More Evidence The Surge Is Working

[Cancel7]

“There is no Army-wide policy to have any memorial services,” a spokeswoman for the Army, Maj. Cheryl Phillips, said in an e-mail message. “Commanders make the call. Several installations have conducted services for each individual soldier and now have begun to roll them into a quarterly service because, alas, the casualty numbers are rising.”


On Base, a Plea to Give Each Death Its Due
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
FORT LEWIS, Wash. — Twenty soldiers deployed to Iraq from this Army base were killed in May, a monthly high. That same month, the base announced a change in how it would honor its dead: instead of units holding services after each death, they would be held collectively once a month.

The anger and hurt were immediate. Soldiers’ families and veterans protested the change as cold and logistics-driven. Critics online said the military was trying to repress bad news about deaths. By mid-June, the base had delayed the plan.

[Its commander, Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby, was expected to decide Wednesday whether to go through with it.]

“If I lost my husband at the beginning of the month, what do you do, wait until the end of the month?” asked Toni Shanyfelt, who said her husband was serving one of multiple tours in Iraq. “I don’t know if it’s more convenient for them, or what, but that’s insane.”

Military historians and scholars say the proposal and its fallout highlight the tender questions facing the armed forces as casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan mount, and some soldiers and their families come to expect more from military bases than in past conflicts.

During Vietnam and Korea, the historians say, many bases were places for training soldiers and shipping them out, rarely to see them return, with memorial services uncommon. Now, in the age of the all-volunteer force, the base has become the center of community. The Army and other branches have fostered the idea that military service is as much about education, job training and belonging to a community as national defense.

“It wasn’t considered the Army’s business in any of the other wars to conduct these services,” said Alan H. Archambault, director of the Fort Lewis Military Museum, which is supported by the Army. “It was the hometowns of the soldiers that died that had these. Now I think the Army bases are trying to be the hometowns.”

Army officials said the idea to hold monthly services reflected a need to find balance between honoring the dead and the practical reality that the services take time to plan, including things like coordinating rifle salutes and arranging receptions for family members who attend.

“As much as we would like to think otherwise, I am afraid that with the number of soldiers we now have in harm’s way, our losses will preclude us from continuing to do individual memorial ceremonies,” Brig. Gen. William Troy, who was the interim commander at Fort Lewis at the time, wrote in an e-mail message announcing the policy in May.

The Army also emphasizes that the ceremonies held on bases are in addition to those held by the soldier’s unit overseas as well as private family services, which usually include military honor guards. Those services would not be affected if Fort Lewis moved to a monthly schedule.

Fort Lewis, the third-largest Army base in the nation, has about 10,000 of its 28,000 soldiers deployed overseas, a majority of them in Stryker brigades trained specially for urban combat. Several other major bases, including Fort Hood in Texas, the largest, already hold services monthly. Some hold them even less frequently.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/us...gewanted=print

[Onceler]

Good lord - all of this retreat & defeat whining about more dead soldiers.

Don't you realize Bush's legacy is at stake? Try to keep things in perspective....

[Cancel7]

Good lord - all of this retreat & defeat whining about more dead soldiers.

Don't you realize Bush's legacy is at stake? Try to keep things in perspective....

Sorry. I hadn't had coffee yet when I posted this. My brain was foggy.

[uscitizen]

All this whining is just a liberal plan to diminish the bush legacy in history.

[uscitizen]

Bush Accuses Congressional Critics of Misleading Public About Al Qaeda in Iraq

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

CHARLESTON, S.C. — President Bush on Tuesday lashed out at critics who say that Al Qaeda's operation in Iraq is distinct from terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

"The merger between Al Qaeda and its Iraqi affiliate is an alliance of killers and that is why the finest military in the world is on their trail," Bush said.

Citing security details he declassified for his speech, Bush described Al Qaeda's burgeoning operation in Iraq as a direct threat to the United States. Bush accused critics in Congress of misleading the American public by suggesting otherwise.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290608,00.html

[Cancel7]

Bush Accuses Congressional Critics of Misleading Public About Al Qaeda in Iraq

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

CHARLESTON, S.C. — President Bush on Tuesday lashed out at critics who say that Al Qaeda's operation in Iraq is distinct from terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

"The merger between Al Qaeda and its Iraqi affiliate is an alliance of killers and that is why the finest military in the world is on their trail," Bush said.

Citing security details he declassified for his speech, Bush described Al Qaeda's burgeoning operation in Iraq as a direct threat to the United States. Bush accused critics in Congress of misleading the American public by suggesting otherwise.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290608,00.html

You know from the headline, I'd swear this was from The Onion.

He's got to be kidding me.

[uscitizen]

Bush is probably right about increased involvement of AQ in Iraq. I predicted this would draw them in there.
But he is not saying that our presence is what is attracting them.

Kinda like his people saying we can't leave because of the turmoil there, which we also caused.

[Onceler]

He's done that a couple of times in the past few weeks. When the report came out showing that Al Qaeda was basically as strong as they were in '01, he refuted it, and kept asserting they had been seriously damaged.

Let's see...who to believe? A badly damaged, desperate rube of a President, or the NIE?

[Cypress]

standard chickenhawk response: "Hey, these guys and gals volunteered for duty. They knew what to expect!"

[uscitizen]

I believe virtually nothing Bush says.
Actually I treat him pretty much like I did Dixie and assume the opposite of what Bush says is the truth.
In this case though increased AQ involvement in Iraq is probably correct. It is a good place for the USA to train AQ terrorists

[Cancel7]

standard chickenhawk response: "Hey, these guys and gals volunteered for duty. They knew what to expect!"

Yeah. I know that nothing gets through to them.

[Cancel7]

I believe virtually nothing Bush says.
Actually I treat him pretty much like I did Dixie and assume the opposite of what Bush says is the truth.
In this case though increased AQ involvement in Iraq is probably correct. It is a good place for the USA to train AQ terrorists

Oh yeah, I started doing that years ago. Everytime he opened his mouth and made a claim, I'd so, ok, so then he is doing the exact opposite of that. It's held me in good stead.

[uscitizen]

Yeah. I know that nothing gets through to them.

They are among the 25% clinically insane group.

[uscitizen]

It is not the AQ in Iraq it is soccer!

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunfire erupted across Baghdad on Wednesday as Iraqis celebrated their national soccer team's victory over South Korea to reach the final of the Asian Cup.
(Advertisement)

Iraq won 4-3 in a penalty shootout to reach the Cup final for the first time.

Iraqis poured into the streets of Baghdad, waving national flags and cheering. An Iraqi television reporter choked back tears of joy as he joined the celebrations on a Baghdad street.

State television flashed a warning from military commanders urging people not to fire guns into the air. The warning appeared to go unnoticed as people fired pistols and AK-47 assault rifles.

Firing weapons into the air is a tribal tradition at times of celebration but the bullets often kill people on the ground.

Three people died and about 50 were wounded after Iraq beat Vietnam on Saturday to reach the semi-finals.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/200707...r-39349ed.html

[Cypress]

Ever seen that "mythbusters" show on Discovery Channel?

They did some experiments which seemed to prove a falling bullet can't kill you. Its an urban myth. Those people who died from gunshots, probably weren't from falling bullets - but from either intentional or accidental shots from nearby.