The FReeper Foxhole - Military Related News in Review - Aug. 25th, 2003

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

God Bless America
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U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues

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SOLDIER DROWNS IN EUPHRATES RIVER

SOLDIER DIES FROM NON-HOSTILE GUNSHOT WOUND

CONFISCATED, DESTROYED WEAPONS EQUAL SAFER IRAQ

MARINES HELP REBUILD WOMEN’S CENTER

COALITION REORGANIZES DAY-TO-DAY ISSUES

1 AD SOLDIER DIES DUE TO FIRE

SERVICE MEMBER KILLED IN AL HILLAH

SERVICE MEMBER DIES AS A RESULT OF AFGHAN HOSTILE FIRE INCIDENT

WEAPONS, IED CONFISCATED, DESTROYED

ANOTHER "IRAQI TOP 55" IN COALITION CUSTODY

ONE SOLDIER KILLED, TWO WOUNDED IN AN IED ATTACK

ONE KILLED, ONE INJURED AFTER CONVOY FIRED UPON

ONE INTERPRETER KILLED, TWO SOLDIERS WOUNDED IN ATTACK

ANOTHER MEMBER OF "IRAQI TOP 55" IN COALITION CUSTODY

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IRAQ NEWS

Clic on the Iraq banner for more detailed information.

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AFGHANISTAN NEWS

Clic on the Afghanistan banner for detailed information.

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Iraq's 55 Most Wanted - Status Link

DoD News Releases

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Casuality Identification List for the past week from the DoD



August 18, 2003
DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today that Pfc. David M. Kirchhoff, 31, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, died on Aug. 14 in Landstuhl, Germany. Pfc. Kirchhoff suffered a non-hostile injury on Aug. 8 and died on Aug. 14.

Kirchhoff was assigned to the 2133rd Transportation Company, U.S. Army National Guard, Centerville, Iowa.

The incident is under investigation.

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August 19, 2003
DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today that Spc. Eric R. Hull, 23, of Uniontown, Pa., was killed on Aug. 18 in Baghdad, Iraq. Hull was in a military vehicle returning from the airport when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device. Hull died of his injuries.

Hull was assigned to the 307th Military Police Company, U.S. Army Reserves, New Kensington, Pa.

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August 21, 2003
DoD Identifies Navy Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today that Petty Officer 1st Class David M. Tapper, 32, of Camden County, N.J., died of wounds received in action Aug. 20 in Afghanistan.

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August 21, 2003
DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today that Sgt. Kenneth W. Harris, Jr., 23, of Charlotte, Tenn., was killed on Aug. 20 in Scania, Iraq. Harris was fatally injured in a two-vehicle accident while driving south on the main supply route. Another soldier was also injured in the incident.

Harris was assigned to the 212th Transportation Company, U.S. Army Reserve, Chattanooga, Tenn.

The incident is under investigation.

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August 22, 2003
DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today that Staff Sgt. Bobby C. Franklin, 38, of Mineral Bluff, Ga., was killed on Aug. 20 in Baghdad, Iraq. Franklin died of injuries sustained by an improvised explosive device.

Franklin was assigned to the 210th Military Police Company, U.S. Army National Guard, Murphy N.C.

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August 22, 2003
DoD Identifies Navy Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today that Lt. Kylan A. Jones-Huffman, 31, of Aptos, Calif., was killed Aug. 21 in Al Hillah, Iraq, by an unidentified gunman. Jones-Huffman was on temporary duty with the I Marine Expeditionary Force.

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Defend America. mil Photo Essay - U.N. HQ Bombed in Iraq


CLIC on the pic for the entire essay

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Soldier and guitar bring hope to Baghdad

By Sofia Sanchez, Operational Text Command PAO




An angel in disguise descended upon Baghdad in the form of a guitar-playing soldier last November. Two years ago he was just your typical soldier, anonymous to the world. Since last November, however, Sgt. Christopher Hamre, 30, from Killeen, has been featured in television stations such as BBC and TV Italia and in major newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News and The L.A. Times.

What had made Hamre instantly popular? His heart and his guitar.

Hamre recently returned from Iraq to visit his mother, Lacynda Kelley, who works at the U.S. Army Operational Test Command in West Fort Hood.

A month prior to deployment, the soldiers of 3rd Infantry Division from Fort Stewart, Ga., were permitted one comfort item to take to the desert. Many chose folding chairs, CD players or propane stoves. Hamre chose his guitar.

“My guitar was actually kind of bigger than what they allowed to carry, but we — the soldiers and I — we sort of snuck it in,” Hamre admitted.

A month after deployment when morale slightly waned, Hamre, of Alpha Company 3-7 Inf. Div, part of Task Force 464, decided to brighten things up and started playing. “The PX wasn’t up, electricity was out, and in the beginning we only received one hot meal a day.” Hamre said the guitar helped pass the time.

Hamre’s music had a tremendous effect on soldiers’ morale. “After three weeks in Baghdad, my XO was urging me to play all the time. It’s kind of ironic that the XO, who was the strongest advocate against the guitar, became the strongest advocate for it,” Hamre said.

“This is probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” Hamre said in retrospect of bringing his guitar. “Here we have kids seeing soldiers wounded, a lot of looting, kidnapping, murders and just general chaos. And in the middle of it all, you’ve got this guy playing a guitar.”

When Hamre’s platoon was charged with taking Baghdad, the guitar rode with him and aided to calm much of the tension and unease. “Everybody was kind of tense. We had sniper attacks. So I just played my guitar, which got everybody kind of relaxed.” It was simply Hamre’s way of telling the soldiers that everybody was going to be all right.

Hamre’s guitar not only became symbolic of hope among the soldiers, it also became symbolic of peace within the local community.

When he started playing his guitar, the locals discovered they were not so different from each other. “We were seen as human beings,” Hamre said. The music helped to shed the myth of American soldiers simply being fighting machines.

Hamre quickly gained a following. “There was this 8-year-old kid named Amad. I call him my adopted son,” he said. “Amad would just come by and hang out with me and the crew after school every day. His mom cooked for the soldiers as a sort of ‘thank you’ for watching her child,” Hamre recalled.

Hamre didn’t imagine how attached he would become to Amad and his family. “I gave him a picture of my children [daughter Ember and son Dylan] and gave him my address. Hopefully one day, he’ll try to get a hold of me,” Hamre stated. “It was like having another family over there. I miss him now. His whole family cried when we left,” Hamre added.

News of Hamre’s guitar playing reached the ears of several TV stations and newspapers situated in Baghdad. BBC TV ran a two-hour segment on the war in the eyes of a child. Amad became one of the main subjects of the BBC piece, and naturally, Hamre had a chance to be on BBC TV as well.

“I was very proud,” Hamre’s mother, Kelley, said. “I feel it was very humanitarian what he did…because it focused the outlook away from what was really happening. Finding the good, no matter what the situation is,” Kelley concluded.

“That picture is him,” Hamre’s mother said about her son’s picture “That is his demeanor…it brought tears to my eyes,” Kelley added. “The picture captured his soul. You never would have thought he was in the middle of a war.”

Hamre said that bringing his guitar doesn’t make him more special than anyone else. “I consider them all heroes,” Hamre said about his soldiers. “Everybody deserves recognition and respect.”

Hamre is nostalgic at the thought of going back. “They’ve already set up a Burger King and a PX, so I guess we’re staying,” he said hopefully. “I can see myself getting sent back there one more time. The Middle East is going to be one of our regular rotations now.”

Not unlike many in the military, Hamre stated this tour greatly enhanced his outlook in life. “I’ve developed a greater appreciation for the little things: running water, electricity, family, getting up everyday, watching the sunrise,” he mused. “It’s really only the little things that make a big difference,” Hamre added.

“There are a lot of things people there did for us that didn’t make the news. Unfortunately, conflict sells.”

“I tell myself, you’ve been given a second chance. We got a lot of close calls over there.” Hamre said. “I got lucky. A lot of people didn’t make it…I couldn’t ask for anything more than being alive.” Hamre also added that people should never forget what many soldiers did in Iraq. “There were really a lot of selfless acts…and divine intervention. We’re lucky to get out in one piece.”

Link

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Select any button below to go to the respective Military homepages for more news and information on our Armed Forces.

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[SAMWolf]

Morning aomagrat.

Thanks for the profile on the CSS Shenandoah. In this age of instant and live news, its hard to imagine not getting news for weeks or even months after an event. Heck, I can hardly remember hearing about news days later by mail or having to wait for the evening news.

[SAMWolf]

1765 In protest over the stamp tax, American colonists sack and burn the home of Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson.

Can you imagine doing anything like that to our political "Elite" now a days. They have so many laws making sure they're protected that you can barely can them a bad name without being charged with some sort of crime.

The tax increases Oregon has just passed should have people paying a visit to the members of the legislature.

[SAMWolf]

Thanks for the heads up, ken5050.

[w_over_w]

Morning Glory Snip & Sam~

Bump for later read. I take a few days off and come back to find three viruses have propagated our systems with a series of patch updates. Containment will be fun.

[SAMWolf]

George W. Marquardt

George W. Marquardt, an Army Air Forces pilot who took part in the World War II atomic bomb raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, died Aug. 15 at a nursing-care center in Murray, Utah. He was 84.

He had Parkinson's disease for many years, his wife, Bernece, said.

On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, Major Marquardt flew a B-29 Superfortress carrying photographic equipment over Hiroshima.

His bomber — designated No. 91 but later called Necessary Evil by its crew — was part of a seven-plane mission that accompanied Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr.'s Enola Gay when it dropped the atomic bomb.

Three days later, Major Marquardt substituted for Colonel Tibbets as pilot of the Enola Gay and flew it to conduct weather reconnaissance over Kokura, Japan, the primary target for the second atomic bomb raid.

When smoke from previous bombing obscured that city, Major Charles W. Sweeney's plane, Bock's Car, diverted to Nagasaki and dropped the second bomb.

Japan surrendered five days later, ending World War II.

George William Marquardt, a native of Princeton, Ky., and the son of a veterinarian, left Illinois Wesleyan University in March 1941 to enter the military and later joined the 509th Composite Group, which trained for the atomic bomb missions under extraordinary secrecy at Wendover Field, Utah.

On the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima attack, Mr. Marquardt attended a reunion of the 509th at the New Mexico site where the atomic bomb was tested in July 1945, and he recalled the moment of the Hiroshima blast.

"It seemed as if the sun had come out of the earth and exploded," he told The Salt Lake Tribune.

"Smoke boiled around the flash as it rose," he said. "It felt as if a monster hand had slapped the side of the plane."

For the Hiroshima mission, scientists from the Manhattan Project, which built the bombs, put sophisticated photography equipment aboard Major Marquardt's plane to capture images of the fireball and record ground damage.

But the plane's navigator, Russell E. Gackenbach, said on Thursday from his home in Melbourne, Fla., that the crew had been told the film could not be developed.

Mr. Gackenbach, a second lieutenant at the time, said he did not know the nature of the technical problem.

Mr. Gackenbach had his own camera on the Hiroshima mission, an Agfa 620, and he took two surviving photographs of the fireball.

"Every time I flew, I had a camera, and I did that here," he said.

Mr. Marquardt left the military soon after World War II, settled in the Salt Lake City area and became an executive with the Allen Steel Company.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his sons Steven, of Draper, Utah; Michael, of Murray; and Chris, of Lehi, Utah; a daughter, Michelle Judy, of Murray; two sisters, Vera Renfro of Florida, and Mary Marshall of Ellsworth, Me.; 11 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.

In the face of longstanding controversy, Mr. Marquardt remained steadfast in defending President Harry S. Truman's decision to use the bomb.

"I have never for one moment regretted my participation in the dropping of the A-bomb," he told The Salt Lake Tribune in 1995. "It ended a terrible war."

[SAMWolf]

Good Morning w_over_w.

Good luck on getting those viruses under control

[ken5050]

FYI..see #25

[ken5050]

Thanks Sam....and of course, being the NYTImes, it just had to get ion the last para dig about the "controversy"....

[Samwise]

USA : Kiss And Make Up Day

Does this mean I have to go pick a fight with hubby so we can make up?

[Samwise]

You're welcome for the coffee. I'll supply the magaritas at 5:00.

[Samwise]

G'morning! It was nice seeing you at the Hole.

[Samwise]

G'mornning, Sam! This is my break from staining the kid's fort.

[Soaring Feather]

Thank you Samwise. I shall come again it's a nice place.

[SAMWolf]

It wouldn't e the NYT if it didn't say anything about the controversy.

[SAMWolf]

If they're anything like my kids were. I'll bet they can't wait for the stain to dry.

[SAMWolf]

Military athletes honored on cereal box

Check out this article.

[Samwise]

Well...actually my Hobbit lass didn't want me to stain it. She wanted to keep it the way Poppa (my dad) built it, but I wanted to seal it and make it match the deck and fence. She soooooo sentimental. I really had to convince her that Poppa wouldn't care, and it would last longer this way. :^)

[Samwise]

That is cool. It's so good that patriotism is "In style" again. I'm glad to see them so honored.

[Valin]

Does this mean I have to go pick a fight with hubby so we can make up?


Well I would never suggest anyone get into a fight. Why not just go right to the second part? :-)

[Samwise]

The Hole will get really fun when the third movie comes out.