April 1 19, 2004, Volume 1, Issue 57
Index of Articles
Note: Topics below are now bookmarked! Click on the underlined topic below to link to the pages on that topic.
Iraq Duty Deters Re-enlistment
DEPLOYMENT
National Guard and Reserve Mobilized as of April 14, 2004
LA National Guard Activated
Kansas National Guard puts 1,100 on Alert
75 Guard Members In Duluth May Be Deployed
Tearful Easter Reunions as Troops Return Home
National Guard Unit Is Set to Return
National Guard’s 957th Back on U.S. soil
Guard’s 161st Arrives Friday
A Welcome Home for Wounded GIs
National Guard Unit Returns to Families and to Fanfare
W.Va. Army National Guard Members Return Sunday
BENEFITS
Most College Costs Paid for National Guard Members
Phone Card Gifts Make it Easy for Americans to Show Deployed Troops They Care
Legislature Looks to Aid, Bolster National Guard Ranks
Politicians Push For Bill to Protect Guardsmen and Reservists From Discrimination
Utah National Guardsman Awarded the Bronze Star
Mark Lyons is a Pilot of a C-130
They Save Lives Amid Hell of War
Memorial Service Honors Soldier Who Served With Two Sisters in Iraq
HOMEFRONT: DEALING WITH DEPLOYMENT
For Guard Unit’s Kin, No End to the Grieving
National Guard Deployment Could Cause Firefighter Shortage
Extended Tours in Iraq Dash Hopes and Raise Fears Among Troops’ Families
HEALTH ISSUES
Soldiers: Army Ignores Illness Complaints
National Guard Video Honors Sacrifices in War on Terror
Colorado Guard Forms Alliance With Kingdom of Jordan
CAS3 to Merge with Officer Advance Courses
Bush Fulfills Vow to Injured GI
 |
Websites:
|
National Guard Family Program Online Communities for families and youth: |
|
|
TRICARE website for information on health benefits |
|
|
Civilian Employment Information (CEI) Program Registration for Army and Air National Guard, Air Force, and Coast Guard Reserve |
|
|
Cumulative roster of all National Guard and Reserve who are currently on active duty |
|
|
Military Child Education Coalition (MCEC) contains links and information about schooling, distance education, scholarships, and organizations devoted to the military family |
|
|
Militarystudent.org is a website that helps military children with transition and deployment issues. It has some great features for kids, parents, special needs families, school educators, and more—even safe chatrooms for kids. |
 |
Have an article, announcement, or website that you’d like to share with the National Guard Family Program Community? Send your suggestions in an e-mail to [email protected].
USA TODAY Back to Table of Contents
Iraq Duty Deters Re-Enlistment
By Dave Moniz
WASHINGTON — The number of soldiers staying in the Army is falling just as the demand is increasing in Iraq.
Through March 17, nearly halfway through the fiscal year, the Army fell about 1,000 short of meeting its goal of keeping 25,786 soldiers whose enlistments were ending or who were eligible to retire. That works out to a 96% retention rate.
Last year, the retention figure was 106% because more soldiers stayed than the Army had planned. The retention goal assumes that not all eligible to stay will remain.
Military personnel experts have warned that full-time soldiers and members of the Guard and Reserve could begin leaving this year because of the strains of service, including longer and more frequent overseas missions. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged Thursday that the Defense Department will extend duty in Iraq beyond one year for 20,000 soldiers. Their time in Iraq will grow as much as 90 days.
“We regret having to extend those individuals,” Rumsfeld said. “The country is at war, and we need to do what is necessary to succeed.”
Helen Powell’s husband, Sgt. 1st Class Arnold Powell, 47, was scheduled to come home at the end of the month. “I have something from every holiday he’s missed,” said Powell, 44, of Fort Polk, La. “I’ve got stale Easter candy in this basket. I know it sounds stupid. That’s just something I do for me to cope.”
The extension comes after two weeks of violence in Iraq, including the kidnappings of 40 people and a series of deadly attacks on convoys and U.S. troops.
There are 137,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Plans called for the military to reduce its troop levels to about 105,000 this summer, but Rumsfeld said Thursday he could make no guarantees about future troop levels. David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland, says dangers in Iraq will continue to cause problems for the Army, which is supplying most of the U.S. troops there. “The recent events will have an effect on parents and spouses of soldiers,” he said. “Parents are going to increasingly question whether their kids should be in the military.”
United States Department of Defense
Apr 14, 2004
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
National Guard and Reserve Mobilized as of April 14, 2004
This week all the services reported a decrease with the exception of the Coast Guard who remain unchanged in support of the partial mobilization. The net collective result is 1,728 less reservists on active duty than last week.
At any given time, services may mobilize some units and individuals while demobilizing others, making it possible for these figures to either increase or decrease. Total number currently on active duty in support of the partial mobilization for the Army National Guard and Army Reserve is 150,289; Naval Reserve 2,654; Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, 13,035; Marine Corps Reserve, 5,086; and the Coast Guard Reserve, 1,586. This brings the total National Guard and Reserve on active duty to 172,650 including both units and individual augmentees.
A cumulative roster of all National Guard and Reserve who are currently on active duty can be found at https://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2004/d20040414ngr.pdf.
KPLC-TV (LA)
April 15, 2004
LA National Guard Activated
Reported by KPLC Staff
A Louisiana National Guard brigade with about four-thousand soldiers has been activated for overseas service and about three-thousand Fort Polk-based soldiers will remain in Iraq longer than expected.
One squadron of the Fort Polk-based Second Armored Cavalry recently returned from Iraq, but the Pentagon says the rest of the unit will remain.
Members of the Lafayette-based 256th Infantry Enhanced Separate Brigade of the Louisiana National Guard been activated.
The units are set to train at Ford Hood, Texas, for deployment in support of the Iraq war.
The Associated Press
April 15, 2004
Kansas National Guard puts 1,100 on Alert
Citizen-soldiers may be sent to Iraq
By Chris Moon
The Capital-Journal
Terresa Hoke watches the news about Iraq from time to time.
She has been so busy, she said, it is difficult to catch the daily dose of television clips.
But Hoke, of Lawrence, does know about the escalating violence in Iraq — she says the media tend to focus on that more than on the “positive news” coming out of the country. It is something she has kept in mind as one of about 1,100 Kansas Army National Guard soldiers who were told this week they may be headed for Iraq.
“Everybody has that initial fear,” she said. “But some of these soldiers have been training for 20 years to do their jobs.”
Hoke, a captain, is commander of Topeka’s 74th Quartermaster Company, a unit of about 100 citizen-soldiers who are trained to run facilities that store and issue water, food, fuel, construction materials, clothing and equipment. The unit can support up to 18,500 soldiers.
It is one of five Kansas Army National Guard units, with mostly support and transportation duties, that were put on alert Monday. News of the possible mobilizations was released Wednesday.
“Alert status” means mobilization orders could come later this year as part of a third rotation of soldiers into Iraq. Monday’s alert was the largest involving the Kansas National Guard since the war started last year.
“We don’t have any time, dates or locations right now,” said Hoke, a 13-year member of the Army National Guard. “All we know is we are on alert.”
The following units also were alerted:
• 778th Transportation Company (Heavy Combat), headquartered in Kansas City, Kan., with detachments in Manhattan, Emporia and Council Grove.
• Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment of the 169th Corps Support Battalion in Olathe.
• 891st Engineer Battalion, headquartered in Iola with companies in Pittsburg, Coffeyville, Cherryvale, Fort Scott and Chanute.
• 137th Transportation Company (Palletized Loading System), headquartered in Olathe with a detachment in St. Marys.
The 137th returned in January from serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The unit served in Fort Bragg, N.C., although about 20 of its members were sent to Iraq.
“The soldiers of the Kansas Army National Guard always stand ready to answer their country’s call,” said Maj. Gen. Tod M. Bunting, the state adjutant general. “If they are mobilized, I am confident that these guardsmen will continue that long and proud tradition of service.”
As of Wednesday, nearly 173,000 National Guard and Reserve forces were on active duty, many in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon. Currently, about 600 Kansas Army National Guard soldiers are deployed.
Topeka’s 74th Quartermaster Company first started training in January 2000. It is one of the younger units, made up mostly of people in their late 20s.
Most of its members are married. Many have children. One of the unit’s members gave birth a few days ago, and another is due next month.
Members work an array of jobs, from teachers to construction workers to police officers to full-time guardsmen.
Hoke is one of the latter. She works full time coordinating training for Olathe’s 169th Corps Support Battalion, another unit put on alert this week.
It means the 31-year-old has double-duty of sorts, as her own unit and the 169th prepare for a possible deployment. For the past three days, she said, she has been running over checklists in her mind, making sure her unit has done the drills, completed the training, is ready for duty.
Hoke said she is satisfied it is. Unit members operate forklifts, able to maneuver supplies sitting on pallets to items as large as a small building.
They know their equipment, and they know how to protect themselves, she said. For now, they must get their families, finances and jobs squared away as they prepare for a possible deployment.
Hoke said the transition has been made easier by the fact her husband, Josh, is a recruiter with the Kansas Army National Guard in Lawrence. He spent four years on active duty and knows the drill. The Hokes don’t have children.
Still, that is the difficult part — “leaving my family for what could be up to two years,” Hoke said. “My husband is my stabilizing factor, and I won’t be able to call him five times a day.”
And despite the swirl of controversy surrounding the war in Iraq — as the 2004 presidential election begins to center on the conflict — Hoke remains resolute. She joined the military after watching her older brother serve in the first Iraq war.
It sounded exciting, she said, and this was a way to give back to her country.
But her current hometown of Lawrence has as much anti-war sentiment as any Kansas community. Hoke, however, said she has gotten nothing but support from her neighbors.
“I joined the military and signed my name on the dotted line,” she said matter-of-factly. “I will do for my country what is required of me.”
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has participated in numerous activations and send-offs of Kansas National Guard soldiers since taking office in January 2003. She said the ongoing war and a recent memorial service for five soldiers from Fort Riley who were killed in one attack heightens her concern for the soldiers’ safety.
“My thoughts and prayers are with these soldiers who may very well be sent into harm’s way in the near future,” Sebelius said. “Each and every soldier leaving their family, their job, their life to serve deserves our respect and support.”
Nine Kansans — none from the Kansas National Guard — have died in Iraq since the start of the war.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Duluth News-Tribune
April 16, 2004
75 Guard Members in Duluth May be Deployed
By Chuck Frederick; News Tribune staff writer
About 75 Minnesota National Guard members from Duluth are among 890 placed on alert for possible mobilization, the guard announced Thursday.
Duluth’s D Company, an electronic maintenance unit, is part of the 434th Main Support Battalion. Based at Camp Ripley, Minn., other Minnesota 434th companies also placed on alert include Austin, St. Cloud, Long Prairie and Cottage Grove.
It’s not known where the 434th will be deployed or whether it will be activated.
“There’s no certainty,” said the Minnesota National Guard’s Col. Denny Shields. “It’s likely they’ll be mobilized. But we don’t know for sure. It could be anything from none of them to all of them being called up.”
Giving the part-time military members notice of a possible deployment allows them to arrange time off with employers, arrange child care and take care of other personal issues.
“This is a prudent measure to ensure that these soldiers are prepared,” said Maj. Gen. Larry Shellito, adjutant general of the Minnesota National Guard. “This alert will enable our soldiers to have predictability in order to prepare their families, employers and schools.”
More than 1,800 National Guard soldiers and Air Guard members from Minnesota are on federal active duty. Many are serving in the war on terrorism and in Iraq.
Duluth’s Company D drills this weekend at the National Guard Armory on Airpark Boulevard. Members at the armory Thursday declined to comment about their alert status.
About 35 members of D Company had been activated in February 2003. They stood guard and helped protect fighter jets at the Duluth Air Guard base.
The company’s members are technicians trained to repair computers, communications equipment, electrical guidance systems and radar.
The San Francisco Chronicle
April 12, 2004
Tearful Easter Reunions as Troops Return Home
After nerve-racking year in Iraq, soldiers happy to be out of danger
By Meredith May, Delfin Vigil
About 120 members of the California National Guard returned home Sunday after a year working as prison guards and military police in some of the most dangerous hotspots in Iraq.
Soldiers were euphoric to be out of the danger zone as they greeted relatives after stepping off chartered flights at the San Francisco and Oakland airports.
Even the trip back to California was an ordeal for 90 members of the 870th Military Police Company based in Pittsburg. Scheduled to leave Iraq six different times, the troops finally left for Kuwait in mid-March, flew to Washington state last week on Monday and finally arrived in Oakland about 7 a.m. Sunday.
Tearful Easter reunions played out on the tarmacs.
In Oakland, Spc. Dionicio Arevalo Jr. of Hollister, who spent the past year as a gunner on a humvee, saw his son Dionicio III for the first time.
“I had a dream about him before he was born, and he looks just like I imagined,” said the 31-year-old father.
His wife, Rosse, said she played a recorded tape of her husband’s voice to her baby during her pregnancy. Later, she held the phone to her baby’s crib when her husband was able to make a call out of Iraq, and she also showed Dionicio photographs of dad.
“He got used to his father’s voice, because he’d smile when he heard it,” she said.
Dionicio III let his father hold him, and he stared intently at his father as he spoke.
“I think he recognizes my voice,” the elder Dionicio said.
Bagpipe players performed “Scotland the Brave” behind Terminal One. Nine-year-old Darren and his 5-year-old sister Phoenix scanned the crowd for their mother, 27-year-old Heather Zongker of Oakley.
Phoenix spotted her and ran into her mother’s arms.
“It’s such a relief,” said Zongker, a supply sergeant who kept the military police stocked with uniforms, water and boots.
Darren said he’s glad mom is back — he missed her pancakes.
Lt. Michael Drayton of Sacramento hadn’t held his son, Jacob, since the day the boy was born only a few hours before Drayton shipped out to serve as a volunteer commander of an 870th military police unit.
On Sunday, Drayton said, “We’re both kind of shocked. We’re both looking at each other like, ‘Who’s this?’ “
In Iraq, he had guarded areas in Karbala, Najaf and the Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad. He’s proud that his unit was the only National Guard company to return without a casualty.
“We were under mortar fire every day,” he said. “We were in the holiest cities in Iraq, and it was very tense. There’s nothing you can do in that situation but just take it.”
It was much the same across the bay in San Francisco, where about 30 members of the 2632nd Transportation Company, based in San Bruno, were welcomed home.
John Edwards of Vallejo fought back tears as he and his 7-year-old daughter, Jonelle, greeted her mother, Sgt. Shannon Alvarez.
“We made mommy promise to stay home for a long time,” Edwards said.
Not all of the returning soldiers had big welcoming committees.
“We’re the lonely people,” said Cpl. John Uyeda of Fresno, standing next to Spc. Katherine Borden of San Diego.
They were among the few soldiers who did not have family members able to greet them at the airport. But they were still smiling.
“Tonight, I’m going to have a steak,” said Borden, a 20-year-old San Diego City College student.
“And I can’t wait to eat sushi — no offense to the Army’s nutrition program,” said Uyeda, a 31-year-old substitute teacher in the Fresno area.E-mail the writers at [email protected] and [email protected].
Philadelphia Inquirer
April 12, 2004
National Guard Unit Is Set to Return
The 160 soldiers in the 253d Transportation Company are in Kuwait, waiting to depart.
By Associated Press
CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE N.J. – New Jersey’s first Army National Guard unit deployed to Iraq will soon head home after a year of duty with Operation Iraqi Freedom.
As the 253d Transportation Company, based in Cape May Court House, prepares to return, 300 members of the New Jersey National Guard’s 114th Infantry – based in part in South Jersey – are getting ready for a tour in the Middle East beginning next month.
The mobilization includes companies from Woodbury, Mount Holly, Burlington City and Freehold. Some are expected to be deployed to the Arabian Peninsula and others to the Sinai Peninsula.
The 253d Transportation Company’s 160 soldiers, meanwhile, are in Kuwait awaiting departure for home, said retired Sgt. Maj. Michael Hughes, a family-support coordinator for the unit. No arrival date has been provided.
Some relatives have been planning celebrations, while others are contemplating quieter welcomes. Plans were dashed twice before when the unit’s tour of duty was extended.
“You’re waiting for him to come home, and he doesn’t come home,” said Veronica Perez of Hammonton, referring to her husband, Luis. “They got out just in time, because now there is so much more unrest.”
The 253d, which was mobilized in February 2003 at Fort Dix and arrived in Iraq last April to carry out supply missions, suffered no casualties. Its return is part of a major rotation of 125,000 U.S. troops.
The Third Battalion of the 112th Field Artillery, which has an armory in Cherry Hill, and the 117th Cavalry, which has an armory in Woodstown, also went to Iraq in February 2003. They were retrained for security duty.
The Associated Press
April 15, 2004
National Guard’s 957th Back on U.S. Soil
Members of the North Dakota National Guard’s 957th Multi-Role Bridge Company returned to the United States on Tuesday, after a year of duty in the Middle East.
It’s awesome to know that you’re home,” said Kayla Gartner, a member of the unit.
She and about 170 other soldiers flew into an airport near St. Louis around 6:30 p.m., and were en route to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., by bus late Tuesday night, Guard spokesman Capt. Dan Gaffney said.
A group of about 30 North Dakotans, including Maj. Gen. Mike Haugen, the Guard state commander, greeted the troops when they stepped off the plane.
Gaffney said the soldiers were thrilled to be back on American soil.
“They were pretty excited to see a drinking fountain with cold water,” he said.
The Bismarck-based unit will spend a little less than a week in Missouri going through outprocessing, before flying back to North Dakota.
“If things go as planned, we might be able to get these guys out of here and back home on Sunday,” Gaffney said.
The unit specializes in building bridges to move troops and equipment over water. Three members of the unit were killed in Iraq, and another four were injured.
The 957th arrived in the Middle East in April 2003. The soldiers’ return this week was briefly put in doubt when the unit and several others preparing to return to the United States were put on hold last weekend because of the recent heavy fighting in Iraq.
“Sunday night, they called us together and said we were going home, and everybody started cheering,” said Brackston Mettler, a member of the unit.
The 957th left Kuwait the following day.
Mobile (AL) Register
April 16, 2004
Guard’s 161st Arrives Friday
Arrival time set for between 8 and 9 a.m. at armory on Museum Drive in Spring Hill
By George Werneth, Staff Reporter
More than 100 members of the 161st Area Support Medical Battalion are scheduled to return to their home armory in west Mobile between 8 and 9 a.m. Friday after spending a year overseas in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Hundreds of family members and well-wishers are expected to be on hand for the arrival of the unit at Fort Hardema McLaughlin National Guard Armory, also known as Spring Hill Armory, at 720 Museum Drive.
The soldiers – who had been stationed at camps in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Dubai – will be making the 500-mile-plus last leg of their journey home in buses from Fort Stewart, Ga., which is near Savannah. The 161st arrived at Fort Stewart on Friday to be processed out before returning home.
Capt. Gary Raymond, a member of the 161st involved in coordinating the battalion’s arrival in Mobile, asked that area residents line Spring Hill Avenue between Interstate 65 and McGregor Avenue to greet the Guard members Friday morning.
Raymond also requested that residents decorate the fence around the armory with welcome home signs, yellow ribbons and balloons to show their support.
The 161st provided medical care, laboratory services, optometry services, dental care, medical logistics, mental health services and other care for coalition troops and civilians in the four Middle East nations. They treated nearly 230,000 troops and provided tens of thousands of immunizations to people who otherwise would not have been immunized, a spokesman said.
“We would like to have an outpouring of support along Spring Hill Avenue by people waving flags and saluting the sacrifice” the Guard members have made, Mobile City Councilman Steve Nodine said. Nodine is the District 7 representative, and his district includes the home armory for the battalion headquarters.
The 161st left Mobile on Feb. 1, 2003, for Fort Stewart and arrived in Kuwait two months later.
A number of unit members are police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians in civilian life, and their absence put a strain on area public-safety agencies. The primary mission of the battalion is to provide combat health support.
About 7,800 members of the Alabama Army and Air National Guard have been mobilized since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Alabama Guard spokesman Norman Arnold recently reported that about 4,000 of them remain on active duty, including 2,000 stationed in Iraq.
The 161st arrived back in the United States shortly before the Department of Defense announced it was going to extend the deployment of thousands of U.S troops in Iraq. The extensions were a result of increased violence by insurgents and because a number of experienced units were scheduled to return home.
USA TODAY
April 16, 2004
A Welcome Home for Wounded GIs
Sherri Gonsalves knew last year that her husband was “on a mission” to do something to help wounded U.S. soldiers.
But she didn’t know what he had in mind until November, when John Gonsalves, 37, called her at work and told her to look at a Web site he’d created: homesforourtroops.org.
“I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, honey.’ I was very shocked,” she recalls. “I had no idea it had gone that far.”
John Gonsalves, a construction supervisor in Wareham, Mass., had decided to create a charity to raise money to build houses adapted for servicemembers badly wounded in Iraq. The project became a reality in March and has brought in $60,000 in five weeks.
“Our motto is, essentially, ‘Homes for our troops,’ ” John Gonsalves says. “It’s not a (politically) left thing, it’s not a right thing, it’s the right thing. As Americans, we have a responsibility to these soldiers and their families.”
Gonsalves was looking for someone who could use the help. In local news reports, he found Sgt. Peter Damon, 31, an electrician and member of the Massachusetts National Guard from Brockton.
Injured in tire explosion
Damon was changing a tire on a Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq on Oct. 21 when the nitrogen-inflated tire exploded. He lost his right arm above the elbow and his left hand and wrist. Another soldier, Pfc. Paul Bueche, 19, of Daphne, Ala., was killed.
Gonsalves first approached Damon in a series of telephone calls that began in December. “He was a little skeptical,” Gonsalves remembers.
As Damon recalls: “I got a message that a guy called and said he wanted to build me a house. And I said: ‘What’s up with that? This guy must just be a little bit overexcited or something.’ ”
In February, Gonsalves visited Damon at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where the soldier was being treated. Gonsalves showed Damon the legal papers that established the non-profit organization to prove that it was real. Damon then accepted Gonsalves’ offer to help build him a house.
“This is a huge burden lifted off my mind right now, if we can get it done,” says Damon, who is married and has two children.
Gonsalves got the idea from news reports out of Iraq about soldiers losing limbs from explosions and enemy attacks. “I just remember watching it, wondering what happens to a guy from there on,” he says.
In fact, the Department of Veterans Affairs can help disabled soldiers obtain up to $50,000 to help adapt a house to meet their needs or to assist in the purchase of a home. Most young soldiers, Gonsalves learned, can’t afford to buy a house and instead rent.
His dream was to generate money that would help disabled GIs finance a house and then help them build it with his construction experience.
“Whatever amount of grant money they have to build a house, we want to be able to fund the rest,” Gonsalves says.
He has no military background, but his grandfather was killed in Normandy during World War II.
When Gonsalves visited at Walter Reed, he discovered many soldiers who had lost limbs in Iraq and even more inspiration for this charity. And he dreams big.
“We really need to raise, I think conservatively, $20 million. We’ve got soldiers all over this country that have been pretty badly injured. If we’re looking at around 4,000 guys injured (in Iraq), I’ve got to assume that there are several hundred who have been really badly injured,” Gonsalves says. “If we’re going to build hundreds of homes, it’s going to take millions of dollars.”
For the past few months, he has been working on his charity full time, living off family savings and his wife’s income. She works for Talbot’s, a clothing store chain. His effort has gotten media attention, and that is beginning to change life for him, his wife and their 4-year-old son, Hunter.
“I think part of my job is to keep us grounded,” says Sherri Gonsalves, 40. She concedes that she worries about their future finances as her husband launches this charity.
Bringing in donations
They have been moved by the response. Local hardware and home-furnishing businesses have been donating kitchen cabinets, flooring and windows for Damon’s house. Children in the Wareham area are donating money from lemonade sales or in lieu of birthday gifts. An elderly woman sent $2 with a letter praising Gonsalves’ idea.
He is looking for a piece of property to buy or receive as a donation so construction on Damon’s house can begin. Gonsalves is accepting contributions mailed to Homes for Our Troops Inc., P.O. Box 615, Buzzards Bay, MA 02532.
“This is really a true calling. He’s so passionate about it,” Sherri Gonsalves says. “My husband was very changed after 9/11, and he always absolutely felt like there was something that he needed to do. And so I think that it kept eating away at him.”
The New York Times
April 18, 2004
National Guard Unit Returns to Families and to Fanfare
By Jill P. Capuzzo
DATELINE: FORT DIX, N.J., April 17
Sgt. William Gaskill lost 89 pounds. Sgt. Michael Sherno became a first-time homeowner. And Specialist Kelly Wiest’s daughter went from being an infant to a toddler.
These and dozens of other changes were revealed Saturday as hundreds of relatives and friends welcomed home New Jersey’s first National Guard unit to return from Iraq, after serving there for the last year.
The 160 soldiers of the 253rd Transportation Company flew from Kuwait, landing at McGuire Air Force base Saturday morning. From there, they were bused to Fort Dix, where they were greeted by hand-painted posters, flags, and brigades of relatives wearing T-shirts bearing the soldiers’ names and pictures.
They marched in formation though the sea of well-wishers, and after a short speech by Gov. James E. McGreevey, they were released to their families, and hugs and tears became the order of the day. Their commander, Col. Charles Harvey, said proudly that they had driven 1.4 million miles with no serious injuries.
Toni Presnall continued to squeeze the hand of her 20-year-old son, Specialist James Presnall, an hour after his arrival, shaking her head in disbelief that he was actually standing beside her. Like almost everyone in the room, the Presnalls spent the last week monitoring rumors that the unit might be called back for an extended duty, as had been the case with two other units whose troops thought they had finished their tours.
“On Friday, the members of our family support group were saying it was 90 percent sure they were coming, but still, it is the Army, and they can make changes any time they want to,” said Specialist Presnall’s father, Howard.
A transportation unit, the 253rd Company, based in Cape May Court House, felt particularly vulnerable to being recalled. So until their airplane left the ground Friday evening, most of the soldiers refused to believe they were coming home.
While the soldiers said it was nice to be back, some, like Sergeant Sherno, 24, admitted it was a little “overwhelming,” an understandable reaction considering a contingent of 30 relatives, all wearing tan T-shirts with his name on them, were on hand to welcome him back.
“I have mixed feelings. Everybody’s so different,” he said, looking a bit dazed. He will get to see the new house his parents bought for him in Cape May next weekend.
For Specialist Wiest, 22, the year abroad was particularly difficult, having to leave behind her 9-month-old daughter, Madison. Specialist Wiest’s mother cared for the baby, who is now 21 months old, sending a steady stream of pictures and video images abroad.
When they signed up for the National Guard, many of the unit’s members said, they did not think they would see active duty, let alone spend a year in a war zone.
Sergeant Gaskill, 39, said several soldiers in his platoon asked what they were doing in Iraq as National Guardsmen, to which he replied: “This is what we’ve been training for. It’s time to earn your pay.”
In fact, this was Sergeant. Gaskill’s second tour of duty. A member of the National Guard for 22 years who lives in Lincoln, Del., he also served nine months in the Persian Gulf war of 1991. Despite the constant attacks on his unit — 22 in one day, he said — and dropping from 319 pounds to 230, he seemed to have taken his latest tour of duty in stride. Not so his wife, Lisa, who was home with their three children.
“It was pure hell. Every minute of it,” she said. “In the beginning, it didn’t bother me, but as time went by I got more and more worried that he wouldn’t come back.”
The soldiers will spend the next week at Fort Dix, getting physicals and being debriefed and processed out of the active army and back into the National Guard. As for being called back to active duty in Iraq, Colonel Harvey said, the chances were “slim to none.”
“They’re working their way across the country. We’d have to have a bunch of new missions added to be called again,” Colonel Harvey said. “But then again, I never say ‘never.”
The Associated Press
April 18, 2004
W.Va. Army National Guard Members Return Sunday
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, W.Va.
More than three dozen members of the West Virginia Army National Guard returned to Charleston on Sunday.
The soldiers, members of the 156th Military Police Law and Order Detachment based in Logan, spent a yearlong deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The soldiers, most of whom are police officers in their civilian lives, helped train more than 5,300 Iraqi police, fire and corrections personnel in Mosul and Dohuk, focusing on defense tactics, ethics, religious tolerance, Iraqi law and other training.
The soldiers supervised the transfer of the training program to Iraqi instructors before they left.
Family and friends waited anxiously at the West Virginia Air National Guard facility in Charleston Sunday for their return.
“This is awesome to be home,” Maj. Scott Fuller told WCHS-TV. “I’ve been waiting for it for 14 months.”
Also arriving back in West Virginia Sunday were about 40 soldiers with the 99th Regional Readiness Command’s 261st Ordnance Co., 1st Platoon, based in Cross Lanes. The unit, which was mobilized in February 2003, stored, inventoried, inspected and shipped ammunition for the for the joint task force’s use in the Kuwaiti theater of operations.
About 45 members of the 321st Ordnance Battalion, who also had been in Kuwait, are scheduled to return home Monday evening.
The Associated Press
April 15, 2004
Most College Costs Paid for National Guard Members
LITTLE ROCK (AP) — More Arkansas Army National Guard members are applying for college grants now that they can attend for nearly no cost.
Before this year, they could count on at least 75 percent of tuition and fees up to $4,000 from a federal grant. Now, a new program has encouraged seven Arkansas campuses to waive the rest of the tuition.
The Tuition Assistance Partnership Program, created by the 2003 Legislature, authorizes colleges and universities to waive 25 percent of tuition for guard members.
Since October, 411 soldiers have applied for the 75 percent funding for the spring semester and smaller courses. At this time last year, 577 soldiers had applied, but that group included students who have since been deployed with the 39th Infantry Brigade Enhanced, which makes up one-third of the Army National Guard in the state.
Lt. Brandan Robbins, education services officer for the Arkansas Army National Guard, said schools use the waiver to attract more students. For soldiers, he said, it’s a great opportunity to improve their skills both on and off duty.
“You want people who can communicate what they see, what they hear and what they want you to do,” Robbins said. “You need to communicate with other people. Going to college does that for you. It helps you become a well-rounded person.”
So far, seven schools have chosen to use the waiver: Southern Arkansas University, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Pulaski Technical College, the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, Arkansas State University in Newport, North Arkansas College in Harrison and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Southern Arkansas University Technical College in Camden is planning to waive the cost starting next semester.
The waivers apply to members of both the Arkansas Army National Guard and the Air National Guard. But only Army National Guard members can get the 75 percent funding, which pays for three-fourths of tuition up to $200 per credit hour and three-fourths of fees up to $500 per year.
Airmen are given money to attend classes on Air Force bases. Because they don’t receive the 75 percent funding when they attend public or private colleges, the state gives them higher preference for state grants of $1,000 per fall and spring semester.
In addition to those scholarships, the GI Bill pays $282 each month.
Mike Leach, public policy program director for the nonprofit Good Faith Fund in Little Rock, said financial aid is important in Arkansas, which has relatively low levels of college-educated adults.
“We would like to see more colleges participate in the program because not every college that can is participating at this point,” Leach said. “One of the biggest barriers to higher education from Good Faith Fund’s perspective is affordability … The more financial aid we can make available, the greater access people can have to higher education and, of course, that’s good for Arkansas.”
Corporate Communications
NEWS RELEASE: 04-028 April 16, 2004
AAFES MEDIA CONTACT: JUDD ANSTEY – [email protected]
Phone Card Gifts Make it Easy for Americans to Show Deployed Troops They Care
DALLAS – Any American can now help troops in contingency operations telephone call home. The Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) is now authorized to sell prepaid calling cards to any individual or organization that wishes to purchase cards for troops who are deployed. Up until now, those wishing to lend a helping hand had no other alternative, but to purchase other retailer’s prepaid cards that, in many cases, were not designed for affordable international calling. Now, anyone (even those not in the military) can help troops in contingency operations call home from one of the many AAFES call centers in Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF).
Many of the prepaid cards available to the general public from retailers other than AAFES offer much higher rates and connection charges. For service members to receive the best calling rates from OIF/OEF, senders should take advantage of the savings and purchase the Military Exchange 550 Unit Prepaid Card as it offers the best value when calling home with minutes that never expire and no hidden charges or connection fees. And senders don’t even need to know the names or address of deployed personnel to provide the great benefit of a phone call home.
Helping service members stay in touch with friends and family has never been easier. Anyone can log on to www.aafes.com <http://www.aafes.com> and click the “help our troops call home” link. From there, those wishing to pay for troops to call home can send a prepaid calling card to an individual at his or her deployed address or to “any service member” deployed or hospitalized. AAFES will coordinate distribution of donated cards addressed to “any service member” via the American Red Cross, Air Force Aid Society or the Fisher House Foundation.
AAFES currently operates 31 call centers in Iraq, 19 in Kuwait and four in Afghanistan. All of these locations stay busy playing a critical role in keeping the lines of communication open between deployed troops and their loved ones.
AAFES officials hailed the Department of Defense’s foresight in allowing it to offer phone cards to the general public. “A phone call home can make a Soldiers day,” said AAFES’ Chief of Communications LTC Debra Pressley. “This initiative allows any American to make a direct impact on the morale of deployed troops around the world. We hope everyone takes advantage of this opportunity to purchase a phone card that will make a connection between the front lines and the home front.”
In addition to the ability to send phone cards, individuals and organizations can further extend support to deployed troops with a “Gift From the Homefront” gift certificate. This innovative initiative allows anyone to help deployed troops purchase merchandise in one of 54 contingency stores. “Gifts from the Homefront” can also be purchased 24 hours a day by logging on to www.aafes.com <http://www.aafes.com> or by calling 877-770-4438, seven days a week, everyday of the year. From there, the “Gift from the Homefront” can also be sent to an individual service member (designated by the purchaser) or distributed to “any service member” through the American Red Cross, Air Force Aid Society or Fisher House.
Reports from Iraq indicate that the certificates distributed most recently are being used for the latest CDs and DVDs, comfort items such as snacks and beverages and phone cards for those all-important calls home. “Gifts from the Homefront” certificates are available in denominations of $10, $20 or $25 and are subject to a $4.95 shipping and handling processing fee. As is the case with Military Exchange Prepaid Phone Cards, “Gifts from the Homefront” can be purchased by anyone with a U.S. credit card or check, but only authorized military customers can redeem them at AAFES facilities throughout the world, including 54 locations in OIF/OEF.
The Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) is a joint command of the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, and is directed by a Board of Directors who is responsible to the Secretaries of the Army and the Air Force through their Chiefs of Staff. AAFES has the dual mission of providing authorized patrons with articles of merchandise and services and of generating non-appropriated fund earnings as a supplemental source of funding for military Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) programs. To find out more about AAFES’ history and mission or to view recent press releases please visit our Web site at https://www.aafes.com/pa/default.asp.
Media Notes:
For more information or to arrange an interview with an AAFES representative please contact Judd Anstey, 214-312-3861 or [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>.
As troops on the ground know, the 550 Unit Global Military Exchange Prepaid Card offers the best value when calling from Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF) back to the U.S as they. This and other Military Exchange prepaid cards are now available to all non-identification cardholders who wish to help our troops call home.
The Associated Press
April 17, 2004
Legislature Looks to Aid, Bolster National Guard Ranks
By John Milburn, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: PITTSBURG, Kan.
Sgt. 1st Class Melvin Smith’s job of recruiting National Guard members is made a little easier by the great location of his small office.
Smith works in the local armory, a tan brick building near Lincoln Park, where Pittsburg residents spend spring and summer playing baseball, softball and golf. Scores of young people drive past the armory on their way to games, often taking Walnut Street because it has fewer stoplights than other thoroughfares.
Now, legislators in Topeka are aiming to make Smith’s job even easier.
Through proposals creating new incentives and benefits, legislators are seeking to boost recruitment and retention of Kansas National Guard soldiers and in a small way thank them for serving their state and country.
The effort in Topeka couldn’t come at a more stressful time for Army and Air Guard members and their families. Recently, approximately 1,100 Kansas Guard soldiers were put on alert that they may be mobilized for duty in Iraq, where several hundred of their comrades are already on the ground.
“A question that is often asked is, ‘If I sign up, will I have to go fight?”‘ Smith said. “Anytime you sign that bottom line, that is a possibility.”
The package of bills, awaiting legislators’ attention when they reconvene April 28 following their spring recess, would:
– Give National Guard members who are mobilized or deployed an income tax credit to offset the property taxes they have paid on their vehicles – and refunds if the credit is larger than the amount of income tax they owe.
– Expand the Kansas National Guard tuition assistance program, funded in part from sales of special Kansas Lottery tickets.
– Provide support services for families of deployed Kansas National Guard members.
– Grant free hunting and fishing licenses and access to state parks to Guard members.
– Give preference for state jobs to Guard members, similar to the credit that veterans receive in seeking federal jobs.
Legislators do not know how much the package would cost the state, but House Speaker Doug Mays said the service of men and women in the Guard is “invaluable” both home and abroad.
“At a time when many of our men and women are deployed abroad to protect our freedom, we must ensure that adequate benefits are provided for them,” Mays, R-Topeka, said in an interview.
About 600 Kansas National Guard soldiers are currently deployed, either overseas – including 351 members of the 2nd Battalion, 130th Field Artillery from Hiawatha sent to Iraq in January – or on homeland security assignments in the United States, such as those providing guard duty at Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth.
Smith has been in the Guard for 16 years and recruiting soldiers since October 1996. His primary focus is on filling the ranks of the 891st Engineer Battalion, especially Company A based in Pittsburg.
“Our retention is as good as it’s always been. There’s no difference with the war going on or without it,” said Smith, adding that interest in the Guard is up among those with prior military service.
Lt. Col. Lee Tafanelli, who is commander of the 891st Engineer Battalion and a Republican state representative from Ozawkie, said anything the state can do to encourage men and women to join the National Guard would help.
“It’s a tremendous sacrifice. It’s important that we have the next generation of Guardsmen for a state or national emergency,” Tafanelli said. The 891st also has been mobilized following floods and tornadoes.
Tafanelli, who chairs the Legislature’s Select Committee on Kansas Security, said it is important to provide the right mix of incentives and benefits to encourage recruitment and retention.
To Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, state adjutant general, the incentive package reflects legislators’ realization that Kansans may be asked at any time to give up to 18 months of their lives separated from family, friends and employment.
Incentives help soldiers adjust once their mobilizations are complete, easing the fiscal strains incurred during deployments, Bunting said.
Tuition assistance and free recreation licenses may sound simple, but Bunting said they are significant gestures of appreciation. And they make the state an example to other employers by taking care of soldiers’ needs, he added.
Bunting said mobilizations could continue at the current level for several years, placing a renewed importance on reserve forces.
“This is big stuff,” Bunting said. “Soldiers have to start making plans right away. We’re very cognizant that we’re asking a lot. There is only a finite amount that you can ask.”
The Associated Press
April 18, 2004
Politicians Push For Bill to Protect Guardsmen and Reservists From Discrimination
By Don Babwin, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: CHICAGO
As more Illinois National Guard troops and Army reservists are ordered to stay longer in Iraq, state officials are pushing legislation to protect them and their families from job, housing and financial discrimination at home.
“It is very important when they come back to America … that they be treated in a fair way with respect to the basic things that all of us need in life – housing, jobs and access to credit,” Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said Sunday at a news conference, just days after more than 600 Illinois National Guard troops who expected to return home from the Middle East were ordered to stay at least three months longer.
House Bill 4371, called the “Citizen Soldiers Initiative,” would expand the state’s Human Rights Act to include reservists and guard members. Today, under the act it is illegal to discriminate based on such factors as race, religion, sex, gender and “military status.”
The problem, said Quinn and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Chicago, is that “military status” could be read to include only military personnel on active duty and not reservists and guardsmen and guardswomen.
“We don’t want any doubt” that reservists and guard members are also included, said Quinn.
Quinn said the bill, sponsored in the House by Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia, D-Aurora, addresses complaints of guardsmen and reservists about such problems as landlords unwilling to rent them apartments because of the uncertainty that they may be called up for active duty.
The bill has already passed the House. Quinn and Obama, a candidate for U.S. Senate, said they expected the bill to be approved in the Senate this week, and then signed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich shortly thereafter.
Obama said the bill will give guard members and reservists the same avenue of recourse that others who have been discriminated against because of such factors as race, gender, age and military service.
“It’s more important than ever to make sure that we as a state are ensuring that the strains on those men and women as well as their families are minimized,” he said.
The Associated Press
April 12, 2004
Utah National Guardsman Awarded the Bronze Star
DATELINE: PROVO, Utah
Utah National Guard Lt. Matthew Cousins has been awarded the Bronze Star for the discovery by him and his team of a homemade bomb in the middle of a road outside Baghdad.
The team closed the road and called in the experts.
“There was some close calls – that was one,” said Cousins, who has returned to his home at Eagle Mountain and is back at work as a linguist at Camp Williams.
A member of the 142nd Military Intelligence Unit, Cousins led 70 missions from January 2003 until he returned in March. There were no injuries among his crew of 12.
Cousins said the award is a great honor, but he was just doing his job.
“I am just a guy that is doing my duty,” he said. “I am not much for awards; I don’t look for these things.”
Sgt. Scott Faddis, a Utah National Guard spokesman, said the Bronze Star is given for distinguished service or heroic activities. It is the 10th-highest award a soldier can receive.
“It is a fine achievement and a big deal because it means they did something outstanding,” he said.
Philadelphia Inquirer
April 12, 2004
Mark Lyons is a Pilot of a C-130
His plane takes the battle to the field
By Larry Lewis, Inquirer Staff Writer
Maj. Mark Lyons’ C-130 lifted off the desert terrain of Iraq that morning last September carrying one precious flag-covered casket in its cavernous hold.
The plane’s crew, which includes two pilots, a navigator, a flight engineer and two loadmasters, can be a little irreverent and funny at times. But not that day.
“It was a pretty sobering mission,” said Lyons, 37, of Lansdowne. “We didn’t ask any questions, but the commanders of his unit were with him. He was an Army guy.”
Lyons is one of more than 300 members of the Delaware Air National Guard’s 166th Airlift Wing stationed at New Castle County Airport on active duty since the invasion of Iraq. They have served rotating tours of duty for more than a year.
They operate the C-130 planes that carry troops, supplies, equipment and food into battle – and carry the casualties out, on what the military calls “human remains missions.”
From the front lines, the short-range C-130 took the body to a transfer point within Iraq. The casket was placed into a jet-speed, intercontinental C-5 for the long journey to the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
Lyons, a 1990 graduate of the Air Force Academy, is a pilot evaluator and the tactical officer for the unit. “It’s kind of a planning job,” he said.
Much has changed in Lyons’ life since Sept. 11, 2001, and the war on terrorism began.
He was a pilot for United Airlines flying 767s out of the Northeast to California on 9/11.
The planes that struck the World Trade Center were hijacked out of Boston, but the flight crews worked out of New York, Lyons said. “I could have been flying one of those planes,” he said.
He and his wife, Sarita, 27, had just spent the weekend in New York City, taking photos of themselves in front of the World Trade Center, which they developed after the attack.
Lyons wasn’t in the air on Sept. 11 because he had taken a few days off for training exercises with his Air National Guard unit. Then, he was on part-time duty.
“We were getting ready for a flight, turned on the television, and there were the news reports,” he said.
The subsequent drop in air travel after the attacks caused cutbacks at the airlines. Lyons was furloughed by United in 2002, although he remains on the callback list. He hopes to resume his commercial career.
In the meantime, he went full-time with the Delaware Air National Guard. Then the unit was deployed to Iraq and his life changed again.
“I’ve been there for four tours of duty now,” he said during an interview at home near Upper Darby High School.
Lyons has been home since February.
He has been preparing for two night-training flights in a row. One would take him to a drop zone northwest of Atlantic City, where his crew would toss out sandbags at 1,000 feet and be scored for accuracy by a referee on the ground. The other would be a test of night-vision equipment.
The overseas missions have been challenging for his homelife. He managed to make it back briefly for the birth of his son, Malachi, now 8 months old. But he was in Afghanistan in December when his wife told him on the phone they were expecting again in August.
“I said if they keep shipping him over there, we’ll have a football team,” Sarita Lyons said.
Mark Lyons was a pilot for US Airways when he met Sarita, the daughter of an associate pastor at Bright Hope Baptist Church in Philadelphia. The switch from civilian to military life has been difficult, she said.
“It’s easy to believe in God when things are going well,” she said. “This has tested our faith. But we are stronger as a family.”
Lyons, who was in the Air Force for nine years after he left the academy, has always flown the C-130s.
“It’s a big airplane, but you can fly low – 300 to 500 feet above the ground,” he said.
He flew food to starving citizens of Somalia in 1992. “There were a lot of Marines on the ground. We would transport them as well,” he said.
He was in Vietnam in 1996 to help retrieve the bodies of two long-lost soldiers from a war-era helicopter crash. He said the special fabric of their flight suits was still intact.
He is not allowed to talk about the massive tent city where the C-130 pilots and crews work overseas, or say too much about the human remains missions.
But in Afghanistan, he said, “we have gotten them right from the firefight, in body bags.”
Even in war, he said, there are moments of hope.
He said he and his crew had flown a young soldier who was badly wounded in combat to a hospital in time to save his life.
“He had his own doctors and nurses assigned to him,” Lyons said. “They flew right with him, and kept him alive until we got him there.”
Madison (WI) Capital Times
April 14, 2004
They Save Lives Amid Hell of War
Wis. medics on front line
By Lee Sensenbrenner
For the first time Sunday, the clinic that houses part of the 118th Wisconsin National Guard Medical Battalion was treating casualties from both sides of a battle at once.
Lying naked on a raised nylon stretcher that serves as a surgery table, a man believed to be an Iraqi gasped as doctors lightly touched his belly. A bullet had hit him near the stomach and left his body through his pelvis.
Dr. Patrick Mannebach of Milwaukee, a captain with the 118th, said the man’s abdomen was filling with blood.
Two grade-school-age boys, said to be the man’s sons, came with him when he was delivered to the clinic by military police. One boy was unhurt but the other, who reportedly had been firing at troops, had a gunshot wound near his elbow.
In another room, Army Reserve Spc. Gerad Cody had splinters of glass in his lip and face. Cody, who is from Ellettsville, Ind., was driving the lead truck in an Army fuel convoy that came under attack close to this base, which is next to Baghdad International Airport just west of Baghdad.
Cody and others in his convoy said they came under heavy fire from all sides sometime before noon Sunday. Two U.S. soldiers in the 1st Cavalry died when their Apache helicopter, sent as part of a rescue, crashed. Witnesses said it was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade.
“I felt scared to death,” Cody said after he was treated. “The only place where those bullets didn’t go in that windshield was right where my head was.”
Four other soldiers in the convoy were evacuated by helicopter to the area’s major hospital. Cody said he and the others drove on shredded tires and rims, accompanied by 1st Cavalry members, to get away from the ambush site.
Army Reserve Cpl. Brian Stewart, a northern Michigan native who was also in the convoy, said they were attacked over the span of three miles of highway, and he was told there were more than 200 attackers firing at them.
Wisconsin’s 118th Medical Battalion arrived in Baghdad in February, and for weeks, the medics said, it had been a routine schedule of sick calls among soldiers — headaches, back pain and so on.
“People would come in every day for the same cough that they’d had for a month,” said 19-year-old medic Jennifer Frick, of Racine. “I think they just wanted to get out of duty.”
Added Mike Migazzi, a medic from Mukwonago: “There wasn’t much difference between a day off and the slow days. The excitement was getting mail. Or playing video games.”But now their caseload has changed with the heavy attacks over the last week.
“Lately, all we have been seeing are major injuries,” said Mannebach, a 32-year-old pulmonary specialist from Milwaukee. “After this week, it’s been harder to wind down at night.”
Later Sunday, Mannebach treated a 25-year-old Army flight crew leader who had tried to kill himself by taking 70 Tylenol pills. It’s a lethal dose, Mannebach said, and if the man survives he may still be facing a liver transplant. After initial treatment, the crew leader was evacuated to a major hospital.
Lt. Col. Ellyn English, a Madison dentist, removed shrapnel from an Iraqi man’s gums last week. All her work is done with local anesthetics.
“Taking shrapnel out is a little different experience,” she said. English was skipping rope outside the clinic as she spoke, winding down to stay upbeat.
Company B commander Lt. Col. Kenneth Lee, who back home is the chief spinal cord injury doctor at the Milwaukee veterans hospital, said it’s essential for the medics to find ways to stay well while they are treating the victims of the war.
“It is OK to bleed with your patients, but you must stop the bleeding at a certain point and replenish. You must be able to put an (emotional) tourniquet on and stop it,” he said. “Replenish and bleed again, that allows you to be empathetic.”
But lately, even though doctors and medics for the most part seem to remain in good spirits, the time for replenishing has been brief.
“In the past four or five days, the daily trauma — the battle trauma that I’ve seen — is quite different,” Lee said. “The war trauma, the battle trauma. A lot of emotions. All these patients come in with a lot of emotions.”
He also talked about how the experience is changing him in some way he couldn’t define, then told of a young soldier who was one of many recently treated for gunshot wounds.
“A young kid. God, I couldn’t believe how young he looked,” Lee said. “He had a gunshot wound. That bullet went through his hand. I was treating his hand and trying to save it, and he’s saying, Hey, Doc, don’t worry, I’m going to be OK. I’m going to be OK.’ I think what he saw was the worry that I had. He was assuring me. It was a different kind of feeling. We see the war through the eyes of the patients.
“When it came time to take him out, I just kind of held his hand and said, Hey, buddy, you’re going out of here soon. You’re going to get a helicopter ride.’ He just clamped my hand and wouldn’t let go. He just wouldn’t let go.”
“I think that’s what’s changing me,” Lee said. “You see these people going through all these things, and I got nothing to complain about. Maybe that’s what the change is, I don’t know.
“I’m realizing that there’s more to it than, you know, simple problems of having a new car versus an old car. Should I redo the siding on the house or not? That’s the kind of thing I left when I left home.”
TCT reporter in Iraq
Editors’ note: Reporter Lee Sensenbrenner of The Capital Times will be in Iraq for the next 10 days to tell the stories of Wisconsin soldiers. He is with the 118th Medical Battalion of the Wisconsin National Guard.
The unit has 63 active members in the Baghdad area, including physicians, dentists, medics and nurses. Some of their duties include treating prisoners of war. The main clinic used by the 118th, where Sensenbrenner is based, acts as an emergency room and as a general health care facility. It is on a base referred to as Baghdad International Airport, or BIAP, which is nearby.
Associated Press
April 15, 2004
Memorial Service Honors Soldier Who Served With Two Sisters in Iraq
By, Carrie Antlfinger
Not Long before she was killed in Iraq, Michelle Witmer gave her twin sister a hug and kiss and told her that she loved her.
“It was a gift from God,” Charity Witmer, 20, told more than 600 mourners at a memorial service Wednesday night. “She was at such a good place when she left this world.”
Michelle Witmer died Friday when her Humvee was attacked in Baghdad, where Charity and another sister, 24-year-old Rachel, also serve with the National Guard.
The sisters were granted leave and returned home Monday. They were still deciding whether to return to Iraq.
Maj. Gen. Albert Wilkening, adjutant general of the Wisconsin National Guard, presented Witmer’s family with a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and the National Defense Service Medal.
Michelle Witmer, a specialist with the 32nd Military Police Company, was the first Wisconsin National Guard soldier to die in military combat in 60 years.
Assigned to the Army military police, she was stationed in Baghdad.
Rachel Witmer also served in the 32nd, which was sent overseas last May. Charity was sent to Iraq late last year as a medic with Company B of the Wisconsin Guard’s 118th Medical Battalion.
Speakers at the service included Gov. Jim Doyle and Brig. Gen. Kerry Denson, commander of the Wisconsin National Guard.
Denson quoted an e-mail from Sgt. Nate Olson, who was in the Humvee with Michelle when they came under fire. He said Michelle was attempting to return fire when she was hit.
“For her quick reactions, she undoubtedly is the reason I am here today. Thank you, Michelle,” Denson quoted Olson as writing.
Michelle’s parents read from their daughter’s e-mails, in which she described her volunteer work at an orphanage.
“It was when I was holding one of these children that I realized I have so much to be thankful for,” she wrote in an e-mail read by her father, John.
Michelle’s mother, Lori, had to take a moment to compose herself before she told the crowd that she wished she could keep everyone there for three days to talk about her daughter.
“I feel so privileged to be her mother,” she said.
Outside the church auditorium, large floral arrangements and collages of snapshots of Witmer and her family and friends were displayed.
The 2nd Platoon of her company sent flowers with a card that read: “Michelle, you’re always one of us in our hearts and minds.”
Defense Department policy allows soldiers from the family of someone who dies while serving in a hostile area to request an exemption from serving in such an area.
That request must come from the soldiers themselves, but the family said the sisters were deferring that decision for now.
Los Angeles Times
April 15, 2004
For Guard Unit’s Kin, No End to the Grieving
First came word of a soldier’s death. Then families learned that troops’ Iraq duty had been extended — again.
By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer
OCONOMOWOC, Wis. — The soldiers had already started sending home their DVD players, decks of cards and extra deodorant. The National Guard had organized a party so kids could paint welcome-home banners.
The mood here in southeastern Wisconsin was almost festive: After an endless year in Iraq, the 157 soldiers of the 32nd Military Police Company were coming home.
But last Friday, phones began ringing in the homes of the soldiers’ spouses, parents and siblings. Spc. Michelle Witmer, one of their own, had been killed when her Humvee came under fire on a routine patrol through Baghdad. Shaken, the families of the 32nd reminded one another that the rest of the troops were already packing.
Then the phones rang again.
On Easter Sunday, the soldiers of the 32nd had learned that they would not be coming home next month as planned.
The Pentagon had promised American forces in Iraq that they would spend no more than 365 days in hostile territory. But this week, officials said they would order more than 10,000 troops to stay on beyond their yearlong tour. The 32nd was one of the first to get that order.
“We were so close to getting them home intact. Then to rip our hopes away like that…. We were devastated,” said Krista Sorenson of Waterloo, Wis.
Her husband, Sgt. Denis Sorenson, had planned to be home by May 10 for their daughter’s eighth birthday. He had missed her seventh.
“I have felt and thought of every terrible emotion you can think of,” the sergeant wrote his wife, hours after learning that he would not make it home for Justine’s birthday. “We were so close. I never saw this coming.”
News of the 120-day extension angered families already strained with grief over Witmer’s death.
Many of the soldiers’ relatives felt they knew the long-haired 20-year-old from New Berlin. She and her older sister, Rachel, both served in the 32nd. Her identical twin, Charity, was also in Iraq, with a medical battalion. The soldier-sisters, who joined the Guard to help pay for college, had been featured several times on local TV and in the papers.
Their parents even posted the girls’ letters online: Michelle’s description of the filthy Iraqi police station where she worked the night shift; photos of the disabled children she cuddled at a Baghdad orphanage; her request for a care package of lemonade mix, flip-flops and “anything that is frivolous … [to make me] feel like a girl again.”
“We’d gotten to know the sisters through all the coverage of the family. We were grieving,” said Janet Gatlin, who lives in this lakeside town midway between Milwaukee and Madison. “Then to get the news of the extension. It was like, ‘This can’t be happening.’ We’re living a nightmare.”
Her husband, 2nd Lt. Anthony Gatlin, broke down when he told his wife that she would be alone for another summer.
Several officers from the 32nd had been boarding a plane for Kuwait to plan the unit’s demobilization when the extension order arrived, Gatlin told her in a phone call. The officers were pulled off the plane. They were told not only that they’d be staying in Iraq, but that they’d also be redeployed south of Baghdad.
It had taken months for the soldiers to turn a bombed-out palace into a comfortable base. Using their civilian skills in plumbing, construction and engineering, they had restored electricity and water. They even set up a microwave, in which they tried — not very successfully — to make pizza. Now they face moving, most likely to a tent camp, without air conditioning or e-mail access.
“That’s the first time,” Janet Gatlin said, “that my husband has ever cried to me on the phone.”
When the 32nd was activated on March 15, 2003, their orders called for a year of active duty.
But last summer, the Pentagon set out a new policy: A year of active duty meant a year of “boots on the ground” in hostile territory. The two months the 32nd had spent mobilizing, training and deploying to Iraq did not count. Anxious relatives back home circled a new date on their calendars: May 9. That would mark precisely one year since the 32nd had touched down in the Middle East.
The boots-on-the-ground policy had been designed to boost troop morale by setting a fixed date for homecomings. For the men and women of the 32nd, it seemed to work. As their one-year deadline approached this spring, the soldiers excitedly told their families to stop sending mail. They’d soon be back to hear all the news in person.
“The concentration of the unit has shifted to packing up,” one soldier noted in a dispatch for a family newsletter.
“As we start to count down the days, the excitement can be heard in voices behind tired and tested eyes,” another wrote.
Michelle Witmer was no less buoyant. For months, she had been working 12-hour shifts in a police station that often resembled an emergency ward, with bloodied Iraqis staggering in seeking first aid for gunshots, stab wounds and broken bones. Patrolling a treacherous neighborhood, she had several close calls with improvised explosive devices. Members of her unit had earned more than 20 Purple Hearts for combat injuries.
“Time does not fly,” she wrote her dad.
Last month, however, Michelle’s mood brightened as she began planning for her homecoming. “There is finally a light at the end of the tunnel!” she e-mailed.
Back in Wisconsin, soldiers’ relatives booked summer trips to Disneyland or planned long-delayed honeymoons. They debated what to bring when they met the troops’ plane: Pizza? McDonald’s? Cheesecake?
Justine Sorenson came up with a long list of all she wanted to do with her dad: Show him how well she could read. Show him how she’d learned to hit a softball. Show him her American Girl doll. Hug him.
“I just want to see him come off that plane,” she said.
Amid the frenzy, a few families managed to hold their excitement in check.
“I’ve been a military wife for 20 years,” said Keleen Soldner of Racine. “I know to plan for the worst.” But few listened to her warnings.
Jessica Lopez, for one, was too busy planning her wedding. She had married Staff Sgt. Agustin Lopez in a hasty courthouse ceremony just before he deployed. Now they wanted a formal church wedding. Lopez reserved a date: June 12. She bought her dress, hired a florist, ordered a cake. She mailed the invitations.
Then she learned of Witmer’s death.
Then she learned of the extension.
And now she’s calling caterers, asking for refunds — all the while holding a running conversation with God.
“If I make it through the next 120 days without him,” Lopez begs, “if I stay strong, if I give up however many thousands we spent on the wedding, will you please, please bring him back alive?”
Like other family members, Lopez says she’s proud of her husband, believes in his mission and supports him — and the military action in Iraq — 100%. Then she thinks of the Witmers.
She believes Michelle would still be alive if the 32nd had returned home in March at the end of its original one-year tour. She wonders whether this second extension is a bad omen. She fears another phone call.
Adding to the stress is the uncertainty. The 32nd has not received a written order that confirms the extension. And no one’s sure how to interpret the verbal command that came down over the weekend. Do the 120 days start now, or after the first year of duty is up May 9? Will the Army count only days on the ground in Iraq, or will the soldiers get credit for the several weeks it can take to travel home? Is 120 days a maximum? Or could the tour of duty be extended yet again?
On the unlikely chance that there’s still time to reverse the order before it’s sent in writing, relatives have bombarded local politicians with pleas for the unit’s return this spring.
“We want our husbands home,” Gatlin said. “I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
But she’s not letting herself hope. “I can’t bear to be disappointed again.”
The Associated Press
April 16, 2004
National Guard Deployment Could Cause Firefighter Shortage
DATELINE: ONTARIO, Ore.
The war in Iraq may leave the state short of resources to battle forest fires, especially in drought-stricken eastern Oregon.
By May 1, an estimated 40 percent of personnel in Iraq will be Guardsmen and reservists, officials said.
That poses a serious risk to every state in terms of fire management given that one of the National Guards main duties is providing disaster relief, said Mike Hartwell, fire management officer for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Vale.
“There could be big fires in Oregon, Idaho or Washington, all three, or none this year. We just don’t know,” Hartwell said.
Oregon U.S. Rep. Darlene Hooley said she is concerned the deployment will leave a hole in Oregon’s security. Kathie Eastman, spokeswoman for Oregon U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, said the congressman has similar concerns.
But Oregon National Guard spokesman Maj. Arnold Strong dismissed the risk, pointing out that the largest state deployment of the National Guard since World War II occurred during the summer of 2002, when wildfires in the southwestern part of the state drained available resources.
Then, Oregon had more National Guard in Iraq per capita than any other state. But even so, there were still an estimated 60 percent of Oregon Guardsmen left to deal with state security matters, Strong said.
Strong did concede that with the drought in eastern Oregon, a potential does exists for a particularly severe fire season.
Eastern Oregon’s 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry Brigade, headquartered in La Grande, was placed on alert in March for a possible deployment overseas.
The New York Times
April 16, 2004
Extended Tours in Iraq Dash Hopes and Raise Fears Among Troops’ Families
By Andrew Jacobs; Ariel Hart in Atlanta, Eric Schmitt in Washington and Abby Goodnough in Pensacola, Fla., contributed reporting for this article.
DATELINE: FORT POLK, La., April 15
The triumphant display of fighter jets over the nearby town of Leesville has been postponed. So, too, has the celebratory parade down Third Street and the floats featuring decorated veterans and musicians playing big band music. At the Landmark Hotel, just up the road from the entrance to this expansive Army base, the military wives who had traveled cross-country for promised reunions with their husbands are packing their bags and heading home.
For Eboni Abrams, the “welcome home” signs and the march of red, white and blue ribbons up and down Colony Boulevard feel like cruel taunts, now that her husband, Specialist Roy L. Abrams, is spending an extra three months in Iraq along with 2,800 other troops who were supposed to return to Fort Polk in the coming weeks.
“I feel bad, real bad, like I have a hole in my heart,” said Ms. Abrams, 25, who was planning a surprise vacation to Disney World for her husband this weekend.
Across the country, thousands of military families who expected joyous reunions in the coming weeks are now trying to grapple with dashed hopes and renewed fears that their loved ones will have to face several more months of perilous duty in Iraq.
In Utah, family members whose relatives are in the 1457th engineer battalion of the Utah National Guard had expected them home within days. They were told at a tense meeting in Spanish Fork on Thursday that after 14 months in Iraq the battalion’s tour would be prolonged.
In announcing the extended tours of duty, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the 20,000 troops who are to remain in Iraq for up to three months were needed to quell the latest surge in violence and to protect supply convoys that have come under increasing attack in the past two weeks. Gen. John P. Abiziad, the top American officer in the Middle East, said earlier this week that he needed an additional two brigades of troops to keep the number of American troops in Iraq at about 130,000.
The extension effectively cancels the Pentagon’s plans for reducing troop levels to about 115,000, or lower, this spring, and breaks a department commitment last fall to limit troops’ time to 12 months.
“We regret having to extend those individuals,” Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon. “But the country is at war and we need to do what is necessary to succeed.”
The Pentagon’s order affects a wide range of troops, including infantry, helicopter crews, military police and logistics specialists, in both Iraq and Kuwait. The extensions affect about 11,000 soldiers from the First Armored Division, based in Germany, 3,200 troops from the Second Armored Cavalry Regiment and an unspecified number of soldiers from other posts.
Lt. Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for operations, told reporters that about 6,000 Reserve and National Guard soldiers from 20 states will have their tours extended, raising concerns among some military personnel experts.
Maj. Ron Elliott, a spokesman at Fort Polk, said the extension had come in the middle of the Second Armored Cavalry regiment’s “flowing” back home, with about 700 servicemen having arrived at Fort Polk and 2,800 still in the Iraq or Kuwait, all of whom were expected to be back by May 11.
“In part, it’s because of their expertise and their combat experience” that they were chosen to stay, he said. Some had already reached Kuwait for the journey home and were turned around before they could board planes.
In Leesville, the homecoming party, billed as the Louisiana Homefront Celebration, was scheduled for June 19 and had been in the works since the fall. Mayors from across central Louisiana and the area’s Congressional delegation had been involved in planning for the series of events, which were expected to draw tens of thousands of people to downtown Leesville, a town of 7,000 people whose livelihoods are integrally linked to Fort Polk.
Paula Schlag, a community relations officer at the base, said the event was to be inspired by the joyous victory day celebrations that followed the end of World War II but with a modern twist. Fighter jets would screech across the sky, marching bands would parade through town and at least one unnamed Nascar celebrity was expected to join the festivities.
“Imagine a joint color guard and marching units from all the services, with vehicles from a horse to modern transport to show the transformation of the Army,” she said. Like many others here, she did her best to find a silver lining in the disheartening news. “We’re going to use the extra time to enhance an already phenomenal event,” Ms. Schlag said.
Jessica Halverson, whose husband, a second lieutenant, has been in Iraq for more than a year, said it was important not to complain. “I was disappointed, of course, but you give yourself a few hours to feel sorry for yourself, but then you put on your good face for everybody else and just keep on,” Ms. Halverson said. “You’ve got to have a lot of strength to be a military wife, and how you react affects the other wives.”
Forced to cancel a planned family holiday at the beach, Ms. Halverson said she took her 3-year-old daughter, Emma Kate, to the zoo and the movies to distract her from the disappointment. “It’s kind of like a blanket of sadness for the first couple days,” she said.
Others were not so ready to hide their emotions. Angela Macarini, whose husband, Henry, is in Kuwait with an Air Force Special Operations unit out of Hurlburt Field, near Pensacola, said she and her husband were both losing faith in the war effort. “Sometimes I think we did the right thing and sometimes I think we didn’t,” said Ms. Macarini, a waitress who was shopping at the Winn-Dixie in Navarre, Fla., on Thursday afternoon. “It’s getting more and more scary. I feel like the Iraqi people are not prepared for democracy and it’s not the Americans’ place to go fix the situation for them.”
She said she had been worried about the possibility of soldiers having to stay longer than they had planned, adding, “Hopefully my husband won’t be one of them.”
Over at the Hairport in Leesville, a beauty salon near the base entrance, the disappointment was palpable. Ms. Abrams, who works as a hairdresser, grew tearful as she described the phone call from her husband last week to tell her about his delayed return. He was already in Kuwait, on his way back home, and he was weeping. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard him cry since we began dating in high school,” she said.
Ms. Abrams had been living in South Carolina since January, but she returned to the base in anticipation of the reunion, loading her car with a few of Specialist Abrams’s favorite things: boxes of Little Debbie cakes, new jeans and four pairs of Timberland boots she found on sale.
The plan was to surprise her husband with a trip to Orlando, picking up their 2-year-old son in South Carolina on the way to Disney World. The letdown is immense, she said, but even more overpowering is her anxiety over what might lay ahead in the chaos of Iraq. “It hurts me because those boys finally had a chance to catch their breath and it’s been snatched away from them,” she said. “At this point, I just want him home safe and sound.”
The Associated Press
Soldiers: Army Ignores Illness Complaints
By Verena Dobnik
NEW YORK (AP) – Six soldiers who have fallen ill since their return from Iraq said Friday that the Army ignored their complaints about uranium poisoning from U.S. weapons fired during combat. They also said they were denied testing for the radioactive substance. We were all healthy when we left home. Now, I suffer from headaches, fatigue, dizziness, blood in the urine, unexplained rashes,” said Sgt. Jerry Ojeda, 28, who was stationed south of Baghdad with other National Guard members of the 442nd Military Police Company. He said symptoms also include shortness of breath, migraines and nausea. Sgt. Herbert Reed, 50, said that when a dozen soldiers asked for treatment last fall, they initially were turned away. Three of them persisted and were tested in December, said Reed, who has yet to receive his results. The soldiers held a news conference at Ojeda’s home, joined by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who said he would work to get the victims extended health benefits after they are discharged.
Five of the men said they also were recently tested independently by Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a former Army doctor and nuclear medicine expert, who found traces of depleted uranium in their bloodstream, with four registering high levels. After their return from Iraq, “the Army was unfortunately not cooperative when they asked for testing,” Schumer said. In Washington, an Army spokeswoman, Cynthia Smith, said that the military would test any soldier who expressed concerns about uranium exposure.
The men said that Army officials are now testing urine samples they supplied. Results are expected in about three weeks. Since the start of the Iraq war, U.S. forces reportedly have fired at least 120 tons of shells packed with depleted uranium. Depleted uranium, which is left over from the process of enriching uranium for use as nuclear fuel, is an extremely dense material that the U.S. and British militaries use for tank armor and armor-piercing weapons. It is far less radioactive than natural uranium. Veterans started reporting health problems as a result of depleted uranium shells in 1991, after the first Gulf War. Some experts believe the nuclear component used in warfare is practically harmless, while others blame depleted uranium for cancers and other illnesses.
Special to American Forces Press Service
National Guard Video Honors Sacrifices in War on Terror
By Master Sgt. Bob Haskell, USA ARLINGTON, Va., April 15, 2004 – Jeffrey Wershow died in Iraq in July. A year after the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Wershow became a National Guard icon. Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, is telling everyone he can about the 22-year-old infantry specialist from the Florida Army National Guard. Blum tells Wershow’s story while showing a video about what National Guard soldiers and airmen have contributed to the global war against terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001. The 3-minute, 37-second video is a collage of film clips and still photos set to the Toby Keith song “American Soldier,” which was No. 1 on the country music charts as the first year of the war in Iraq was coming to a close. Veteran members of the National Guard Bureau’s public affairs team produced two videos to pay tribute to the fallen Guard members. One is grounded in Toby Keith’s hit song “American Soldier.” It shows National Guard troops performing their duties in Afghanistan, Iraq and supporting homeland efforts. The other is a memorial to the Guard members who have been killed during the war against terrorism. Their names are displayed against an American flag that is waving in the breeze. “Taps” is the mournful musical score. The 3-minute, 17-second video ends with the sobering message, “All Gave Some; Some Gave All.” Army Guard Sgts. 1st Class Paul Mouilleseaux and Tom Roberts shot most of footage and photographs and produced the videos that are being distributed to National Guard personnel throughout the country. Blum presented the award-winning military journalists with Air Force Achievement Medals for their poignant portrayals of the National Guard at war. “What the National Guard does and means was the message we tried to convey in the Toby Keith video,” said Mouilleseaux, who also has two Emmy Awards. He was a staff photographer on news teams for a Louisville, Ky., commercial television station, WHAS-TV, which won Midwestern regional Emmy Awards in 1994 and 2000. “With the memorial video, we wanted to inject some honor and pride and emotion into the sacrifices that these Guard soldiers and airmen have made to make sure they are never forgotten,” Mouilleseaux added. Wershow, who went to war with the 2nd Battalion, 124th Infantry, appears twice in that National Guard video that also speaks to the sacrifices that Guard soldiers and airmen have made during the war. Wershow is seen in the green haze of a night-vision lens, planting the American and Florida flags beside a breach in a defensive wall in northern Iraq. Florida Army Guard and active Army soldiers invaded Iraq, Blum explains, in the dead of a night before coalition forces actually launched Operation Iraqi Freedom on the night of March 19, 2003. Wershow did not have long to savor that moment, Blum relates a little later during the video as a casket covered with Old Glory is carried onto an Air National Guard plane. He was shot in the head and killed in Baghdad while buying a can of soda on July 6. “Jeffrey Wershow was one of our Guard members who went into the fight before the fighting officially started,” Blum has observed. “And Jeffrey Wershow was one of the people who made the ultimate sacrifice.” There have been many Jeffrey Wershows during the past year, as the National Guard has paid a dear price in blood and tears while holding up its end of the fight against tyranny and terrorism, against those who would do this country harm. Sixty-five Guard members have died because they have been willing to go into harm’s way. Fifty-five Army Guard soldiers and one Air National Guard officer had given their lives during the first year of operations against Iraq by March 20, according to Defense Department casualty reports. That was the day that California Army Guard 1st Lt. Michael Vega, 41, died at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington from injuries suffered when his vehicle rolled over during a firefight in Iraq on March 11. Another eight Guard soldiers and an airman have died while taking part in Operation Enduring Freedom, in which terrorists based in Afghanistan have been the focus of attention since April 2002. Twenty-seven of the Iraqi casualties have been killed in action or have died of combat wounds, according to DoD reports. Three have been killed in action in Afghanistan. Many others have been wounded and lost limbs and have begun coming to grips at places like Walter Reed with the reality of resuming their lives, which have been forever altered by warfare. They will be remembered in many places. The 56 who have died during Operation Iraqi Freedom came from 25 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, based on Defense Department casualty reports. Five belonged to Army Guard units in Iowa, the state that has been hardest hit. California and Alabama have each lost four Guard soldiers. Indiana has lost three Guard soldiers engaged in Operation Iraqi Freedom and another during Operation Enduring Freedom. July and November were the deadliest months during the first year of the Iraqi War. Eight Guard Soldiers perished during each month. Seven more died during August, September and December. Improvised explosive devices have taken many of the lives that will again be remembered with tears and “Taps” during Memorial Day observances in late May. But the sacrifices have been made in many ways. Illinois 1st Lt. Brian Slavenas and Iowa Chief Warrant Officer Bruce Smith and Sgt. Paul Fisher were killed when their CH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down in Fallujah, Iraq, on Nov. 2. Ohio Spec. Todd Bates drowned south of Baghdad on Dec. 10 after diving into the Tigris River to try to save his squad leader, Staff Sgt. Aaron Reese, who fell overboard during a river patrol. Both men with the 135th Military Police Company died. And many people now know the story of Florida Spc. Jeffrey Wershow because the chief of the National Guard Bureau is telling everyone he can how the college student and aspiring politician left his Florida home to put his life on the line, as so many National Guard people have done when their country has called. National Guard Casualties, War Against Terrorism Following are the names of those who have died while participating in Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom operations. The list includes their ages, states or territories in which their Guard units are based, and the dates and countries of their deaths. KIA indicates they were killed in action. DOW indicates they died of wounds. All were members of the Army National Guard except for two who belonged to the Air National Guard, indicated by asterisks. Operation Iraqi Freedom 2004 1st Lt. Michael Vega, 41, California, March 20, Washington, DC. Sgt. Ivory Phipps, 44, Illinois, March 17, Iraq, KIA. Master Sgt. Thomas Thigpen Sr., 52, South Carolina, March 16, Kuwait. Sgt. William Normandy, 42, Vermont, March 15, Kuwait. Spc. Jocelyn Carrasquillo, 28, North Carolina, March 13, Iraq, KIA. Spc. Christopher Taylor, 25, Alabama, Feb. 16, Iraq, KIA. Spc. Eric Ramirez, 31, California, Feb. 12, Iraq, KIA. Spc. Elijah Wong, 42, Arizona, Feb. 9, Iraq.
Spc. Joshua Knowles, 23, Iowa, Feb. 5, Iraq, KIA.
Sgt. Keith Smette, 25, North Dakota, Jan. 24, Iraq, KIA.
Staff Sgt. Kenneth Hendrickson, 41, North Dakota, Jan. 24, Iraq, KIA.
2003
Spc. Michael Mihalakis, 18, California, Dec. 26, Iraq.
Staff Sgt. Michael Sutter, 28, Michigan, Dec. 26, Iraq, KIA.
Spc. Nathan Nakis, 19, Oregon, Dec. 16, Iraq.
Staff Sgt. Aaron Reese, 31, Ohio, Dec. 10, Iraq.
Spc. Todd Bates, 20, Ohio, Dec. 10, Iraq.
Spc. Raphael Davis, 24, Mississippi, Dec. 2, Iraq, KIA.
Spc. Aaron Sissel, 22, Iowa, Nov. 29, Iraq, KIA.
Cpl. Darrell Smith, 28, Indiana, Nov. 23, Iraq.
Spc. Robert Wise, 21, Florida, Nov. 12, Iraq, KIA.
Staff Sgt. Nathan Bailey, 46, Tennessee, Nov. 12, Kuwait.
Sgt. Paul Fisher, 39, Iowa, Nov. 6, Germany, DOW.
Spc. James Chance III, 25, Mississippi, Nov. 6, Iraq, KIA.
1st Lt. Brian Slavenas, 30, Illinois, Nov. 2, Iraq, KIA.
Chief Warrant Officer 4 Bruce Smith, 41, Iowa, Nov. 2, Iraq, DOW.
Pvt. Algernon Adams, 36, South Carolina, Oct. 28, Iraq.
Sgt. Aubrey Bell, 33, Alabama, Oct. 27, Iraq, KIA.
Pfc. Paul Bueche, 19, Alabama, Oct. 21, Iraq.
Spc. Michael Williams, 46, New York, Oct. 17, Iraq, KIA.
Sgt. Darrin Potter, 24, Kentucky, Sept. 29, Iraq.
Sgt. 1st Class Robert Rooney, 43, Massachusetts, Sept. 25, Kuwait.
Capt. Robert Lucero, 34, Wyoming, Sept. 25, Iraq, KIA.
Spc. Michael Andrade, 28, Rhode Island, Sept. 24, Iraq.
Sgt. Charles Caldwell, 38, Rhode Island, Sept. 1, Iraq, KIA.
Staff Sgt. Joseph Camara, 40, Rhode Island, Sept. 1, Iraq, KIA.
Spc. Darryl Dent, 21, District of Columbia, Aug. 26, Iraq, KIA.
Staff Sgt. Bobby Franklin, 38, North Carolina, Aug. 20, Iraq, KIA.
Pfc. David Kirchoff, 31, Iowa, Aug. 14, Germany.
Staff Sgt. David Perry, 36, California, Aug. 10, Iraq, KIA.
Sgt. Floyd Knighten Jr., 55, Louisiana, Aug. 9, Iraq.
Pfc. Brandon Ramsey, 21, Illinois, Aug. 8, Iraq.
Staff Sgt. David Lloyd, 44, Tennessee, Aug. 5, Kuwait.
Sgt. Heath McMillin, 29, New York, July 27, Iraq, KIA.
Spc. Jon Fettig, 30, North Dakota, July 22, Iraq, KIA.
Sgt.1st Class Christopher Willoughby, 29, Georgia, July 20, Iraq.
Spc. Joshua Neusche, 20, Missouri, July 12, Germany.
Sgt. Roger Rowe, 54, Tennessee, July 9, Iraq, KIA.
Sgt. 1st Class Craig Boling, 38, Indiana, July 8, Kuwait.
Spc. Jeffrey Wershow, 22, Florida, July 6, Iraq, KIA.
Spc. Richard Orengo, 32, Puerto Rico, June 26, Iraq.
Cpl. John Rivero, 23, Florida, April 17, Kuwait.
Spc. Richard Goward, 32, Michigan, April 14, Iraq.
Spc. William Jeffries, 39, Indiana, March 26, Spain.
*Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, Idaho, March 25, Kuwait.
Non-deployed
Staff Sgt. Harold Best, 47, North Carolina, Oct. 7, 2003, Fort Stewart, Ga.
Spc. Jeremy Loveless, 22, Alabama, April 28, 2003, Fort Benning, Ga.
Operation Enduring Freedom
2004
Sgt. Roy Wood, 47, Florida, Jan. 9, Afghanistan.
2003
Sgt. Theodore Perreault, 33, Massachusetts, Dec. 23, Cuba.
Pfc. Kristian Parker, 23, Louisiana, Sept. 29, Qatar.
Sgt. Christopher Geiger, 38, Pennsylvania, July 9, Afghanistan.
*Staff Sgt. Jacob Frazier, 24, Illinois, March 29, Afghanistan, KIA
Spc. Brian Clemens, 19, Indiana, Feb. 7, Kuwait.
Sgt. Michael Barry, 29, Missouri, Feb. 1, Qatar.
2002
Sgt. Gene Vance Jr., 38, West Virginia, May 19, Afghanistan, KIA
Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Romero, 31, Colorado, April 15, Afghanistan, KIA
Special to American Forces Press Service
Colorado Guard Forms Alliance With Kingdom of Jordan
By Master Sgt. Bob Haskell
ARLINGTON, Va., April 13, 2004 – A new, landmark alliance between the Kingdom of Jordan and the Colorado National Guard may be one more step toward bringing peace and stability to the Middle East.
That is what Prince Feisal Ibn al-Hussein, a member of Jordan’s royal family and commander of the Royal Jordanian Air Force, said he hoped for while visiting the National Guard Bureau’s joint headquarters April 1 to endorse the new State Partnership Program between his country and the Centennial State.
It is the first time the National Guard’s 11-year-old State Partnership Program has formed an alliance with a Middle Eastern country to exchange military, civil and cultural ideas.
The Jordan-Colorado partnership is the 45th affiliation between states and countries since January 1993. Previous partnerships have been forged with Eastern European nations that were former members of the Warsaw Pact, 13 countries in Latin America and the Philippines.
The National Guard’s State Partnership Program aligns states with nations around the world to help them develop modern military forces, learn the concept of civilian control of the military, and establish civil-military relationships that benefit the public during civil emergencies.
“Our part of the world is quite often misunderstood. Understanding can’t but help (lead to) greater stability, greater security and a greater opportunity for peace,” said Feisal following a breakfast meeting with Lt. Gen. Daniel James III, director of the Air National Guard, and Air Guard Maj. Gen. Mason Whitney, Colorado’s adjutant general.
“Although we come from different cultures, we all face very, very similar challenges in life. Being able to work together, to be able to address issues together and understand each other is to the benefit of everybody,” said Feisal, the younger brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah II. “You don’t lose out from being able to understand each other and work together,” added Feisal, a two-star general, who has flown military helicopters and jet fighter planes.
He wore a lapel pin of the U.S. and Jordanian flags on his gray suit to signify his support for the partnership.
Feisal, 40, has learned much about the American culture, because he was educated at prep schools in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., and earned an electronic engineering degree from Brown University in Rhode Island in 1985.
Jordan asked to participate in the State Partnership Program last December and asked to be affiliated with Colorado.
Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, recommended that partnership to the commander of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, on March 23. Central Command is expected to endorse Blum’s recommendation.
“We are building on a friendship that already exists between our two countries, (and) between Jordan and Colorado,” James observed.
Feisal agreed. “We already had a good relationship with Colorado from previous exercises,” he said. “When we looked at the Guard assets in Colorado, (we saw) there is actually a very, very good fit between what we have in Jordan, whether it is in the air force and army, and what there is available in Colorado.”
The partnership will encompass civil defense and disaster response issues as well as the more traditional military relationships, predicted Feisal. “I think there is a lot that both sides can learn,” he said.
“Our strategic interests in the Middle East are enormous, and we have seen by virtue of the State Partnership Program that we can open a lot of doors in terms of common interests,” Whitney observed. “We feel it’s a great learning opportunity for our United States military, not only the Colorado National Guard, to be involved in relationships with Middle Eastern cultures similar to Jordan.”
Colorado, he pointed out, has maintained a partnership with Slovenia since 1993.
“We feel that has been a great success for Slovenia and for the Colorado National Guard. We’re looking forward to having that similar success with Jordan,” Whitney said.
Slovenia was admitted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with six other countries on March 29, three days before Whitney met Feisal to discuss the new partnership between Jordan and Colorado.
“We fly the F-16 and Jordan flies the F-16. We feel that our Air National Guard has similar interests with similar missions,” Whitney added. “We have special forces in the Army National Guard. We have aviation in the Army National Guard. Jordan also has those missions within their military organizations. We feel there there’s going to be a great opportunity to exchange information.”
Jordan has already asked that two of its Army helicopter pilots train at the Colorado Army Guard’s High Altitude Army Aviation Training Site, the only one like it in the world, at Eagle County Airport, Whitney said.
Jordan is also familiar with the Air National Guard, because of its exchanges with the 162nd Fighter Wing in Tucson, Ariz.
Eight Jordanian pilots were trained to fly F-16s in Tucson in 1997 and about 50 Jordanian troops received maintenance training there in 1998. Pilots in the 162nd delivered the first F-16s that Jordan purchased from the United States to the Middle East nation in January 2003.
Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 and is now considered to be one of the countries promoting peace and stability in that part of the world.
Prince Feisal said he hopes that participating in the State Partnership Program will help.
“I wish that this would be the solution to the Arab-Israeli problem and to all of our problems in the Middle East,” he said. “In a small way, maybe it can help. We will not know until we try it.”
CAS3 to Merge with Officer Advance Courses
by Gary Sheftick
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, April 13, 2004) — The last class of the Combined Arms and Services Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., will graduate May 19.
CAS3 will be consolidated into the various branch officer advance courses, Army officials said. A one-week combined arms exercise will be added to those advance courses, which now last 18-20 weeks, depending on the branch.
The one-week exercise, officials said, will provide captains attending the branch schools with much of the combined-arms experience critical to CAS3, which now lasts just over five weeks.
Over the past 22 years, some instruction such as problem-solving or military decision-making has become part of the curriculum at both the advance courses and CAS3, said Col. David Thompson, CAS3 director at Fort Leavenworth. He said decision-making is then stressed again at a higher echelon at the Command and General Staff College.
“Some repetition may be good,” Thompson said, for the learning process. “What we’re trying to do is eliminate any redundancy in instruction.”
Eliminating redundancy was a suggestion resulting from the Army Training and Leadership Development Panel study, known as ATLDP, completed in May 2001. It was also examined under the Officer Personnel Management System XXI study about six years ago.
“This is not a knee-jerk reaction,” said Lt. Col. Dennis Harrington, the G1 Officer Education System liaison at the Pentagon. “This has been considered for years.”
The change, planned as part of the Officer Education System transformation, was originally scheduled for fiscal year 2005, but is being moved up for operational reasons, Army officials said.
“With the Army at war, captains need to get back to their units,” Thompson said, and the change will get them back to units almost four weeks earlier.
The change will affect about 3,100 captains annually. Fort Leavenworth has been conducting seven classes per year with about 450 students each. Active-duty captains have been attending the five-week CAS3 course at Leavenworth immediately after finishing advance course at their branch school. In recent years, most captains have gone to their advance course as a permanent-change-of-station move. In the future, they will go in a temporary-duty status and return to their units officials said. They added this will be part of Force Stabilization.
Army National Guard and Army Reserve captains may continue taking CAS3 at Reserve Forces Schools at least through the end of the fiscal year when existing courses finish. The reserve-component officer advance courses are shorter and do not include much combined arms curriculum, said Maj. Larry Mosely, a training officer at the U.S. Army Reserve Command in Atlanta, Ga.
Thompson said he envisions what is now the two-week resident phase of the Reserve Forces CAS3 becoming very similar to the combined arms exercise for active-duty captains. Mosely said the officer advance course for reservists may adapt into a two-week phase at a branch school, then a distance-learning course, followed by a combined arms exercise.
A one-week pilot for the combined arms exercise is planned for this summer at Fort Leavenworth. Then the exercise may move to the combat arms branch schools, Thompson said.
“It’s a compact course,” Thompson said about the exercise being planned, adding that many important elements of the current CAS3, such as problem-solving, staff interaction and briefings will be part of the program.
“Many written requirements will fall to the wayside,” Thompson said, such as formal memo assignments. “I don’t think a captain in today’s Army needs to know how many spaces to indent,” he said.
The combined arms instruction will include either computer-simulated exercises, Thompson said, or scenarios with staff injects.
“My job here is to ensure we don’t hinder the education of our captains,” Thompson said. “I think we have a great answer.”
CAS3 traces its origins to the Army’s 1978 Review of Education and Training of Officers Study, which recommended establishing a course to teach staff skills. Planning for CAS3 began in 1979, with the first class graduating in 1981. CAS3 began full operations in 1982 with a nine-week program of instruction. In October 1996, the class format changed to a five-week program as part of the Training and Doctrine Command’s effort to better integrate Captains Professional Military Education across the branches and schools.
The decision to establish a Reserve Component CAS3 was made in 1984. The first classes were taught in U.S. Army Reserve Forces Schools in 1986, and the program was fully implemented in 1991.
Now as part of OES transformation and changes to officer Intermediate-Level Education, CAS3 will be combined with the officer advance courses.
“There should be little difference,” Thompson said, between the knowledge base of CAS3 graduates and those who complete the new officer advance course with the additional combined-arms exercise.
Washington Times
April 15, 2004
Bush Fulfills Vow to Injured GI
Jogs with soldier who lost his leg in Afghanistan
By Associated Press
President Bush, fulfilling a 15-month-old promise, jogged around the South Lawn yesterday with a soldier who had been badly wounded in Afghanistan.
During a Jan. 17, 2003, visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Mr. Bush met Staff Sgt. Michael McNaughton of Denham Springs, La.
On Jan. 8, Sgt. McNaughton, a member of the Louisiana National Guard, had stepped on a land mine 30 miles north of Kabul. His right leg had to be removed above the knee, he lost two fingers on his right hand and he suffered shrapnel wounds in his left leg.
The president and Sgt. McNaughton had talked about running, and Mr. Bush promised to run with the soldier when he was “fully recovered and able to run with his prosthetic leg,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
Mr. Bush has been plagued by knee troubles but has been doing light running in recent weeks, Mr. McClellan said. “He’s following his doctor’s advice to just do it as he can,” Mr. McClellan said.
The president has been doing more bicycling, and went on some bicycle rides while at his Crawford, Texas, ranch last week, Mr. McClellan said.
The track on the South Lawn, installed by President Clinton and upgraded during Mr. Bush’s term, is covered by a shock-absorbing material.
—End—