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USATODAY.com - Attack focuses attention on female troops in Iraq
The lethal ambush of a convoy carrying female U.S. troops in Fallujah underscored the difficulties of keeping women away from the front lines in a war where such boundaries are far from clear-cut. The suicide car bomb and ensuing small-arms fire killed at least two Marines, and four others were missing and presumed dead. At least one woman was killed and 11 of 13 wounded were female.
Pentagon to phase out unpopular 'stop-loss' program - CNN.com
The military will phase out its "stop-loss" program, the contentious practice of holding troops beyond the end of their enlistments, for all but extraordinary situations, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Wednesday. Instead, the military will use incentives programs to encourage personnel to extend their service. Starting this month, the department will provide "special compensation of $500 per month" to troops whose tour has been extended, Gates said. "This special compensation will be applied retroactively to October 1, 2008, the date when Congress first made it available."
The Providence Journal | Afghanistan battle haunts Rhode Islander Craig Mullaney
Deploying to Afghanistan, Craig Mullaney writes, “was a slow immersion, like Dante’s descent into the Inferno.”
One moment, Mullaney and his Army Ranger platoon waited in an airport terminal at Fort Drum, N.Y. Televisions were tuned to Major League Baseball games. The soldiers ate what one jokingly called their “Last Supper” — rubbery T-bone steaks with Mexican rice.
They received an intelligence briefing warning them of the dangers awaiting them in Afghanistan, including ticks, cobras and camel spiders that can run more than 30 mph. Then they marched onto a cavernous cargo plane. Two flights and 7,000 miles later, Mullaney and his men stepped out into the dusty, baking heat of an airbase in Kandahar. It was 128 degrees, in the shade.
In that summer of 2003, Afghanistan had fallen off the front page. Attention had shifted to the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Taliban regime that had been toppled by the U.S. invasion following 9/11 was resurgent. Operating from across the border in Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was suspected to be hiding, Taliban and al-Qaida fighters harassed local villages and Western occupiers.
Mullaney’s Army Ranger training did not cover desert warfare, which had been dropped in 1995. Studying modern military history at West Point, he took just one paragraph of notes on Afghanistan, involving the Russians’ failed experience there in the 1980s.
For these airmen, it's about surviving, not flying | Richmond Times-Dispatch
Stats on Air Force combat-zone casualties.
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The role of the Air Force in Afghanistan is crucial, especially as Taliban forces try to close a supply route through Pakistan's Khyber Pass and Kyrgyzstan seeks to shut a U.S. air base in that country.
Nearly 600 airmen have been killed or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks - and 96 percent of them have been on the ground, according to Air Force officials.
Their mounting losses - partly due to expanded duties off base - prompted intensive training, begun three years ago, to help the ground airmen survive combat.
Case of deliberate civilian killings in Iraq rattling Marines
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Since the accused battalion in Haditha was on its third tour in Iraq in three years, some have blamed repeated deployments for sparking the killings. Seven Marines and a sailor from another battalion also on its third Iraq tour are accused of unjustifiably killing a man in the western town of Hamdania. Both battalions took part in the storming of Fallujah in Nov. 2004.
Bombs Aimed at G.I.’s in Iraq Are Increasing - New York Times
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An analysis of the 1,666 bombs that exploded in July shows that 70 percent were directed against the American-led military force, according to a spokesman for the military command in Baghdad. Twenty percent struck Iraqi security forces, up from 9 percent in 2005. And 10 percent of the blasts struck civilians, twice the rate from last year.
101st soldiers among victims of war stress - Nashville, Tennessee - Tuesday, 08/08/06 - Tennessean.com
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I can usually get a visit once a month (at Mountain Home VA Medical Center) for PTSD counseling," Durman said. "The people there are really trying, they are just undermanned. They were understaffed before the war started. It's overwhelming them."
Incalculable pain - Salon
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Pentagon casualty
reports
show 2,390 service members dead from Iraq and Afghanistan and over 16,000 wounded. By far the vast majority of
the wounded and dead are from Iraq.
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But by Dec. 8, 2005, the military had evacuated another 25,289 service members from Iraq and Afghanistan
for injuries or illnesses not caused directly by enemy bullets or bombs, according to the U.S. Transportation
Command.
edmontonsun.com - Alberta - War may hit home harder
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Vancouver-based Dr. Greg Passey, who diagnosed a local soldier with PTSD in 2001 and served 22 years in the military himself, said he expects 12% to 24% of Afghanistan vets to suffer lingering psychological effects from what they've seen.
Help wanted
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many reservists and National Guard members, whose military insurance benefits cover only those problems diagnosed within 180 days after returning from combat. Those two groups now comprise about 40 percent of the front-line forces in Iraq and more than half in Afghanistan, the highest percentage for any war in U.S. history.
ABC News: The 'Band of Brothers' Unravels
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Clagett, along with Sgt. Raymond Girouard and Spc. William Hunsaker -- all members of the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 3rd Battalion -- have been accused of deliberately releasing three Iraqi men they had captured, in order to kill them.
United Press International - Consumer Health - Army report on GI Iraq suicides due soon
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An Army report addressing the mental health of soldiers in Iraq -- including a spike in suicides last year -- is expected to be released in the next few weeks, months later than similar reports have been released in previous years.
Online NewsHour: Troops Question Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about Armor -- December 9, 2004
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We're digging pieces of rusted scrap metal and compromised
ballistic glass that has already been shot up, dropped, busted-- picking
the best out of this scrap to put on our vehicles go into combat.
kitsapsun.com: Local
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More than 11,000 sailors currently serve on the ground in the area, he said. Of those, about 8,000 are known as individual augmentees (IAs) — sailors deployed individually or in small groups, without their regular units.
Currently, about 4,000 of those IAs are in Iraq. The number there likely will double in the next two years to 8,000
Omaha.com - Hagel calls Iraq 'replay of Vietnam'
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Calling conditions in Iraq "an absolute replay of Vietnam," Sen. Chuck Hagel said Friday that the Pentagon is making a mistake by beefing up American forces in Iraq.
Salon.com | News Wires - Troops in Iraq Count Down Days Until Leave
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Most soldiers in Iraq get to go home for 15 days during their deployment, usually a year long. The idea is to give them a break from war, in the hopes that they'll return in better spirits.
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