous location. A survey team sent to the site once again determined the terrain was too rugged to support a recovery effort, but another team visited the site in 2005 and managed to recover more remains and equipment.

Scientists used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of Fletcher's remains. He is scheduled to be buried with full military honors Aug. 20 in Burlington, Vt.

Sixty five years after the end of World War II, more than 72,000 of the more than 400,000 Americans who died in the war remain unaccounted for. Posted by Aubrey Cohen at August 17, 2010 3:05 p.m.

TO ALL Active, Reserve and Retired Military Personnel: Enjoy FREE Admission to the 2010 Deutsche Bank Championship and the Tournament�s new Military Patriot Outpost Hospitality Tent!

I share with you the following from a legal immigrant who knows that freedom isn't free.

This is why we were in Vietnam. This is why we were in Iraq. This is why we are in foreign countries.

To give people the concept that is America . . . to share our principles, not to conquer as some might imply . . . here in America, there are opportunities.

United we stand. Thousands have gone to battle for our freedoms so that we can continue to be the land of opportunity.

Please share this with others. The time has come to fight for these freedoms in our state and in our nation.

On July 24th at 6:30 PM, the town of Prescott Valley, AZ will be hosting a Freedom Rally. I was asked to speak for 10 minutes on my experience of coming to America and what it means.

I wrote this in dedication to all Vietnam Veterans and I feel that it is important for me to share it with you prior to the Saturday event. Here it is and God Bless you my friend.

35 years ago, if you were to tell me that I am going to stand up here speaking to a couple thousand patriots, in English, I�d laugh at you. Man, every morning I wake up thanking God for putting me and my family in the greatest country on earth.

I just want you all to know that the American dream does exist and I am living the American dream. I was asked to speak to you about my experience as a first generation Vietnamese American, but I rather speak to you as an American.

If you hadn't noticed, I am not white and I feel pretty comfortable with my people.

I am a proud US citizen and here is my proof� It took me 8 years to get it, waiting in endless lines, but I got it and I am very proud of it. Guess what, I did legally and it ain't from the state of Hawaii.

I still remember the images of the Tet offensive in 1968, I was six years old. Now you might want to question how a 6 year old boy could remember anything. Trust me, those images can never be erased. I can't even imagine what it was like for young American soldiers, 10,000 miles away from home, fighting on my behalf.

35 years ago, I left south Vietnam for political asylum. The war had ended. At the age of 13, I left with the understanding that I may or may not ever get to see my siblings or parents again. I was one of the first lucky 100,000 Vietnamese allowed to come to the US. Somehow, my family and I were reunited 5 months later, amazingly, in California. It was a miracle from God.

If you haven't heard lately that this is the greatest country on earth. I am telling you that right now. It is the freedom and the opportunities presented it to me that put me here with all of you tonight. I also remember the barriers that I had to overcome every step of the way. My high school counselor told me that I cannot make it to college due to my poor communication skills. I proved him wrong. I finished college. You see� All you have to do is to give this little boy an opportunity and encourage him to take and run with it. Well, I took the opportunity and here I am. This person standing tonight in front of you could not exist under a socialist/communist environment. By the way, if you think socialism is the way to go, I am sure many people here will chip in to get you a one way ticket out of here. And if you didn't know, the only difference between socialism and communism is an AK-47 aiming at your head. That was my experience.

In 1982, I stood with a thousand new immigrants, reciting the pledge of allegiance and listening to the National Anthem for the first time as an American. To this day, I can't remember anything sweeter and more patriotic than that moment in my life.

Fast forwarding, somehow I finished high school, finished college, and like any other goofball 21 year old kid, I was having a great time with my life, I had a nice job and a nice apartment in Southern California. In someway and somehow, I had forgotten how I got here and why I am here.

One day I was at a gas station, I saw a veteran pumping gas on the other side of the island. I don't know what made me do it, but I walked over and asked if he had served inVietnam. He smiled and said Yes. I shook and held his hand. The grown man began to well up. I walked away as fast as I could and at that very moment, I was emotionally rocked. This was a profound moment in life. I knew something had to change in my life. It was time for me to learn how to be a good citizen. It was time for me to give back.

You see� America is not place on the map, it isn't a physical location. It is an ideal, a concept. And if you are an American, you must understand the concept, you must buy into this concept and most importantly, you have to fight and defend this concept. This is about Freedom� and not free stuff. And that is why I am standing up here. Brothers and sisters, to be a real American, the very least you must do is to learn English and understand it well. In my humble opinion, you cannot be a faithful patriotic citizen if you can't speak the language of the country you live in. Take this document of 46 pages� Last I looked on the internet, there wasn't a Vietnamese translation of the US constitution. It took me a long time to get to the point of being able to converse and until this day, I still struggle to come up with the right words. It�s not easy, but if it�s too easy, it�s not worth doing.

Before I know this 46 page document, I learned of the 500,000 Americans who fought for this little boy. I learned of the 58,000 names scribed on the black wall at the Vietnam memorial. You are my heroes. You are my founders.

At this time, I would like to ask all the Vietnam veterans to please stand. �. I thank you for my life. I thank you for your sacrifices, and I thank you for giving me the freedom and liberty I have today. I now ask All veterans, firefighters, and police officers, to please stand. On behalf of all first generation immigrants, I thank you for your services and may God bless you all.

We had a fantastic day - Great Weather - Food - Ride - Friends new and old - all unitiing to support a PHENOMINAL CAUSE!!!

We had 141 bikes through the toll and about 200 in attendance for our 10th Annual Run for the Shelter - for Manchester's first homeless Veteran's transitional shelter - LIBERTY HOUSE.

The economy is tight as we all know too well and to have such an excellent turn out is a testiment to the dedication we all share for our Veteran's!!

We have a Gold Star family here in New Hampshire that is having a very difficult time. I know of another Gold Star family that went through much of the same issues and would like to help. It makes such a difference when someone can say "I know how you feel". We are hoping to find a retreat for them by a lake, a home with a pool, etc. that the two families could share some time together. The daughters could spend time swimming, hiking, talking, etc. I do know that the finances on both families is such that they could not afford a place to rent. I am asking if possible, if there would be a place they could stay for a long weekend. I do know that this is asking above and beyond, but intervention is needed.

Please let email or call me (548-8787) if you or someone you know might have a place that the families could use.

Please let the Blue and Gold Star families, all Military Service Members and Veterans know about this event. We always have a great time!!! The Mobile Vet Center will be there again this year too.

Save the date ~ Apple Hill in Concord on Sunday the 3rd of October.... http://www.applehillfarmnh.com/

Veterans to hold POW/MIA Vigil By: Greg Bischof - Texarkana Gazette - Published: 08/22/2010

�We Won�t Ever Forget!! Will You?� is the question the local chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America has put before the public ahead of organization�s 23rd annual POW/MIA Vigil.

The two-day vigil will start with an opening ceremony at 3:11 p.m. Sept. 3 at the Korea//Vietnam Memorial, at West Seventh Street and North State Line Avenue.

Since the vigil�s start time and length will be based on the number of minutes to match the number of American prisoners of war and those missing in action, the time may vary if more POWs or MIAs are identified before Sept. 3.

WASHINGTON -- Defense Department officials want to ensure that anyone whose military enlistment was involuntarily extended under the so-called "stop loss" provision applies to receive a stipend by the Oct. 21 deadline.

An estimated 145,000 servicemembers are eligible to receive $500 for each full or partial month served in stop loss status.

During a "DoD Live" bloggers roundtable yesterday, Lernes J. Hebert, the department's acting director of officer and enlisted personnel management, said tens of thousands of applications have been processed, but the department is far from having received claims from every eligible servicemember. As a result, he said, officials are trying to get the word out so eligible people can apply by the deadline.

One concern, Hebert said, is that some current or former servicemembers assume they're ineligible, or that they don't want to spend time applying for what may turn out to be no return at all. But turnaround is quick and the form takes very little time to complete for what could turn out to be a significant payoff, he added.

"If there's any question if you're eligible --go ahead and apply," Hebert said. "Most of the individuals who have gone through the process say [the form] takes about a half hour to complete. The average pay out is between $3,000 and $4,000, so that's a pretty good return on your investment."

All servicemembers, veterans and beneficiaries of servicemembers whose service was involuntarily extended between Sept. 11, 2001, and Sept. 30, 2009, are eligible for the special pay.

"This is to get the word out, so that nobody is left wondering come Oct. 22," Hebert said. "It's a full-court press."

Army Maj. Roy Whitley, the Army's project manager for Retroactive Stop Loss Special Pay, also participated in the roundtable. Whitley said the Army has processed about 44,000 claims, adding that he believes there are more troops are out there who don't know to apply for their stop loss special pay. But without that application on hand, he added, the Army can't do anything for the soldier.

"We can always pay you," Whitley said. "We have plenty of time to look at claims. We just need to get you in."

Hebert said the Defense Department's stop loss website at http://www.defense.gov/stoploss has all the information about the special pay and includes the application form. He emphasized that servicemembers who aren't certain about eligibility may qualify despite their memory or knowledge of the situation.

"Whether you think you're eligible or not, submit the application," Hebert said.

Don�t worry about losing your extra pays and combat zone tax exclusion when combat operations in Iraq officially come to an end.

Starting Sept. 1, the U.S. mission in Iraq will officially change to mentoring Iraqi troops and police, marking a symbolic end to the U.S. combat mission there. Even though the Defense Department has said the move won�t affect troops� pay, rumors along those lines have persisted, prompting Stars and Stripes to ask the department about this matter.

�Iraq (land and airspace) is included in the list of designated hostile fire or imminent danger pay areas (effective since Sep 17, 1990),� said Defense Department spokeswoman Eileen Lainez in an e-mail. �These pays are based upon a location's designation as a combat zone or direct support area. Therefore, the pays won't change Sept. 1.�

All U.S. troops are slated to leave Iraq by the end of next year under an agreement struck between the U.S. and Iraqi governments in 2008.

Whether some U.S. troops remain in Iraq beyond the end of 2011 could depend on who ultimately emerges as the country�s new prime minister. Iraqi politicians have been deadlocked on forming a new government since March�s parliamentary elections.

WASHINGTON -- A foreign spy agency pulled off the most serious breach of Pentagon computer networks ever by inserting a flash drive into a U.S. military laptop, a top defense official said Wednesday.

The previously classified incident, which took place in 2008 in the Middle East, was disclosed in a magazine article by Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn and released by the Pentagon Wednesday.

He said a "malicious code" on the flash drive spread undetected on both classified and unclassified Pentagon systems, "establishing what amounted to a digital beachhead, from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control."

"It was a network administrator's worst fear: a rogue program operating silently, poised to deliver operational plans into the hands of an unknown adversary," Lynn wrote in an article for Foreign Affairs. "This ... was the most significant breach of U.S. military computers ever and it served as an important wake-up call."

The Pentagon operation to counter the attack, known as Operation Buckshot Yankee, marked a turning point in U.S. cyberdefense strategy, Lynn said.

In November 2008, the Defense Department banned the use of the small high-tech storage devices that are used to move data from one computer to another. The ban was partially lifted early this year with the approval of limited use of the devices.

Lynn did not disclose what, if any, military secrets may have been stolen in the 2008 penetration of the system, what nation orchestrated the attack, nor whether there were any other repercussions.

The article went on to warn that U.S. adversaries can threaten American military might without building stealth fighters, aircraft carriers or other expensive weapons systems.

"A dozen determined computer programmers can, if they find a vulnerability to exploit, threaten the United States' global logistics network, steal its operational plans, blind its intelligence capabilities, or hinder its ability to deliver weapons on target," Lynn wrote.

"Knowing this, many militaries are developing offensive capabilities in cyberspace, and more than 100 foreign intelligence organizations are trying to break into U.S. networks," he said.

Defense officials have said repeatedly that the military system of some 15,000 computer networks and seven million computers suffers millions of probes a day with threats coming from a range of attackers from routine hackers to foreign governments looking to steal sensitive information or bring down critical, life-sustaining systems.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are putting Prudential Financial under the congressional microscope for the company's policy of placing the death benefit payments of fallen troops and veterans into interest-earning accounts instead of immediately turning the money over to the deceased's next-of-kin.

A "ton of documents" was turned over to the House Committee on Government Oversight on Aug. 23 as part of its investigation, Military.com has learned, and the ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee has called for hearings next month to investigate the practice.

The documents turned over to the House oversight committee were requested by committee Chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., in an Aug. 10 letter to Prudential. Requested documents include copies of standard Servicemembers Group Life Insurance and Veterans Group Life Insurance policies and of all materials sent to the deceased's next-of-kin.

In his letter to Prudential, Towns said he was "concerned that some beneficiaries of active duty service members and veterans life insurance may not fully understand their right to obtain immediate, lump-sum payment of their benefits. Moreover, these retained asset accounts are essentially low interest bank accounts that, unlike bank deposits, are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, although they may be protected by state insurance guaranty funds."

Towns also pointed out the company's policy of paying the beneficiary 0.5 percent on investment earnings while keeping more than 4 percent.

Depending on what investigators find among the documents, Towns could call for hearings into the retained asset accounts next month.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the ranking member of the Senate banking committee, said he will hold a hearing when Congress returns from its August break in September.

In a letter to committee Chairman Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Shelby said he was concerned over media reports suggesting that insurance companies may be unjustly profiting through retained asset accounts. He noted the claim that the accounts allow insurance companies to earn interest on the proceeds from the accounts -- which the insurers invest -- at a higher rate than they pay to the beneficiaries.

Prudential concedes that it earns more on the investments it makes using the accounts than the survivor owner of the account. Prudential earns 4.5 percent while the survivor earns 0.5 percent.

Prudential spokesman Bob DeFillippo told Military.com that the retained asset accounts are no different in this way than any bank savings account. In these, too, he said, the account owner receives a smaller percentage in interest on the money than the bank, which is investing it.

"It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the way we're able to provide interest to the family is to invest it," he said. "We provide a fairly competitive interest [rate] to beneficiaries."

He also said the beneficiaries can take out the entire amount of the death benefit immediately.

"If you write a check for the entire amount to yourself and go to your bank, you have taken all the money from the death benefit and it's yours," he said. "Also, the idea that it's not your money when it's in the [retained asset] account is wrong. It is yours."

In a July 29 press release, meanwhile, Prudential acknowledged that the retained asset accounts are not FDIC insured, but said the funds are covered by state guaranty funds "of at least $250,000 in most states." Unless a service member opts to reduce the amount, however, he is automatically insured under SGLI for $400,000.

WASHINGTON -- As the White House eagerly highlights the departure of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, the small army of American diplomats left behind is embarking on a long and perilous path to keeping the volatile country from slipping back to the brink of civil war.

Among the challenges are helping Iraq's deeply divided politicians form a new government; refereeing long-simmering Arab-Kurd territorial disputes; advising on attracting foreign investment; pushing for improved government services; and fleshing out a blueprint for future U.S.-Iraqi relations.

President Barack Obama also is banking on the diplomats - about 300, protected by as many as 7,000 private security contractors - to assume the duties of the U.S. military. That includes protecting U.S. personnel from attack and managing the training of Iraqi police, starting in October 2011.

The Iraq insurgency, which began shortly after U.S. troops toppled Baghdad in April 2003, is why the U.S. only now is entering the post-combat phase of stabilizing Iraq. Originally, the U.S. thought Iraq would be peaceful within months of the invasion, allowing for a short-lived occupation and the relatively quick emergence of a viable government.

Although the insurgency has been reduced to what one analyst terms a "lethal nuisance," it will complicate the State Department's mission and test Iraq's security forces.

Much is at stake as the department negotiates with the Pentagon over acquiring enough Black Hawk helicopters, bomb-resistant vehicles and other heavy gear to outfit its own protection force in Iraq.

"Regardless of the reasons for going to war, everything now depends on a successful transition to an effective and unified Iraqi government and Iraqi security forces that can bring both security and stability to the average Iraqi," says Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In his view that transition will take five years to 10 years.

The question is whether progress will be interrupted or reversed once American combat power is gone.

The U.S. will have 50,000 troops in Iraq when the combat mission officially ends Aug. 31; they are scheduled to draw down to zero by Dec. 31, 2011. Until then, they will advise and train Iraqi security forces, and provide security and transport for the diplomats.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that he believes Iraq's security forces have matured to the point where they will be ready to shoulder enough of the burden to permit the remaining 50,000 U.S. soldiers to go home at the end of next year.

"My assessment today is they - they will be," Odierno said, according to an excerpt of the interview released Saturday by CNN.

"We continue to see development in planning, in their ability to conduct operations," he added. "We continue to see political development, economic development and all of these combined together will start to create an atmosphere that creates better security."

Once the U.S. troops are gone, the State Department will be responsible for the security of its personnel.

Obama administration officials say the diplomats are well prepared for what the State Department expects to be a three- to five-year transition to a "normal" U.S.-Iraqi relationship.

"We are fully prepared to assume our responsibilities as we move through this transition from a military-led effort to a civilian-led effort," department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

Kenneth M. Pollack, a frequent visitor to Iraq as director of Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution, says the administration is in danger of underestimating the difficulty it faces.

"One of the biggest mistakes that most Americans are making is assuming that Iraq can't slide back into civil war. It can," Pollack said. "This thing can go bad very easily."

Pollack, who does not consider himself a pessimist on Iraq, said the historical record on civil wars around the globe shows that about half repeat themselves.

"So it is a huge mistake to assume it can't" happen in Iraq, whose civil strife in 2005-07 was so violent that many Americans assumed the war was lost and believed U.S. troops should give up and go home.

Pollack considers the State Department ill-suited for its new tasks - starting with the police training mission and including the complex developmental problems such as improving Iraq's water system.

"What the State Department is being asked to do isn't in their DNA," Pollack said.

The department has been strongly criticized for its past work in Iraqi police training. An October 2007 report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., said the State Department had so badly managed a February 2004 contract for Iraqi police training that the department could not tell what it got for the $1.2 billion it spent.

In May 2004 President George W. Bush put the Pentagon in charge of all security force development.

The newly departed U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, Christopher Hill, says he sees brighter days ahead for Iraq, but he also laments "woefully low" supplies of electricity and deeply ingrained tensions among the three main competitors for political power: Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

The diplomats' postwar task would have been much easier if, as the administration once hoped, Iraq had formed a new government by now, nearly six months after its March 7 national elections.

Instead, the political stalemate - with no end in sight - has created another hurdle to the central U.S. goal in Iraq: translating hard-fought security gains into stability.

"While there are no guarantees, the prospects for Iraq's security and stability beyond 2011 look as good or better than they have at any time in the recent past," John Negroponte, who was U.S. ambassador to Iraq in 2004-05, wrote Thursday in a ForeignPolicy.com blog.

Odierno leaves Baghdad on Sept. 1 for a new assignment in the U.S., and Gen. David Petraeus, who was Odierno's boss as head of Central Command, switched last month to take command in Afghanistan. Hill was replaced in Baghdad this past week by James Jeffrey, who was the U.S. ambassador to Turkey.

WASHINGTON � The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) committed the last of its $1.8 billion in Recovery Act funds July 31, one of the first federal agencies to achieve that milestone. Projects at more than 1,200 sites in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico will increase access to health care and services to Veterans, while creating jobs and stimulating the economy.

�Veterans across the Nation are benefiting from these Recovery Act funds,� said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. �Recovery Act projects are improving medical care, speeding claims processing, enhancing our national cemeteries, advancing our energy efficiency, and generating jobs for Americans.�

VA rapidly put American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) funding to work to improve its medical facilities, revitalize its national cemeteries, hire claims processors, upgrade technology systems and assist states in acquiring, building or remodeling state nursing homes and domiciliary facilities for Veterans.

The funding received by VA is part of President Obama�s economic recovery plan to improve services to America�s Veterans. By obligating these funds quickly, VA is revitalizing its infrastructure and moving needed money into the economy.

Using Recovery Act funds, VA entered into 1,521 contracts with 696 contractors. Three-quarters of the contractors are Veterans owned businesses, either service disabled Veteran owned businesses or Veteran owned small businesses.

VA obligated $1 billion to improve VA medical care facilities across the country through building renovations, roadway and walkway repairs, high cost equipment replacement, security improvements, new construction, replacement of steam lines and boiler plants, upgrades in emergency power distribution, and purchases of additional emergency generators among others.

To help Veterans access care, Recovery Act projects in VA medical facilities will add or improve more than 26,000 parking spaces and 39 elevator banks are being built or upgraded. VA will upgrade nearly 14,000 inpatient bed spaces, while 16 pharmacy renovation projects will help Veterans get medicines quicker and more efficiently. More than 14,400 clinical improvement projects, some with multiple exam rooms, will be undertaken.

Funds are also helping ensure VA health care facilities function more efficiently (by reducing annual recurring maintenance and upkeep cost) and are equipped to provide world-class care to Veterans.

� Bedford, Mass., VA Medical Center (VAMC) mental health unit renovation, $7.165 million;

� New Haven, Conn., VAMC private and semi-private inpatient units, $7.743 million;

� Hines, Ill., VAMC electrical distribution infrastructure upgrade, $8 million.

VA serves 5.5 million Veterans annually in its hospitals, outpatient clinics and rural health programs.

VA is promoting energy conservation and reducing its environmental footprint by investing $200 million in Recovery Act funds for renewable energy generation technologies, metering systems, and energy conservation and water-saving measures. In total, the renewable energy systems awarded represent more than 9 megawatts of planned power generating capacity from solar, wind, and cogeneration technologies.

Two national cemeteries, in Bourne, Mass., and San Joaquin, Calif., anticipate producing enough electricity to supply nearly all of their energy needs.

VA is installing solar photovoltaic systems at facilities in Albuquerque, N.M.; Tucson, Ariz.; Dublin, Ga.; Calverton, N.Y.; San Joaquin, Calif., and Riverside, Calif.

VA is erecting a wind turbine in Bourne, Mass., and is constructing a geothermal system at its medical center in St. Cloud, Minn.

In addition, VA is building renewably fueled cogeneration systems at five medical facilities: Togus, Maine; White River Junction, Vt.; Chillicothe, Ohio; Loma Linda, Calif.; and Canandaigua, N.Y.

VA is installing metering systems at all VA-owned facilities to monitor energy utilities, including electricity, water, chilled water, steam, and natural gas consumption.

VA is also investing $197 million in energy and water infrastructure improvements. VA facilities across the country are upgrading their facilities to reduce energy consumption and water usage and better manage related costs.

VA is working to improve the systems for processing claims to more quickly and efficiently deliver benefits to Veterans. VA has obligated $150 million to hire, train and equip new employees to improve claims processing and speed the delivery of benefits to Veterans. VA has hired approximately 2,700 temporary and permanent employees to assist with processing Veterans' claims for VA benefits.

Throughout VA�s system of 131 national cemeteries, 391 improvement projects are underway using $50 million in Recovery Act funding. VA is restoring and preserving 49 historic monuments and memorials, becoming more energy efficient by investing in renewable energy sources (solar and wind), moving forward on nine energy conservation projects, and improving access and visitor safety with 49 road, paving and grounds improvement projects.

Recovery Act funds are also being used to raise, realign, and clean approximately 200,000 headstones and markers, repair sunken graves, and renovate turf at 22 VA national cemeteries.

The Recovery Act provided one-time $250 economic recovery payments to eligible Veterans, their survivors, and dependents to help mitigate the effects of the current economy. $7.1 million were intended for administrative support of the one-time benefit payments. VA was able to successfully administer the program with a savings of approximately $6.1 million, and may return the remaining funds to the US Treasury.

Taliban claim Bergdahl converted By Sean Ellis sellis@journalnet.com | 0 comments

Military veterans are denouncing as cruel propaganda the latest Taliban claim that U.S. Army prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl of Idaho is teaching the terrorists bomb-making and ambush skills.

The veterans and active duty personnel, as well as Bergdahl�s parents in Hailey, won�t speak on the record because they�re afraid their words could jeopardize Bergdahl�s safety. But privately, many of them believe anything Bergdahl says or does while in captivity should be viewed as coerced.

Bowe, 24, of Hailey, was captured by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009, while serving with an Army unit and is the only U.S. military member known to be held prisoner by enemy forces.

Two British newspapers � The Sunday Times and the Daily Mail � are reporting that a senior Taliban official claimed Bergdahl has converted to Islam and has taught them how to use a cell phone to remotely detonate roadside bombs.

The Taliban official, who called himself Haji Nadeem, claimed to be a deputy district commander in Afghanistan�s Paktika province in the southeastern part of the country. The newspapers reported that Afghan intelligence officials searching for Bergdahl also believe he is cooperating with the Taliban and acting as an adviser to them.

Idaho National Guard Public Affairs Officer Col. Tim Marsano, who is acting as a spokesman for Bergdahl�s family, said news of the latest claims by the Taliban have been passed along to the family. The family has asked for media privacy, fearing anything they say could be used against Bergdahl.

The Taliban has released three videos of Bergdahl, including one in April that showed him pleading to be returned to his family and saying the war in Afghanistan is not worth the waste of human life.

Military veterans the Journal spoke with Sunday noted that former POWs have said claims they made during captivity were forced and against their will.

In a statement regarding the April video, U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Greg Smith denounced the video as a deplorable act of propaganda that would only fuel the country�s efforts to locate Bergdahl.

�The insurgents who hold Bowe are obviously using him as a means to ultimately cause pain to his family and friends,� Smith said in a statement.

As a young man growing up in Swain County during the Depression, Wayne Carringer developed no love of farming. His vision looked beyond the mountains, and consequently he latched onto airplanes.

At age 19, when Great Britain declared war on Germany, Carringer volunteered for the U.S. Army. Two years later, he was an Air Force pilot in the Philippines.

�Our planes did not arrive,� Carringer said in an interview with Nancy Potts Coward in 2003, as part of a UNC Asheville oral history project.

Australia needed the planes, so Gen. MacArthur, Carringer noted, �put the Air Force people on the front lines, and we were on the front lines for 106 days without proper food or equipment.� Provisions were stuck up north and couldn't pass customs. The men ate monkey.

The subsequent half year seems like something it would be natural to forget. When Carringer came out of it, he found himself back on a farm.

He was growing vegetables for the officers of the Cabanatuan Prison Camp in the northern Philippines. As his interview reveals, he has not forgotten what had led up to that moment � his unit's surrender to the Japanese on April 9, 1942, and the aftermath.

Carringer survived the Bataan Death March, witnessing many atrocities, and Camp O'Donnell, �a death factory.�

At Cabanatuan, he dwindled to 80 pounds. He spent time in �Zero Ward,� last stop for the hopeless.

�I almost died of malaria,� Carringer recalled. �Malaria killed a lot of our fellows. There was one fellow from Graham County that had malaria that killed him, I'm sure. Jacob Cornsilk, a full-blooded Cherokee Indian.�

Prisoners buried Cornsilk in a mass grave. His community in Snowbird tried to get his remains sent home but could not get any cooperation.

Cornsilk's name came up just a couple of months ago in the Tulsa World. Phillip Coon, a 91-year-old full-blooded Creek survivor of Bataan, told a reporter that Cornsilk had been his only friend overseas.

�He was a big guy who went down to nothing when he died,� Coon recalled. �After he died, I tried not to get close to anyone again.�

In the annals of invading armies, the Japanese army in the Philippines ends up on the low end of the humane scale. When the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Carringer was nearby � in the Omuta coal mines in Japan, to which he'd been transferred.

�The fallout was on the ocean between us as far as your vision could see, the mushroom rolling,� Carringer related. �It was an extremely exciting time to see them getting what we thought they deserved.�

Upon the surrender of Japan, Aug. 15, 1945, Carringer and some buddies did not wait for rescuing and bolted to Manila, where, in a few weeks, they sickened themselves getting their weights back to normal.

His unghostly appearance surprised home folks, who some time ago had had a big public funeral for him.

Like Rip Van Winkle, he found his homeland changed. Lost to this world were his mother, his brother Andy and his brother Porter, killed during the construction of Fontana Dam. The mountains were getting ready for the New South.

With the money the Army gave him � his pay and food rations money for his time as a prisoner of war � Carringer bought himself 4 1/2 acres in Robbinsville. It became the site of a Wendy's.

In 1963, Carringer began organizing reunions of World War II veterans of the Philippines in Fontana Village.

Rob Neufeld writes the local history feature, �Visiting Our Past,� for the Citizen-Times. He is the author of �A Popular History of Western North Carolina� and �Asheville's River Arts District.� Visit thereadonwnc.ning. com. Contact him at RNeufeld@ charter.net or 768-2665.

The Hell Ship: Memories of a WWII POW By longtime Ukiah resident ELMER WOLFF, as documented by JANIE TATE

I heard that several times from the sports fishermen that spent their summers in the campground by the Albion harbor. They knew I liked writing about people's adventures.

One day I was down there trading fishing stories and asked where this Elmer person was. I assumed he would be pretty incapacitated, being 83 years old and having had such a traumatic near death experience. "Here comes his boat now," they said. I watched as he walked up the ramp from the dock with his cane followed by a friend carrying a big Salmon. "We'll clean your fish Elmer, you can go talk to Janie," and that's how it started. We walked over and sat down in his little RV trailer. He'd heard enough about me to trust me, I guess. I told him about the things I remembered about my childhood during World War II, about all the rationing of supplies, the shortages of sugar, gasoline, rubber, copper, (we even had non-copper pennies in 1943). I told him how scared we were on the California coast, about the black outs, and camouflage, about all the sailors and soldiers, and how I idolized the P 38's and B 17's. I told him how my brothers and I played war with toy guns and model planes.

He was a prisoner during most of that war and had no idea whatsoever about what was going on at home. Elmer's hands shook from Parkinsons Disease; his tongue quivered also from the same Quantcast condition. That doesn't stop him from driving his truck, pulling his boat and R V, launching and taking that boat out into a sometimes rough ocean and catching as big of a fish as anyone in the fleet. That same gumption is probably what saw him through those days as a prisoner. He started to tell me his story. I turned on my little tape recorder.

"I was born Feb. 11th, 1919 in Loma, Montana. My dad was a farmer. We'd work 10-hour days when I was a kid. I always hated being cold. When my grandpa was young and it got down to 70 below, they had to go out and move the cows around so they wouldn't freeze. I joined the Army Air Corps so I wouldn't have to go back to Montana in the winter. It was September 9th, 1940, a little over one year before Pearl Harbor was bombed. I was working on an electrification project up in Washington. About 10 of us went into Spokane and enlisted in the Army.

We stayed at March Field until we were shipped to Tucson, Arizona. There was a big brand new air-base there and even some commercial airlines stopped there off and on. Everybody around there didn't know what a soldier was, never saw a soldier before. We were in Albuquerque for a while. From there they shipped us to San Francisco, Angel Island, and I was shipped overseas Oct. 4th, 1941.

We headed for the Philippines. The town we landed on in Mindanao was Kagayan. We started to build a new airfield. There was a place that was a natural for an airfield. You'd come back off the coast up to a plateau. It was all level up there until you came to the jungle. That's where we started the airfield. The planes were going to come in out of Australia, and we were going to load them up with fuel and bombs. They needed it as a stop over place. The Filipinos were building barracks and buildings for us out of bamboo. "

At that point someone came in and told him what his Salmon weighed. "37 pounds, Elmer... it won't win the derby. Someone caught a 42-pounder today." I was amazed. I pulled in a 35-pound Salmon once and was sore for two days. I looked at his experienced old hands, twisted from arthritis. The man left and Elmer continued...

"A few days after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese started bombing us. I forget how many B17's were all wiped out. There was a Japanese man working with the Filipinos. When they hit Pearl Harbor, the Filipinos jumped on him with axes. I guess they were going to kill him but somebody rescued him; he got shipped off somewhere. We were a light maintenance company but became combat infantry when the war started there.

Soon the Filipinos were all evacuated into the hills. The war had started down in the south of Mindanao. We stayed there in the north a while and as the war went on we moved back into the jungles; we were hiding supplies.

When they'd bomb us we'd move over to the edge of the field; there was a big ravine in there. We'd run over there and hide in the bushes. When it was over, we'd all come out. We never knew when they were going to come. They were invading another island; the Philippine army and some American officers were fighting them. They held out a few months and then General Wainwright surrendered.

We were in the Maramag forest, near Malaybalay. That is where we surrendered. We still had radios and we got word of it. We were communicating with Australia. We didn't know what would happen to us; we thought they might kill us. We were told to assemble at a certain point for the officers to surrender all their troops. There were Japanese guards with bayonets all around us, keeping us in bunches. We were only allowed to bring a few items. Only the officers' names were written down. Somehow they found out who was who. They knew I was a mechanic.

We had to turn over everything to the Japanese. It was pretty scary. They didn't kill us; I think a lot of people wished they had because thousands of men died from amebic dysentery and starvation later. We were down on the pineapple plantation, by the capitol of Mindanao, Tankulin. Our first prison camp was at Malaybalay.

There was a big cannery, near Kagayan; they blew it all up. Later on when I was a prisoner in a Japanese truck, they were taking a half dozen of us back to Tankulin to drive back captured trucks; we saw that they had mostly destroyed that town. I think our soldiers burned up a lot of it 'cause we had supplies stored there.

They kept us in a Filipino training camp for quite a while. They'd bring us rice, I forget how long we were there. I didn't see them kill any American soldiers; I heard of it though. If one man escaped, they would kill 10 prisoners.

They treated us better than the Filipinos. Their prison camp was next to ours. We'd watch them line up men, women and children and shoot them, then laugh about it. There was another camp with nurses and American civilians. I think they treated them better.

Then they took us to Davau. There was a big self-contained prison camp for the islands. I don't know what they did with the prisoners; maybe they turned them loose. There were about 2,000 of us there. They kept us in that prison.

We worked in the rice fields and vegetable gardens and made rope out of hemp. We'd catch one of the water buffaloes (we called them Carabau) that ran around out there in the fields and put a spike through its nose and we used that as power to plow up the rice paddies, then we'd harrow them. There was mud up to our shoulders sometimes.

After we got the fields worked up, we'd plant. There would be about 30 men and we'd line up across a rope and every six inches they'd move the rope and we'd back up and stick one or two plants in the ground and when we were all done it was all covered with rice. We'd go out later when the rice headed out and harvest it. Two men with a bamboo pole on their shoulders and a basket would walk along. We'd throw the heads in the baskets and then carry them on our shoulders to the shed and the thrasher. We were there about a year or two. We were slaves.

I picked up Malaria there. When it hits you one minute you're burning up and the next minute you are shivering cold. Quinine breaks the fever. After a while we ran out of it. We worked anyway unless it got so bad we couldn't stand up."

Malaria is caused by a parasite that invades the red blood cells. Every few days the cells all burst. It can last for weeks. It is not fatal and gradually a person gets better. There can be relapses. It is spread by mosquitoes and there was no shortage of them around the rice paddies.

"I got another disease called Schistomoniasis Japonicum. It's a parasite. In the rice fields there were blades of grass that were sharp as razors; it would cut our legs and we were in that mud, no telling what was in it. It was like walking in a sewer. I didn't know what it was at the time; we all had intestinal problems.

We got about 1/2 cup of rice each meal to eat, and about 1/2 cup of water. We got three meals a day when we were working and two when we weren't. We each had a mess kit that we kept for them to put the rice into. Sometimes it was moldy and full of maggots. I used to pick them out of the rice. They had been cooked and you could tell them from the rice because they had a little black spot on them. We'd pick them out along with the rice that was touching them and put it in a little pile, but after a while you realized you were wasting too much so we quit picking them out. There was no way to wash anything.

Occasionally we would tie a rope around a water buffalo's foot and head and drown him in the rice paddy. There were 2,000 men there so we only got one little piece each. There was a big metal container we cooked it in.

Many died. There was a big pit in several of the camps that the prisoners had dug. We had to carry the bodies out for burial. They also brought the dead in from Bataan and buried them there. Some were eaten by dogs. There were a lot of dogs down there because the Filipinos had them for food. They would starve them for a few days and then gave them all the rice they could eat for stuffing and then killed them.

There was a kind of vine that spread all over the ground in the Philippines and we'd go pick it up in big baskets and cook it in the mess hall. It was called whistle weed 'cause the stems were hollow and you could make a whistle. We ate anything we could get a hold of. One time a friend and I found some weeds out in the yard of the camp. We ate them like salad with our rice. They looked like sour dock. The next morning he was kind of paralyzed and didn't go to work. When I got back at the end of the day he was dead. Maybe he ate a different weed than I did. I never did figure it out."

We chatted there in his R V for quite a time and there were more interruptions (he's a popular guy). I took my recorder home to digest some of this and place it in chronological order. He gave me a book to look at called "Prisoners of the Japanese ." After glancing through it I realized there was more he hadn't told me. Nightmarish horrible things that are better left locked up in a corner of the memory banks where they can do no harm. His account is factual and unemotional and I understood why. War creates a terrible mentality. Food was scarce for the Japanese also and prisoners that stole any were severely punished. The Geneva Convention rules were not followed in the Japanese camps. From what I have read, in Germany they were. Four percent of prisoners died there; 27 percent of the Japanese prisoners died. I am quoting someone else's published research. I suspect there were more dead than we will ever know.

"The Army wrote my mom and told her that I was missing in action. The Japanese were supposed to let us write. I think one card got through to our folks. It was only a few sentences 'cause they controlled what we said. She was pretty darn glad to get my card.

One day they took about 20 of us to the city of Davao where they were pulling in all the motor equipment that they captured. I was a mechanic. They had us down there repairing. We made them think we were fixing them; we'd strip a motor and clean it in gas and that's all we'd do. We stayed there about a year and a half."

"When we were working on the old cars, one guard was kind of comical - we called him Mathias. He would warn us when we rested. When a guard would walk by he'd holler and say make a lot of noise like you're working. When they had gone by he'd say Yasume (rest). He was the only one I knew there that was good to us. Some of the guards were terrible, just mean.

There were about 80 men in our company, away from the main camp. Some equipment wasn't worth fixing; we'd knock down to nothing.. . scrap metal.

They barely kept us alive; I went from 215 to 90 pounds. If you got sick you didn't have to work and were cut to 1/2 rations. The Japanese doctor would check you out. He made the decision; we had no medicine. In the last camp I was in, the "Dr." was a dentist. We would get those tropical ulcers. I had a lot of them on my back. They would burn them out with acid."

Sometimes the flesh had to be cut out of those ulcers (it sounded like that flesh-eating bacteria to me the way he described it.) It was a terribly painful procedure with no anesthetic. There were other nightmarish horrible experiences that have been well documented for those who really want to know. Elmer didn't elaborate on the details of his ulcer problem.

"Later they took all the prisoners out to go to Japan. There were over 100 prison camps all over Japan. They put us in trucks to go to the boat, the Hell Ship. One man would sit between the next one's legs. We were crammed in and then they wrapped ropes around each one of us.

We boarded the Hell Ship. Again we were packed like sardines down in the hold. It was terribly hot. We were wet with sweat and slime. There was rock salt in the bottom of the boat, maybe to stop rot. It was cooler but dried out your skin. Some prisoners would go down there through a hole they found in the floor. The officers with us would try to keep track of us and when one was missing we'd say, "He's down in the salt."

We laid on the floor side by side like sardines. There were wooden shelves on the sides. The fIrst one was about 3 feet high and the next one about 6 feet. There were about 20 men abreast lying on the shelves. I had my canteen tied to the shelf above me and when the ship would roll, the canteen would hang from side to side.

I'm lucky I don't get seasick. Many did. Some men just went stark crazy. I think they were thrown overboard. I never did see them again.

One officer we had on board, he was in charge of a lot of Filipino troops and all the natives knew him. When we got down to Zamboanga he went over board and hid under the boat and the Japanese were shooting all around but they never did find him. His name was Colonel Tally (not sure of the spelling). He was in charge of the Filipino army there and they knew him. They rescued him. He probably joined up with one of the bands of guerrillas that fought there throughout the war. There were quite a few Americans in those bands, Morros also. They hated the Japanese. Even though they used to sneak into camps to kill white people as part of their religion before the war, we were all on the same side now.

We stopped at a lot of islands; there are thousands of them around the Philippines. We stayed in Bilibid prison in Manila for a week. They put us on a different ship after that but it wasn't much different. We called it the Mate-Mate Maru. I don't remember the real name. It means little by little. It took three months before we finally got to Japan."

"On the ship they'd send a bucket down for a toilet. Sometimes we'd climb over the rail and hang over the side of a basket. When there would be storms and the boat would roll halfway over, one minute the basket would be right down on the water and then roll the other way until you were high above the water. The smells in the hold were terrible. Many sick people.

In the three months that it took to get there, they stopped at a lot of islands to repair the ship. One ship ahead of us sank; it was a boatload of American officers. A boatload of enlisted men also sank; some men swam ashore or were rescued by subs, most drowned. "

It is hard to imagine the smells Elmer had to endure: months of sweat, vomit, feces and death. It probably was that way on the old slave ships of long ago. We need to be aware of how terrible humans can treat each other when hate and disrespect are indoctrinated and perpetuated down through the generations.

"After we finally got to Japan they took us down to the beach at Y okaichi. They stripped us to our undershorts and put us through close order drill (boot camp); we had to go through the Japanese training and learn their commands, Assemble, attention, etc. (kiustki was the word for attention). Yasume was the word for rest, then they'd march us with the goose-step up and down the beach; they wanted us to leam like our soldiers in English when they were in boot camp. We had to leam a lot of their language, parts of a building, toilet, counting, etc. I still remember those words. We did have translators in each camp.

We trained there on the beach for quite a long time and then went into these barracks like a barn with stalls, 40 men to a stall and shelves stacked every 6 feet. We slept on them 10 abreast. When we had to go to the toilet area we would pass a lot of soldiers and had to salute, address them respectfully, and tell them we were going to the toilet in Japanese. They had a trench in the ground for a toilet, lined with cement. They would come and dig it out for fertilizer for their gardens.

In one camp they had a stockade outside, like jail bars. They would put the men in confinement for punishment with no clothes on and snow on the ground, until they were almost dead, if they did something they didn't like.

Most of the men that died were put on a big long table in the latrine until they got a bunch then they would be put on a horse and wagon and carried I don't know where.

Then they finally took us over to a smelter factory. They had a lot of ore like red sand and we'd push the ore carts into a building and dump them and then push them back to reload. We did that all day. When we first got into the barracks every night and morning we had to count off, some mornings with no shoes, snow on the ground and in our undershorts. Hunger and cold were the worst parts of my prison life. Being a Montana farm boy, probably helped.

Every once in a while, the Japanese would take two to four men to the mess hall to clean it up. One time I found a barrel of these long radishes. The Japanese called them Dichons. They were pickled in a barrel and I wrapped one around my chest, under my shirt and the searchers at the gate found it. It was about 3 feet long. They really railed me with that thing. They kicked me and knocked me down. If you didn't get up again when they knocked you down they'd kick you with their feet. They had hobnails on their shoes.

One time a Korean gave me a can of beans; the guards caught me with it and made me kneel in the blazing sun all day with my hands tied above my head holding the can. I guess I was made an example for all to see.

Sometimes they would give us fish heads for our camp cooks to boil. I liked the eyeballs because they were chewy. The bones got soft enough to eat also.

We worked all through the winter there, no heat. They had a concrete thing for fire but no fuel. Once in a while they'd give us charcoal. Everybody wanted to crowd around. They'd give us a cup full of rice; you were hungrier after you got through than before you started.

In the spring we shipped over to the other side of the island to Toyama. There we worked in a place where they smelted up scrap iron. There were big stacks, big piles - we'd cut it into pieces and load it up into carts and take it into blast furnaces with a bunch of other hardeners and chemicals and melt it . They'd take it out and move the chunks along a track and ship off to other factories for airplane parts; it was then steel.

I saw a lot of iron in that mess. I saw old mowing machines, binders, farm machinery in the piles. Old tractors too. I remember gathering up stuff as a kid and shipping it to them years before. Some tin cans had food in and we'd steal them and eat the food. It was a wonder we weren't poisoned. We were so hungry we'd eat anything. "

"Tell me about your relationships with the other prisoners," I said. After reading that book he loaned me, I knew relationships were varied and complex. Evidently Elmer preferred not to discuss that. One of man's most traumatic experiences is to watch a friend die at the hands of another.

"All the prisoners were kind of quiet," he said. "They had sober faces. An immediate friend might talk to you a little. Mostly we were like a bunch of mummies. We grew numb and didn't care what happened to us. The guards would come get us in the morning and march us 1/2 mile to the foundry and take us back at night.

Many of us got laid up with beriberi. There's dry beriberi and wet beriberi. Our faces were so swelled up you could hardly see our eyes. There were no weeds for us to cook in Japan."

Beriberi is caused by lack of vitamin B 1. It can have life long effects. Lack of niacin causes Pellagra. Elmer had that also.

"A lot of prison camps were bombed by Uncle Sam in the last days. They didn't know we were there in a lot of cases. The B29's were bombing all night long. In our camp we had a foxhole, a big hole, right in the middle of camp. We'd run and get in it when we heard a plane. One bomb landed on the end of the barracks. We put the fire out somehow.

We'd lay down at night and hear it happening and say "Give em hell Uncle." Made us feel good. I don't remember hearing the atom bomb.

There was a big board fence around us, and while they were bombing Toyama the wind from the fire blew our fence down; fire creates a wind. It burned everything burnable in the town. They blew up the factory. A few days after that was when we found out it was over.

One morning nobody showed up and after a while the Japanese commander came in and said we weren't going to work - "it's like Christmas in America," he said. We didn't know what he was talking about. Pretty soon he told us the war was over. They all left, all the guards and everybody. We didn't see a soul around for a while. An American plane flew over and dropped leaflets telling us they would be back to drop us food and medicine.

The U.S. had big bales and 100-gallon drums they used to drop food, clothes and medicine to us. We had to go find them, gather them up and take them back to camp.

It wasn't long before a plane landed nearby and an American came in and told us what was going on. I was still too numb and weak to be excited. We were all close to death.

We couldn't have made it another winter. The worst torture was the cold. We had made shoes out of pieces of wood and strapping. One time I got a pair of Japanese trousers. They only went to my knees. The Japanese used wrap around leggings with them. All I had for a shirt was an old blue denim Jacket. We had no shirts. Montana didn't seem so bad when I thought about it..

Soon our pilots came in and flew us into Tokyo. After 3 1/2 years I was rescued.

I remember flying over the city; it looked like a big dump ground. Half the town was burned. They still wouldn't surrender, not until the atom bomb."

One has to keep in mind the Japanese warrior culture and religious upbringing of the times. Loss of respect was the worst thing that could happen to a person. Suicide was committed over very minor things. To surrender was unthinkable. Americans that surrendered were terribly disgusting to the Japanese as had it been the other way around they would have fought to the death. A person who was on the ground and didn't get up was like dirt and kicking them was a logical insult. They would not admit to being sick, they would go until they dropped. Their emperor was like a God to them. The first time the public heard him speak is when he announced their surrender; it must have been a terrible shock to the public. Suicide (kamikaze) pilots went willingly to their death for the emperor, crashing into ships, and caused a lot of American deaths. There was much hatred between the countries in those days because of that war, for which a few fundamentalist radicals were probably responsible.

The medical community was horrified at the condition of the prisoners and nothing was good enough for them when they got to the hospital. Elmer tells us more.

"They checked us all over medically and the ones that could move on their own went back to the Philippines, to Nichols Field (which is now Manila International Airport). We were all full of lice. They kept me in a hospital for several months.

When we got back to the states, to Lederman Hospital in San Francisco, they gave us a lot of vitamins. We got four meals a day, all we could eat and we could go to the canteen anytime we wanted and eat more. I gained weight pretty fast.

I got regular check-ups at the VA hospitals as time went on and one time they called me and told me to report to the hospital because I had Schistomoniasis. That's when I found out what I had. It circulates from your blood to your intestines. Some time later they called me back and said I still had it. The second time they gave me IV treatments. Directly into my veins.

I got all kinds of medals. I lost them all, don't have them any more. I got POW medals, a Presidential Citation with two oak leaf clovers on it; each one was another citation. I been thinking about sending a letter to the war department and trying to get them all back.

I was a PVC in the Philippines. When we got out we were given a rank of staff sergeant. I was paid for that rank the whole time I was a POW and they didn't know anything about me. I got paid combat infantry pay from the time I left the U.S. until I got home. It amounted to four years of back pay. When I look back on it, it wasn't very much.

When I got out I bought a ranch, a farm, in Washington. I got married on Oct. 4th, 1947. That day has a lot of meaning. I sailed out under the Golden Gate bridge on that day in 1941 and sailed back home under it on the very same day in 1945.

Now I am retired and spend as much time as I can fishing off the Northern California coast. I finally got full disability from the VA. My health is pretty good considering. I still have bad dreams and wake up in a sweat and I still have flashbacks of memories when I see a Japanese face. I can't help it. I get a POW magazine every month and a paper from the survivors of Bataan and Corregidor. There aren't many of us left."

Elmer said he'd try to find some pictures to share as he prepared his camp equipment for the drive back to his home for the winter. He would have to make two trips: One to haul his boat and one to haul his R V trailer. He had a nice stash of smoked and frozen fish.

Editor's note: Elmer D. Wolff, a longtime resident of Ukiah, died on March 19, 2010 at his home, at age 91. His experiences as a World War II prisoner of war, held by the Japanese, were published in a family book in 2002, and were recently submitted by his relatives and friends for publication.

PoW's wartime horror remains vivid today Review � Alistair Urquhart, Inverness Book Festival Published: 20 August, 2010

"THEY loved to see the blood," former prisoner-of-war Alistair Urquhart told an enraptured audience at Eden Court, relating how his Japanese captors would beat their prisoners until the blood flowed. advertising Click here to find out more!

For the oldest author appearing at Inverness Book Festival, the events he went through as a prisoner of the Japanese almost 70 years ago are not far off memories. Even today he still lives with the effects of his four years of imprisonment on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway and in Japan itself where he felt the blast wave from the atomic bomb which destroyed Nagasaki.

Asked how long it took before he could eat normally after the malnutrition suffered as a prisoner of Japan, when he was forced to work seven days a week in blazing heat on only at most three cupfuls of boiled rice each day, Urquhart admitted he could still not eat properly.

The veteran, who weighed just five stone 12 ounces when liberated by the Americans at the war's end, still cannot tolerate anything spicy or onion on his ravaged stomach lining and three times a week still has to have a meal of rice, at one point the only food he could digest.

There have been other impacts on his health as well, including the after effects of malaria and cancer resulting from both his exposure to radiation at Nagasaki and being forced to labour almost naked under the fierce tropical sun.

Urquhart's Eden Court appearance was introduced by our own columnist, Jim Miller, who in the end did not have much to do.

There was no need to ask probing questions when Urquhart proved such a captivating speaker himself, interjecting humour as well as horror into his own story, starting with his recruitment in his home town of Aberdeen, fun times in the dance halls of pre-invasion Singapore and then the torments of captivity under the Japanese.

There was bitterness, but not just towards the Japanese. Urquhart was also critical of the complacency and ill-judged decisions of the British, condemning Churchill for sending the 18th Division like "lambs to the slaughter" to a fortress island which ultimately proved indefensible.

"We had no tanks. I had a rifle stamped 1907 and six bullets, that was it. The Japanese had control of the air and sea and control of the land. They had tanks and bicycles and just went through the Argylls and the Gordons like a knife through butter."

The nightmare five-day train journey into the jungle, packed into a cattle truck, was followed by hard labour on the aptly named Hellfire Pass where the prisoners had to burrow their way through 40 feet of solid rock without adequate tools, the brutal conditions taking a toll in lives and sanity.

"We even had to build cages for them," Urquhart said of the men whose minds broke under the pressure.

After Hellfire Pass and the bridge on the River Kwai, a far more nightmarish prospect than the film ever implied, came passage to Japan on an overcrowded "hell ship" which was mistakenly sunk by a US submarine, and five days on a raft on the open Pacific, an experience which rendered him unfit for hard work.

Understandably, Urquhart's experiences have left him with little affection for the Japanese, an encounter in Blackpool with some arrogant tourists convincing him that "they're still the same".

"There's no such word as can't," he told his audience. "The other thing is, never give up. The proof of that is that I'm talking to you today."

The audience, some of whom had relatives in Japanese PoW camps, thanked Urquhart with a richly deserved standing ovation after one man thanked him for having the courage to tell his story.

Urquhart parted with a plea to read the book, pointing out there was so much more than it was possible to relate in an hour-long stage appearance. So there is, though reading his story cannot match the power of hearing him talk about his experiences first hand.

However, despite the odd inaccuracy, it is a fluid and fascinating account of horror and courage to be recommended to anyone who has not had the privilege of hearing direct from the man himself. CM

* "The Forgotten Highlander: My Incredible Story of Survival During The War in the Far East", Little Brown, Trade Paperback �12.99/hardback �18.99.

e wrong time for a major withdrawal of US combat troops, a poll said on Tuesday, with more than half also warning that it would have negative consequences.

When asked if it was the right time for American Soldiers to leave -- the US military earlier confirmed troop numbers in Iraq had fallen under 50,000 for the first time -- 59.8 percent said no, compared to 39.5 percent who said yes.

Some 53.1 percent of respondents said they disagreed with President Barack Obama's decision last year to end the combat mission in Iraq on August 31, a move that triggered a major reduction in the US military presence here.

In other questions, 51 percent said the withdrawal would have a negative effect, compared to 25.8 percent who said it would be positive.

Shortly after coming into office in 2009, Obama pledged to end combat operations in Iraq by the end of this month, bringing "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to an end, at which point troop figures would drop below 50,000.

Asked if they thought Obama cared about the situation in Iraq, 41.9 percent of those surveyed said no, compared to 39.8 who said yes. Some 15.5 percent said they do not know.

The top US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, said on Tuesday that around 49,700 Soldiers are now stationed in the country.

All US Soldiers are due to leave Iraq by the end of next year, under a bilateral security agreement signed by Washington and Baghdad in November 2008.

The poll carried out by the Asharq Research Centre, a private Iraqi company, was a representative nationwide sample of 1,150 people aged 18 and above in the country's 18 provinces between August 15-23.

Iraq has the forces necessary to wage its ongoing battle against insurgents, yet lacks the muscle to defend itself against an external threat, according to the commander of U.S. and coalition troops there.

Army Gen. Ray Odierno, speaking in one of two nationally broadcast interviews yesterday, said Iraq has been taking over combat and security operations from the U.S. and other allies for more than a year, "and for the last four or five months they've had the lead."

But Iraq still has a ways to go before it can protect its own borders from an outside enemy, and so will likely depend on the U.S. for assistance even after a projected 2011 withdrawal of remaining forces, he told CBS' Bob Schieffer on the news show "Face the Nation."

Odierno didn't identify a potential external threat to Iraq to Schieffer, but in a "State of the Union" interview on CNN said that Iran is intent on making sure the fledgling Iraqi government does not get solidly on its feet.

"They [Iran] still fund some Shia extremist groups that operate in Iraq," he told Candy Crowley. "They train them. They continue to try to improve their capabilities partially to attack U.S. forces -- partially to make sure everybody understands that they can have some impact in the country. They clearly want to see a certain type of government that is formed here."

Asked if U.S. forces are ready to move back into Iraq "in case something big happens," Odierno said the U.S. always has the capabilities to act but did not draw a line in the sand.

"I would just say I think that we always have capabilities if asked," he said. "We want to be someone who can help them if they have problems. But that will always be up to Iraq."

In both interviews, Odierno responded to a previously reported comment by the chief of staff of Iraqi forces, Lt. Gen. Babakir Zebari, that Iraq would need American assistance up to about 2020 -- well beyond the anticipated 2011 date for withdrawing the remaining American forces from the country.

According to Odierno, the Iraqi general was talking about helping Iraq get to where it can defend its own sovereignty, and not about the need to assist in ongoing internal operations.

"I think they're now capable of dealing with the internal security," he said. "They're able to take care of protecting the people for the most part so the government can move forward."

What the Iraqi general was talking about, he said, was about Iraq "technically developing, purchasing equipment, learning how to use it, learning how to redo operations. It's about protecting their airspace, their sea, their territorial waters, and their land borders."

Odierno said Iraq wants to see the U.S. involved in this way, and that Zebari believes this would go "beyond 2011."

"My answer to that is, we have arrangements with other countries in the region, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others, where we continue to provide technical support. So if the government of Iraq requests that from us, we would certainly consider that and do all we can to continue to build their capacity."

Say Something � Print Text Size Andrew Cohen Legal Analyst Author Bio � Contact Author � Subscribe :Following the German onslaught of Poland in September 1939, and before the Nazi war machine invaded Belgium and Holland in May 1940, World War II experienced what contemporary wags called the "Sitzkrieg" (literally, the "sitting war"). The word was a masterful spoof on Germany's vaunted "Blitzkrieg" ("lightning war") -- which would both precede and succeed it-- and it marked a sixth-month period of notable lack of aggression and fighting between the Allied and Axis powers.

Nearly nine years after the Twin Towers fell, America now evidently has entered a lamentable Sitzkrieg phrase of its own in the legal war on terrorism it has waged since September 11, 2001. All across the battle lines -- from the stalled federal civilian trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed to the stalled military tribunal proceeding for suspected USS Cole bomb planner Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri to the forestalled closure of the odious detainee prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- the United States has eschewed the ultra-aggressive approach to trying terror suspects that was endorsed by the Bush Administration. In its place, and especially this past year, we've seen mostly political inertia and inaction -- not unlike what befell the French during the original Sitzkrieg.

The soldiers in the ongoing war of legal precedent and trial tactics-- prosecutors, trial judges, law enforcement professionals and expert witnesses -- are ready to fight -- in courtrooms, before military tribunals, or grand juries. It's the political generals -- in the Senate, in the White House, at the Justice Department, in seats of local and regional power in New York and elsewhere -- who have created the year's phony war by allowing politics to limit our rules of engagement. As a result, the Obama Administration can claim precious few "legal" victories this year in its fight to process and prosecute those terror suspects we've captured or arrested over the past nine years. And those recent judicial decisions that have endorsed current terror law policy aren't exactly the stuff of banner headlines. The law moves slowly. But it shouldn't be moving this slowly. It's been seven years since a sleepy Khalid Sheik Mohammed was rousted out of his bed in Pakistan and water-boarded. It's been at least two years since he confessed to his crimes before a military tribunal.

During the Bush Administration, prosecutors successfully tried and convicted many high-profile terrorists in federal civilian courts. For example, Richard Reid, the so-called "Shoe Bomber" is sitting out a life sentence at Supermax in Florence, Colorado. He was tried in Boston. Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker," also has a room of his own at Supermax. He was tried in Virginia. Jose Padilla, the so-called "dirty bomber" was tried and convicted and sentenced in Miami. Sure, these convictions occurred in the same legal atmosphere at the Bush White House that nurtured the infamous torture memos. But they were important milestones, nonetheless, for they represented the only tangible direct interaction between terrorist (defendant) and civilian judge (or juror). And they reminded us all through their success that the men we've come to believe are super-humanly-evil monsters are, indeed, just mortal (and typically quite unimpressive) men.

Alas, as the phony war rolls on toward mid-term election day at the least, the Obama Administration can claim no such record of courtroom success. The sharp pull of grief and rage and revenge which still tugs the power centers of the East Coast -- the same lack of tolerance and foresight that has marked the debate over the creation of a mosque near Ground Zero -- evidently won't allow a federal civiilian trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed to take place any time soon. If the Justice Department were to push forward against the confessed 9/11 planner, Congress would pull the budget for that in a heartbeat, one government source reminded me last week. Put another way: "It's politics at this point," an unidentified military official told the Washington Post this past week when asked to explain why the al-Nashiri case at Gitmo has been put on hold after all these years.

Another reasonable explanation for the great American Sitzkrieg -- especially with respect to the continuing detention of prisoners at Gitmo -- was offered up Thursday by the New York Times. In a house editorial, the paper's editors noted: "A new report prepared jointly by ProPublica and the National Law Journal showed that the government has lost more than half the cases where Guant�namo prisoners have challenged their detention because they were forcibly interrogated... Even in cases where the government later went back and tried to obtain confessions using 'clean', non-coercive methods, judges are saying those confessions too are tainted by the earlier forcible methods...."

Still, by my count, no American judge or jury has acquitted a high-profile terror defendant in criminal court since 9/11. And the notion that federal jurors in Lower Manhattan would acquit Mohammed or that the city cannot handle terror trials is borderline absurd, given the City's successful history of hosting such trials before 9/11. The main arsenal of our terror laws has not changed much since January 2009, when President Barack Obama promised to close the detainee prison at Gitmo. If anything, the weapons available to federal civilian prosecutors in their cases against Al Qaeda suspects are stronger than ever. Earlier this year, for example, the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling that squarely endorses the government's use of a federal law that broadly makes it a crime to provide "material support" to terrorists or terror organizations. In the meantime, none of the main convictions served up during the Bush era have been overruled.

What has changed, markedly, are the politics of terror law. Partisanship today on Capitol Hill controls the legal battlefield far more than it did five years ago during the Bush regime and far more than it ever has been able to control the scope of the real military battles in Iraq or Afghanistan. The gridlock that generally has befallen Washington in other areas now has gripped hold on this front line as well. Republicans who cheered Bush-era terror trials suddenly have become faint of heart. Democrats who pledged to try to give terror suspects more due process rights and still have them convicted have gone wobbly as well. "Out of sight, out of mind," may be good enough for regular Washington worries. It's no substitute for a policy when it comes to the formal and proper adjudication of criminal claims against terror suspects.

At best, the situation is ironic; as America's political voices have hardened against federal civilian trials for terror suspects, those terror suspects have been able to continue to escape the true justice of a courtroom and a judge or jury. At worst, the phony war of 2010 is a pointless political retreat into inaction following a series of legal victories in court. It's an abject surrender to the forces of fear and convenience and NIMBYism just as a major battle -- United States v. Mohammed -- was set to unfold. Being afraid to lose, instead of planning to win, is what got the French beat in 1940 . It is still, surely, no way to win a war.

The Army flight surgeon who is risking his career to force President Barack Obama to prove he�s a "natural born" citizen is under investigation by the Army after failing to report for duty in preparation for an Afghanistan deployment.

Lt. Col. Terrance Lakin was ordered to report to Fort Campbell, Ky., on April 12 but instead reported to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, his former assignment.

As a result, Lakin "will be assigned to duty at Walter Reed pending investigation," the medical center announced in a brief statement today. While NBC News is reporting that Lakin will face a court-martial for failing to show up at Fort Campbell, but the official statement makes no mention of that. Calls to Lakin�s home in Maryland were not answered and a spokeswoman for a group supporting Lakin said she had not heard that any court-martial proceedings had begun.

Since Lakin vowed on March 30 not to deploy or obey any other orders until Obama produces an "original" birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii, the Army has not publicly addressed the issue, noting that Lakin had not actually violated any orders. Behind the scenes, however, he was warned on March 31 in an official letter of counseling that he could face court-martial for being a no-show at Fort Campbell. The letter detailed several regulations that Lakin would be violating and pointed out the could be jailed and lose all pay and benefits, including his retirement, if convicted.

Lakin has been in the Army for 18 years and already has pulled deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Until his reassignment to Fort Campbell to deploy, Lakin was the chief of primary care at the Pentagon's Tricare health clinic.

Lakin�s argument is that any orders given him would be illegal if the president, who is also the commander-in-chief, is not legally able to hold the office. Civilian attorney and former Navy JAG officer Phil Cave says he believes so-called "birthers" � those who contend Obama actually was born in Africa � are hoping to use the court-martial of a military servicemember to try and legally demand documents from the White House that might make their case.

Lakin is the third officer to challenge a deployment based on allegations the president was not actually born in the U.S. In the other cases, a Reserve major who had initially volunteered to be activated was sent back home when his orders were pulled. In the second instance an Army captain, also a doctor, had her case tossed and she deployed to Iraq.

In the letter given to Lakin on March 31, he was told that his deployment orders "are presumed to be valid and lawful orders issued by competent military authority."

Margaret Hemenway, a spokeswoman for the Patriotic American Foundation, which is supporting Lakin, has said she does not expect Lakin to back down.

WASHINGTON -- An Army doctor has been charged with disobeying orders after failing to show up for duty in Afghanistan and questioning whether President Obama has the right to order him there.

Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin is scheduled to be arraigned Friday at Fort Belvoir, Va.

The Greeley, Colo., native did not report to Fort Campbell, Ky., in April to prepare for deployment.

Lakin said in a YouTube video that he chose to disobey orders and was inviting his own court-martial. He says he wants to see Obama's birth certificate as proof Obama was born in the U.S., as presidents must be, and thus that the deployment order for Afghanistan is legal.

Hawaiian officials say they have records proving Obama was born there, but birthers challenge that.