Stupid, Sadistic Freak Assholes In Command At FOB Falcon Defy Army Policy:

Risk Soldiers Health And Lives For No Good Reason At All

Letters To The Editor

Army Times

October 02, 2006

 I am deployed in Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division at Forward Operating Base Falcon.

 According to many soldiers previously deployed, including several senior noncommissioned officers, it is not Army standard to conduct multiple physical fitness tests in combat.

 Our leadership decided to go against Army policy.

 How fair is it to impose upon a soldier the risk of getting flagged when he is doing dangerous work, being ripped away from his family for 12 or more consecutive months?

 The climate here is extremely hot and tiring.  It is not possible to get a beneficial workout when you risk becoming a heat casualty.  Even the coolest part of the day, 5 a.m., is almost 90 degrees.  Some soldiers work nights and cannot get up at that hour to conduct PT.

 To run here is impossible, unless you want to sprain your ankle or break your leg. There are no paved or smooth runways.  There is nothing but hard, bumpy rock everywhere, which can be hazardous even to walk around. 

Prior to deployment, we are given our record APFT. The soldiers are in excellent shape before deploying.

 I do not see just cause in conducting anything beyond a diagnostic PT test in a combat theater of operations.

 Spc. John Meehan

Fort Hood, Texas

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

 MND Baghdad Soldier Dies From Wounds Following Small-Arms Fire Attack

 27 September 2006 Multi National Corps Iraq Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory RELEASE No. 20060927-07

 BAGHDAD: A Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldier died at approximately noon today from wounds he received when his patrol was attacked by small-arms fire in southern Baghdad.

MNF W Soldier Dies In Anbar

 27 September 2006 THE PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICER FOR MULTINATIONAL FORCE WEST RELEASE No. 20060927-01

 CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq:  One Soldier assigned to 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division died Monday from enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province

MNFW Marine Killed In Anbar

27 September 2006 Multi-National Corps Iraq Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory RELEASE No. 20060927-04

 CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq:  One Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7 died Monday from enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province

Port Arthur Resident Killed In Iraq

9/27/2006 KBTV

 A Port Arthur family tonight is in mourning.  Relatives tell us 28-year-old Edward Charles Reynolds was killed monday night in Iraq when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb.

 Reynolds was in the Army and had been in Iraq for nearly two years.  Reynolds was a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School.  He leaves behind three children.

Bomb Kills Kaneohe Marine In Iraq

September 23, 2006 By Gregg K. Kakesako, Honolulu Star-Bulletin

 A Kaneohe Marine unit completing its seven-month combat tour in Iraq next month has suffered its 12th casualty this year.

The Marine Corps said Cpl. Yull Estrada Rodriguez, 21, of Alegre Lajas, Puerto Rico, was the gunner of a 7-ton truck when it struck a homemade bomb Wednesday in Al-Anbar province.

 Estrada Rodriguez enlisted in the Marine Corps in February 2004 and reported to Hawaii in July 2004.

 It was his second combat tour. Estrada Rodriguez deployed to Afghanistan in late 2004 with Kaneohe Bay's 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment.  He left Kaneohe for Iraq with the same unit in March.

 His awards include the Purple Heart, two Combat Action ribbons, the National Defense Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and two Sea Service Deployment ribbons.

 He is survived by his mother and father.

 Estrada Rodriguez's unit, the 3rd Battalion, is being replaced by its affiliate unit, the 2nd Battalion.  A Kaneohe spokesman yesterday said that a majority of Rodriguez's unit is expected to be home next month.

 Three 3rd Battalion Marines were killed in Afghanistan in 2004.

 Thirty-three soldiers, two sailors, 56 Marines, one Air Force personnel and one civilian with Hawaii ties have been killed in Iraq since the war started in March 19, 2003.

Local Sailor Killed In Iraq;

“He Was Counting Down The Days To Come Home”

 September 19, 2006 BY STEPHANIE HEINATZ SHEINATZ, DAILY PRESS

 HAMPTON:  His Little Creek-based explosive disposal unit went three years without losing a sailor.  It's lost two in recent weeks.

 From a window inside her Hampton home, Cristale Roddy saw them coming.

 The command master chief.  The chaplain.  The executive officer of Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 2.

 The somberness of their walk, the sadness in their eyes, might not have registered with her a month ago.

 But on Aug. 22, during his fourth trip to the desert, Chief Petty Officer Paul Darga was killed in Iraq by a homemade bomb.  Cristale's husband - Petty Officer 2nd Class Dave Roddy - was not only Darga's friend and battle buddy, but he was also with him when he died.  "I guess that's how I knew," Cristale Roddy said Monday of the casualty notification team walking up her driveway Saturday.  "I've been uncomfortable the last three weeks.  Losing one of our own served as a reminder."

 Dave Roddy was killed Saturday in the Al Anbar province of Iraq, one of the most volatile regions of the war-torn country.  The 32-year-old was responding to a report of an improvised explosive device when a secondary bomb exploded nearby.

 As of early Monday morning, 2,678 troops have been killed in Iraq.  Homemade bombs, or improvised explosive devices (IEDs) as the Defense Department dubs them, remain the leading cause of death and injury there.  By Monday afternoon, the sailors bearing the devastating news were long gone.

 "I'm hanging in there," Cristale said quietly.

 A support system is there for her. Dave's parents - Bob and Carol Roddy - had driven down from Maryland.

 Dave's buddies in Iraq kept the phone ringing.  One said he wasn't going to go to sleep that night until he talked to Cristale, sending his condolences.

 Several fellow Navy wives, including the unit's ombudsman, filled the house with food and children.  The kids kept the couple's three young children - 10-year-old Jessica and 7-year-old twins, Matthew and Michael - busy playing.

 Cristale watched them run around, recognizing that military kids serve, too.  A small magnet hanging in her car says just that.

 The food was stuffed into a refrigerator where, on the door, a program from Darga's memorial service still hangs.

 Occasionally someone talked about Dave, telling their favorite story of a man who loved to laugh.

 Dave didn't immediately join the service after high school, his mother, Carol, said.

 He worked a few civilian jobs, including one as a clerk at a video rental store. That's where he met Cristale.

 "I was returning a movie," she said, smiling at the memory. "He was just so very sweet, and a jokester."

 They married 11 years ago.

 In late 1999, Dave decided to join the Navy.

 "I supported him," Cristale said. "I knew that he wasn't a 9-to-5 kind of guy."

 At first he was a more typical sailor, stationed on ships, riding the high seas.  He loved it, his mother said.

 Dave was an electrician, a position that helped fill his desire to fix things.  "One day he was talking with some guys on the ship about EOD," Carol said. "He fell in love with it."

 He started researching how to become a member of the Navy's elite bomb experts.  Then he ran into a roadblock.

 Several years back, while stationed in Japan, Dave was hit by a civilian truck driver.  His injuries required nine surgeries and a lot of rehabilitation.

 "But he never gave up on getting into Navy dive school," Carol said of the first step sailors must take to become an EOD technician.  "He said he would run again and he would make it.  That's how dedicated he was."

 He did make it.

 A little more than a year ago, he graduated from explosive disposal training and was assigned to Little Creek.  Earlier this year, from January to March, he deployed to Kuwait.  Dave returned home until June, when he left for Iraq.

 EOD sailors are often likened to firefighters.  Their job, when a bomb is found threatening the safety of other troops, is to run toward the danger, not away from it.

 When they're not diffusing or blowing up explosives, they're investigating bombs that have exploded.  In May, dozens of sailors in Dave's unit were awarded Bronze Stars, the military's fourth-highest medal for bravery.

 To Dave, though, his wife said, "he wasn't a hero or brave. He thought of it as just doing his job."

 After Darga was killed, though, Dave was shook up, his mother said.  While in Iraq, he was fortunate to call home pretty regularly.  He called more after his friend's death.

 He talked to his parents a week ago, calling to check up his mother who just had surgery. "And he promised he'd be safe," Bob Roddy said.

 Cristale talked to him for the last time Friday.

 He was looking forward to wrestling with the boys, becoming a soccer coach and, hopefully, being with his family for the holidays, she said.

 "He was counting down the days to come home," Cristale said.

Kinston Native Wounded In Iraq

September 20, 2006 KATIE MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER, Freedom ENC Communications

A Kinston native was wounded in a suicide truck bomb in Iraq last week that killed two American soldiers.

“We were just sitting outside talking about what we were going to do when we got back home,” said Staff Sgt. Nicholas Bright, 33, during a telephone interview from a hospital in Germany.  “Some talked about family vacations and new babies.”

The soldiers were resting Thursday when a suicide truck bomb hit a U.S. Army outpost in Baghdad.  “A construction truck came inside like usual,” he said.

Of the 98 soldiers in the Charlie Battery of the 4th Battalion 27th Field Artillery based out of Baumholder, Germany, 25 were injured and two died.

Bright suffered a broken leg and burns caused by the explosion and flying debris.  He was transported to a hospital in Germany after the bombing, where he will finish out his recovery.

“My wife and daughter visit me every day,” he said.  When his wife, Lisa, and 3-year-old daughter Maya are not visiting, Bright has physical therapy sessions and is learning to walk on crutches.  He is scheduled to have a third surgery on his leg.

His mother, Helen Bright, was watching the news here after she found out her baby son had been injured.  “It was going across the screen that military men were caught in a suicide bombing,” she said.  “I figured that was the reason his leg was broken.”

Bright said her son has served in Desert Storm and two tours in Iraq.

“I hope and pray he would come back to the states,” she said.

For more than three years, Bright has been keeping in touch with her son and his family through numerous phone calls, e-mails and letters.  “I’ve gotten used to him living in Germany,” she said.

Nicholas Bright was sent to Baghdad from Germany to secure a substation at a power distribution plant. 

“He could have been one of them,” said Helen Bright. “I ask the Lord everyday to keep him safe.”

Great Moments In U.S. Military History:

Massacre In Baquba

“We Were An 11-Member Family.  Eight Were Killed”

“The Americans Killed My Relatives Who Had No Guilt Or Relation With Any Group”

Residents identify the bodies of some of the eight people killed by a U.S. raid and air strike in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, September 27, 2006. (Helmiy al-Azawi/Reuters)

9.27.06 The Associated Press

American troops killed eight people, four of them women, after taking heavy fire during a raid Wednesday on a suspected terrorist’s house northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. command said.

But relatives of the dead disputed the U.S. account, saying their family had nothing to do with any terrorist group.

Outside the pockmarked house, which relatives said belonged to Mohammed Jassim, bullet casings littered the ground and blood stained the sand.  Family members cried and consoled one another as the bodies of the women were taken away.

“This is an ugly criminal act by the U.S. soldiers against Iraqi citizens,” Manal Jassim, who lost her parents and other relatives in the attack, told Associated Press Television News.

Iraq’s major Sunni clerical organization, the Association of Muslim Scholars, condemned the raid as a “terrorist massacre.”

A family member said all eight people killed were relatives and disputed that they had any links to a terrorist group.  “The Americans killed my relatives who had no guilt or relation with any group,” Saleh Ali told The Associated Press.

“They were innocent people,” said Manal Jassim, the homeowner’s daughter. “We were sleeping when they entered our house at dawn.  I found my father, mother, aunt and sister-in-law laying dead.  We were an 11-member family.  Eight were killed.”

Women after seeing the bodies of their relatives who were killed by a U.S. air strike in Baquba September 27, 2006. (Helmiy al-Azawi/Reuters)

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

The Outbreak Of One Bomb It Kills An Italian Soldier, The Five Wounded;

“The Women Of Dead Langella Have Asked Get Out From The Afghanistan Of The Italian Contingent”

Caporal the greater George Langella, killed today in Afghanistan

26 september 2006 Publishing Group The Expressed Spa, Translation powered by SYSTRAN [Do you suppose they have a Pentagon contract?]

KABUL:  A bomb is exploded to the passage of a convoy of the Isaf to South of Kabul, killing an Italian soldier and hurting of others two in serious way. Others three military ones, between which a woman, is remained hurt in light way.

The died Italian soldier is caporal the greater George Langella.  Been born in 1975 to Imperia, he belonged to 21esima the company of according to regiment the alpine ones of Wedge and operated in Afghanistan framed in the Battle Group 3.

Langella was of Gives Marine, in province of Imperia, and was married from little more than a year.  The wedding with Fabiano Frank, been born to Rome, had been celebrated in the Sanctuary of the Madonna of the Forests of Boves the 11 september of 2005.

After the Langella wedding it had been moved to Boves. Military sources report that the caporal greater it had an immense experience of operations to the foreign country, since already had participated to an other mission in Afghanistan and had been to Sarajevo.

The two military serious wounded are the marshal Francisco Cirmi, that he has brought back a fort trauma you make them, and caporal the greater Vincenzo Cardella, hurt to the inferior limbs.

For both they have been necessary participations in knows it operating.  Ago to know the Defense General Staff.

The three military Italians remained hurt in light way are ricoverati near the international airport of Kabul.  They have brought back only light contusions and they are in good conditions of health.

Between they woman, the corporal is also one Wide-brimmed hat Rendina, the first woman Italian soldier never hurt in action.  Rendina is been born to Naples in 1982, is marriageable, has enlisted a year ago, 29 August 2005, and is corporal of the alpine ones. Its assignment is explorer.

The others the two light wounded are caporal the greater Salvatore Coppola, 28 years, original of Mesagne and resident to Saint Tower Susanna (Are drunk a toast), and the corporal Salvatore Belfiore, 20 years, been born to Turin and resident to Cases.

The attack has been rivendicato from the military services talebane Muslims with one telephone call to the envoy of the Arabic TV To the Jazeera.  The talebano megaphone, Muhammad Hanif, have asserted that its men had taken of sight a convoy of Italian soldiers.

The attack has happened to the 8 local hour (the 05,30 Italian hour), during one normal activity of lead patrol the Italian soldiers with three vehicles armors light (Vbl to you) Puma in the district of Chahar Asyab, one ten of kilometers to south of Kabul.

A rudimentale device set in action probably at a distance is exploded and has invested third means, on which six military Italians traveled.

The words of Napolitano seem to answer to how many, above all on the left, for forehead to the women of dead Langella have asked get out from the Afghanistan of the Italian contingent.

Three Italian Soldiers Wounded By Another Afghan Bomb;

Pressure From Home To Get Out Increasing

September 28, 2006 Xinhua

Three Italian soldiers were slightly wounded and an Afghan interpreter seriously hurt Wednesday when a roadside bomb exploded near the Italian command post at the western Afghan city of Herat, according to Italian News Agency ANSA.

It was the second bomb attack on Italians in two days.

The latest attacks by the Islamist Taliban militia have sparked further calls for Italy to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Defense Chief of Staff Admiral Gianpaolo di Paola said the security measures protecting Italian troops were "already high" but the situation was one of "highs and lows".

Following Italy's recent withdrawal from Iraq, pacifist and leftist groups in Premier Romano Prodi's center-left government have argued troops should be pulled out of Afghanistan too.

Italy has some 1,700 troops serving in Afghanistan as part of the Nato-led ISAF peacekeeping mission there.

The attack was the latest in a spree of bombings in previously calm western Afghanistan, where NATO and Afghan officials have reported an increase in Taliban activity. 

On Wednesday, insurgents attacked an Afghan police checkpoint in southern Helmand province

Afghan Occupation Tries A New Tactic:

Murder By Starvation And Disease

27 Sep 2006 Agence France-Presse

ASADABAD, Afghanistan:  Authorities have stopped food and other supplies from reaching a pro-Taliban district in eastern Afghanistan for more than two weeks, officials and residents said Wednesday.

Residents of the Korangal valley of eastern Kunar province said women had died because they had not been able to get medical attention and food was running low, but officials played down the claims.  

The siege of the valley started early this month at the request of provincial authorities to pressure villagers accused of supporting Taliban and other Islamist militants, officials said.

Troops with the US-led coalition are helping to enforce the blockade, a US military spokesman told AFP.

"We've closed their road," provincial governor Shalizai Didar said.  "We won't allow any supply to their villages until they stop helping Taliban and other terrorists."

"We tried very hard to convince the people to stop helping the Taliban but they wouldn't. So now we are using the last option," he said.

"They have closed the road to the valley. They don't even allow medicines, food -- and they don't let sick people out of the valley," Fatullah said.

"Some of our women died as they couldn't go to see the doctors outside the valley," he said, adding that food stocks, mainly wheat and maize, were running low and children were "facing starvation."

Australian Government Pulls Combat Force Out Of Afghanistan After Australian Commandos “Battled Hundreds Of Taliban Fighters”

September 27, 2006 By Noor Khan, The Associated Press & Sep 28, 2006 AAP

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said his country's elite combat troops risked becoming overworked in trouble spots around the world, in his latest comments defending his decision to withdraw them from Afghanistan.

Australia is sending 400 more troops to Afghanistan, mostly military engineers to work on reconstruction projects in the south, doubling the size of its deployment there. But it is withdrawing about 200 Special Air Service troops and commandos who have been in Afghanistan for the past year.

It was revealed Australian commandos battled hundreds of Taliban fighters and flew helicopters under enemy fire to evacuate wounded coalition soldiers in recent tough fighting in Afghanistan.

       
[ Printable version ] | [ Send it to a friend ]


[ Contatto/Contact ] | [ Home Page ] | [Tutte le notizie/All news ]