Free Republic

Via twitter - BREAKING CNN: 2 people are in custody after trying to get onto MacDill Air Force Base, the home of U.S. Central Command: Air Force spokeswoman

FALLUJAH, Iraq - 11.13.04, Saturday. The day before his men pushed into Fallujah, Capt. Sean Sims went through a ''rock drill'' with Task Force 2-2. The platoons' leaders stood around a sketch of the city, fashioned in the dirt with rocks for houses and the tips of artillery shells for mosques. Code names such as Objective Panther and Objective Lion marked schools and mosques to be taken. Six days later, sitting with a map of the city in front of him, Sims no longer spoke in military lingo. His friend, Lt. Edward Iwan, was dead. The fight had creased Sims'...

Short on sleep but long on memories, the soldiers of Alpha Company had brief moments of confession before snatching a few winks or during pauses between firefights in Fallujah. FALLUJAH, Iraq - 11.11.04, Thursday. Despite heavy gunfire outside, Sgt. Randy Laird popped open the Bradley armored vehicle's rear hatch a few inches for fresh air. Alpha Company was pushing through southern Fallujah, a maze of factories and empty buildings they called Queens. Hard-core insurgents were rallying there, some of them swimming across the Euphrates River to join the fight. A pack of Marlboros, one of the last good packs of...

Apr. 4, 2003 'We're going to destroy these bastards', By Caroline B. Glick About 30 minutes after a suicide bomber killed four soldiers from the 2-7 Mechanized Infantry Battalion, Operations Officer Maj. Rod Coffey stood before the maps lying on the table of the battalion operation tent absentmindedly but violently smashing his plastic water bottle on the table. Coffey managed the front-rear coordination of the operation to secure the checkpoint on Highway 9 that had just been attacked and to retrieve the soldiers' bodies. During each radio contact with the units concerned ambulances, logistics, company commanders Coffey would speak quietly...