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FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER — During a recent air assault operation in the Diyala province, the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division medical team once again demonstrated its excellence. The group, which consisted of one physician, three physician assistants, one mental health provider, a preventive medicine officer and numerous skilled combat medics, delivered seamless and exceptional medical care, despite harsh conditions. Several of the team members flew by helicopter, carrying everything needed to set up a rapid aid station with them. A rapid aid station is able to provide immediate treatment for any injuries sustained during the early phase of an...

ST. PETE’S BEACH, Fla., Aug. 19, 2008 – Scientists and battlefield medical clinicians shared their knowledge and experiences to advance medicine during the military’s premier trauma care conference here. The U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command’s annual Advanced Technology Applications for Combat Casualty Care Conference was held Aug. 11 to 15. What evolved from a disjointed vendor-oriented conference more than 10 years ago with just a couple hundred participants is now an extremely relevant knowledge exchange that has the ability to improve military medicine, said Army Col. Bob Vandre, a former MRMC Combat Casualty Care Program director who organized...

Kandahar tourniquet developed to save livesMonday, August 18, 2008Project Number:08-0556Kandahar, Afghanistan – Afghan soldiers can now save lives thanks to a medical prototype developed by Coalition forces. The Kandahar tourniquet, created for the Afghan National Army (ANA), will improve the survival rate of soldiers suffering serious injuries and massive hemorrhage. Imagine a dismounted infantry company mentoring team moving through a village in the Zhari District of Afghanistan. The team is weighed down with weapons, ammunition, radios, night vision devices and personal protective equipment. Every soldier is trained to deliver tactical combat casualty care and is equipped with advanced wound dressings,...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq – Christian Stephenson has bided his time as a finance noncommissioned officer. Stephenson, who has been in the Army for eight years, was promoted to sergeant four years ago and became promotable to staff sergeant three years ago. “I’ve had 720 (promotion) points for a long time, in five years (the points to staff sergeant) have never gone below 775,” said Stephenson, from Emerald Isle, N.C. “It was frustrating working so hard to get those points but never making the cutoff. It had been at least six months since I’d even checked the scores when...

SHARPSBURG - Antietam National Battlefield is one of the 10 most endangered battlefields in the United States, according to a list released Wednesday by the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT). The battlefield is "threatened with a 120-foot-tall cellular tower that would be visible from all of the battlefield's most famous vantage points," according to a CWPT press release. Monocacy National Battlefield near Frederick, Md., also is on the list, which also includes sites in several states from Virginia to Oklahoma. National Park Service officials were notified in December 2007 of a proposal to erect a stealth cell tower south of...

WASHINGTON, March 6, 2008 – The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff praised the Army medics and Navy corpsmen who risk their lives on the battlefield to save others at the 2nd annual Armed Services YMCA gala here last night. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and retired Navy Rear Adm. S. Frank Gallo, national executive director, Armed Services YMCA, present the Angels of the Battlefield Award to Navy Seaman Elvis H. Gichini, a corpsman, during a gala dinner in honor of military medics and corpsman at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington,...

A touching new movie about the school and how its graduates help heal our brave wounded warriors and about some of their courageous patients... Very few folks have heard of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU-HS), but it's a place we all (including the moonbats) should know something about. USU-HS is the military school that trains MANY of the docs & nurses who treat our wounded heroes from the battlefield to Walter Reed and other military hospitals around the globe. Its main campus is located on the grounds of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD....

It may sound like science fiction, but it’s only a matter of time before the world’s militaries learn to wield the planet itself as a weapon. Preventing global warming from becoming a planetary catastrophe may take something even more drastic than renewable energy, superefficient urban design, and global carbon taxes. Such innovations remain critical, and yet disruptions to the Earth’s climate could overwhelm these relatively slow, incremental changes in how we live. As reports of faster-than-expected climate changes mount, a growing number of experts worry that we might ultimately be forced to try something quite radical: geoengineering. Geoengineering involves humans...

Udi, a United States military working dog stationed at Forward Operating Base Kalsu, poses for the camera after he completes his daily training, Dec. 25. Photo by Pfc. Amanda McBride. FOB KALSU — With their strong sense of smell and their immeasurable loyalty, the highly trained military working dogs (MWD) in the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, are proving to be essential in the fight against terrorism. Military working dogs first entered the United States armed services in March 1942. Today, the dogs are still providing support to the troops on the battlefield.A single dog can search more...

RICHMOND, Va. - As an Army surgeon in the Middle East, Dr. Keith Rose watched a colleague bleed to death when a truck in his convoy was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade. Rose could not get his comrade a tourniquet, which could have helped control the bleeding on his wounded leg, and sat along the mangled wreckage and talked with him as he took his last breath. "It really kind of frustrated me," Rose said. Once he returned to the U.S., Rose approached BlackHawk, a provider of military and law enforcement gear, with an idea to create clothes with built-in...

Spec. Jorge Sandoval lay face down in the foot-high grass, staring through his sniper rifle scope at the Iraqi man holding a rusted sickle. The man had crouched down, only his head was visible. Sandoval's spotter, Staff. Sgt. Michael Hensley, relayed the order to kill. On April 27, in dangerous terrain south of Baghdad, Sandoval pulled the trigger to fire a bullet hundreds of yards into the man's skull, killing him instantly. Moments earlier, the man, according to testimony and court documents, had been fleeing an attack on U.S. soldiers and was holding the sickle to masquerade as a farmer....

The Chinese military has begun a two-day drill testing a system that provides commanders real-time battlefield data, signaling the continued modernization of the nation’s massive armed forces. The exercise is part of an ambitious effort to improve military information collection systems, one of the main shortfalls of the otherwise rapidly modernizing People’s Liberation Army, the Xinhua news agency reported Sept. 19.

CAMP ATTERBURY, Ind., Sept. 6, 2007 – When soldiers are wounded in combat, the most immediate medical care available generally is given by other soldiers on the battlefield, most of whom are not combat medics. Army Sgt. Clint Higgins, a Combat Lifesaver instructor with 205th Infantry Brigade, helps students taking the Combat Lifesaver Course practice lifesaving skills Aug. 23 at Camp Atterbury, Ind. During the final exercise, students are required to practice many of their newly learned skills including inserting IVs, applying tourniquets and pressure dressings, treating mental trauma, and moving wounded soldiers to a safe area. U.S. Army...

The way Jerry Hurwitz sees it, it doesn't take an Einstein to understand the significance of the hal lowed ground on which a pivotal Revolutionary War Battle of Princeton was fought 230 years ago. Part of the battle on Jan. 3, 1777, was waged on 22 acres of gently sloping farmland now owned by the Institute for Advanced Study. The institute -- an independent, private research institution that counted physicist Albert Ein stein among its faculty -- is adja cent to the 85-acre Princeton Battlefield State Park. But that section of the battlefield was never incorporated into the state park,...

Soldiers Bring Mobile Communications to Battlefield New vehicle gives commanders more choices, faster. By Spc. Ben Hutto3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team Public Affairs FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER, Iraq, Aug. 21, 2007 — Staff Sgt. Matthew Hancock looked over the schematics the 82nd Airborne had put together for a mobile tactical operations center and knew that he could build something similar for his battalion. "This is the first time a mechanized Army unit has engineered, built and deployed a vehicle like this. We are proud of what we’ve done. We feel like we have raised the bar for the Army."Staff...

Both having served their country from Viet Nam to Iraq, Marine warriors Col. (ret.) Jack Holly and Lt. Col. (ret.) Ollie North briefly enjoyed a few moments together during North’s recent visit to the USACE-GRD LogisticsMovement Control Center. BAGHDAD -- “That’s what we are. That’s what we do. We are the concierge of the battlefield,” affirms Jack Holly, the still erect postured, retired Marine colonel. “When travelers require something while staying in hotel to whom do they go? The concierge of course! Thus, that is what we are to this effort here in Iraq. If something is needed we provide...

Life-saving operations on soldiers in combat zones could become possible thanks to a portable robotic surgeon that allows doctors to perform surgery on the battlefield without endangering themselves.Surgical robots that can be operated remotely are already used in some civilian hospitals. These include a system called "da Vinci" made by US company Intuitive Surgical, and another system called ZEUS, made by US firm Computer Motion. However, these existing systems are large and cumbersome, taking up much of an operating room. Now Blake Hannaford and colleagues at the University of Washington, in Seattle, US, have come up with a system small...

I was not a Civil War history buff; my nine-year-old son John was the motivation for our tour of southern battlefields this summer. This essay is about how that trip to twenty Civil War battlefields in ten southern states changed my view of the Civil War and, in more subtle ways, my life We drove 6,000 miles, from New England down to Maryland and Virginia south to Atlanta, Vicksburg, Shiloh and back to the north again. Throughout the trip, I listened to almost twenty-four hours of Civil War history from Prof. Gary Gallagher of UVA (through the Teaching Company CDs)....

Israeli firm working on blood pack to save lives In about two years? time, Israeli soldiers may carry with them to the battlefield packets with their own powdered blood, as though it were powdered soup. A Nes Tziona-based company is working on a revolutionary product that could change the future battle field, IDF Medical ..officers say. The idea is to take a soldier's blood, freeze it in laboratory conditions, take out the ice crystals leaving only the blood components. It will look like freeze-dried coffee in a little bag, said Lieutenant colonel Amir Blumenfeld, head of the IDF medical corps?...

7/11/2006 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq -- Airmen are adapting to the battle space and an evolving enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the commander of U.S. Central Command Air Forces. Lt. Gen. Gary North told Airmen here during a visit July 5, they are always ready to support ground commanders despite an increased operations tempo. "This war has moved from contingency operations to sustained operations," General North said. "Sustainment, by nature, costs more in people away from home and in dollars to fight the war. Our goal is to be extremely effective and extremely efficient." According to General North,...

The US military is relying ever more on space satellites to help wage combat in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, though analysts say that Washington's space supremacy could be threatened by rivals in the future. The Pentagon is using sophisticated satellites that orbit Earth in a bid to track down its enemies and keep a round-the-clock watch on unfriendly foes. The technological advantage can prove lethal, as witnessed by the recent air raid that killed the long-wanted Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "Space capabilities have revolutionized the way we fight today by providing our forces with battlefield situational...

The US military plans a portable device that uses focused sound waves to treat troops bleeding internally from wounds sustained on the battlefield. Ultrasound can seal ruptured blood vessels deep within the body without the need for risky surgery. The lightweight device has to be designed so that soldiers can operate it with minimal training. Blood loss from wounds to the extremities is regarded as a major, preventable cause of battlefield death. It's a grand challenge but we're keen to have a go at it Lawrence Crum, University of Washington The ability to treat soldiers with internal bleeding on the...

Diver Dennis O'Neil of Plattsburgh, N.Y., poses with a piece of a cannon muzzle which he discovered during a dive Friday, June 30, 2006, in Peru, N.Y. Divers have spent the last seven years combing the bottom of Lake Champlain in search of 'battlefield scatter' from the crucial 1776 Battle of Valcour near Peru. O'Neil has made about 100 dives during the project. PERU, N.Y. - Gen. Benedict Arnold led a "wretched, motley" crew of sailors on Lake Champlain against a far superior British fleet near here on Oct. 11, 1776. The rebels lost. But their dogged fight delayed...

TIKRIT, Iraq (Army News Service, May 17, 2006) – Iraqi Army Soldiers are now bringing their own medics to the battlefield. During Operation Iron Triangle, medics from the 1st Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division, were a prevalent force among detainees. “My duty is to help anyone who is sick or a casualty,” said 1st Sgt. Zaed Sudan, an Iraqi Army medic who helped check and treat detainees. “If there were casualties on any side we would work together to take care of them,” said Sudan. “We are ready at any time for what may happen.” Working with coalition...

SHARPSBURG, Md. — A Ku Klux Klan group plans to hold a rally June 10 on the grounds of the Antietam National Battlefield, site of the bloodiest one-day clash of the Civil War, an organizer and a park official said...

A vision system that helps soldiers plan a route through the chaos of the battlefield will undergo tests on both sides of the Atlantic. The system, called Primordial Soldier, will provide soldiers with a real-time picture of where troops are in relation to each other and a digital rendering of the route they should follow. It is about to undergo trials with US special forces and has been bought by the UK arm of MBDA Missiles. MBDA plans to carry out conceptual research on the system to learn how using such technology affects a soldier's decision-making capability in the field....

WASHINGTON, March 29, 2006 – The Defense Department is working on ways to use technology to save lives on the battlefield, and has created a full scholarship program to increase its talent pool of scientists, engineers and mathematicians, a top official said here recently. During DoD's Women's History Month observance at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial here earlier this month, Sue C. Payton, DoD's deputy undersecretary for advanced systems and concepts, spoke of technologies provided by "the best and brightest female scientists and engineers in DoD and the world." She noted that "dozens of exceptional women scientists...

3/29/2006 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- An armed F-16 Fighting Falcon is “watching” the road below for the convoys rolling through a dangerous land. The concept of using fighter aircraft equipped with targeting pods to monitor the battlespace is known as non-traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or NTISR. Air Force NTISR operations began only four years ago and are the result of increased demand for complete battlespace awareness. With the production and development of traditional ISR capabilities struggling to keep pace, leveraging fighters, bombers, and air mobility aircraft in a similar role is helping ensure information dominance. “Before NTISR, we...

FORT LEE, Va., (Army News Service, March 24, 2006.) – Napoleon Bonaparte once said that “an army fights on its stomach.” On today’s battlefields, Soldier-chefs deploy a mobile food service system that meet the challenge presented by Soldier’s stomachs in a matter of hours. Unlike the singular movements of large armies of Napoleon’s early 19th-century Europe, many of today’s U.S. troops are deployed as modular units in a fast-moving, world-wide environment. This creates a challenge to get hot, quality chow to Soldiers on the move. The Army’s Field Operations Training Branch has answered the call to serve rapidly-deployed troops with...

WASHINGTON - The Russian government had sources inside the American military command as it planned and executed the invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to Iraqi documents released as part of a Pentagon report. The Russians passed information to Saddam Hussein on U.S. troop movements and plans during the opening days of the war, according to the report Friday. The unclassified report does not assess the value of the information or provide details beyond citing two captured Iraqi documents that say the Russians collected information from sources "inside the American Central Command" and that battlefield intelligence was provided to Saddam...

Heritage March on the PA State Capitol Saturday, April 29, 2006 Come to Harrisburg for a short march from City Island. Assemble City Island 9-10 AM; March begins at 10:30; Rally on Capitol Steps at Noon. Public Rally at 12 Noon at the Capitol Steps to deliver petitions and tell the Gaming Control Board, the Governor and Legislature there will be NO casino near hallowed ground!

TIKRIT, Iraq , Feb. 13, 2006 – In battles fought on the frontlines today in Iraq, knowledge and communications are essential to facilitate interaction between U.S. troops on the ground, Iraqi Forces and coalition forces. A new database is now in place to provide dynamic communications for soldiers on the battlefield. “The quandary Army-wide is in instantaneous communications and information collaboration,” said U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Edwin K. Morris, battalion intelligence officer from the 445th Civil Affairs Battalion at Forward Operating Base Speicher. "The engagement tool in the network exchange is designed for anyone interacting with people, facilities and organizations."...

CAMP TAQADDUM, Iraq (Feb. 9, 2006) -- A Navy religious program specialist has a very special duty -- to assist the Navy chaplains any way he can. Whether it is to prepare for religious service or be an enlisted advisor, these small things don’t undermine the RP’s primary focus; to protect the chaplain. Chaplains serve as non-combatants and do not carry a weapon, even in the most dangerous combat environment they are protected by their respective RP. When Petty Officer 1st Class Michael A. Beeler Jr. was wounded by sniper fire alongside his chaplain on a convoy with 8th Engineer...

It is an incontestable fact that no kind of fortress, wheresoever placed, however strongly manned, however expensively constructed, and however numerous its garrison, has ever given permanent security to a State-has seldom indeed given it even temporary protection. Moreover, a fortress once invested is certain to fall, unless a relieving field-army can beat the besiegers away. We read in the history of one generation of the "virgin" fortress of Ingoldstadt or of Metz, but when we open the records of another generation, we find that its pride has bitten the dust. In some cases a very small fort in a...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2006 – The military health system has revolutionized battlefield medical care in the past four years, reducing fatalities and raising the quality of care to all-time high levels, two Defense Department officials said here today. Injured servicemembers are now more quickly transported from the battlefield to medical facilities where they can receive advanced care, and more of them are surviving because of it, David S.C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said at the State of the Military Health System 2006 Annual Conference. "You have produced the lowest loss among wounded that this country has...

This monthly thread is dedicated to Freepers who also enjoy online gaming. Post here to find fellow gamers, arrange online games, or share screen shots, reviews, helps and tips. Separate Ping lists are created and maintained for each game.Official game site links are available for most games listed. We currently have 92 gamers playing over 95 different games. Top Games: Battlefield/Battlefield 2 (19 gamers) World Of Warcraft (16 gamers) Unreal Tournament (9 gamers) City Of Heroes (10 gamers)

If you are a Freeper, and also like online gaming, post here to find fellow gamers, share screen shots, reviews, helps, and tips. Gamer tables are updated and published weekly. We currently have 86 gamers playing over 60 different games. Top Games: Battlefield/Battlefield 2 (19 gamers) World Of Warcraft (15 gamers) Unreal Tournament (9 gamers) City Of Heroes (10 gamers)

AL ASAD, Iraq (Dec.11, 2005) -- The life of Alton R. Gehringer is one of service. At home in Dolton, Mich., the 34-year-old would listen to the radio and hear the news of the war in Iraq while running radar in his police cruiser. Before coming to Iraq, he worked for the Plainwell Department of Public Safety in Michigan. Technically, he still works there in a firefighter, police and Emergency Medical Services job. His employers gave him a leave of absence to enlist in the United States Navy and serve his country. “It just didn’t seem right for me to...

If you are a Freeper, and also like online gaming, post here to find fellow gamers, share screen shots, reviews, helps, and tips. Gamer tables are updated and published weekly. We currently have 84 gamers playing over 60 different games. Top Games: Battlefield/Battlefield 2 (19 gamers) World Of Warcraft (15 gamers) Unreal Tournament (9 gamers) City Of Heroes (10 gamers)

If you are a Freeper, and also like online gaming, post here to find fellow gamers, share screen shots, reviews, helps, and tips. Gamer tables are updated and published weekly. We currently have 76 gamers playing over 60 different games. Top Games: Battlefield/Battlefield 2 (17 gamers) World Of Warcraft (14 gamers) Unreal Tournament (9 gamers) City Of Heroes (9 gamers)

Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif. (Nov. 18, 2005) -- “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. The Marines don't have that problem.” — Ronald Reagan, former President of the United States; 1985 From July 2 through 7, a wave of infantrymen set off on an expedition that consisted of fighting a world enemy, stabilizing and securing a society that yearned for help, and helping to rebuild a nation that was once run by military strongmen led by a dictator. The infantrymen are known as “War Dogs,” 2nd Battalion,...

If you are a Freeper, and also like online gaming, post here to find fellow gamers, share screen shots, reviews, helps, and tips. Gamer tables are updated and published weekly. We currently have 74 gamers playing over 60 different games. Top Games: Battlefield/Battlefield 2 (16 gamers) World Of Warcraft (13 gamers) Unreal Tournament (9 gamers) City Of Heroes (8 gamers)

If you are a Freeper, and also like online gaming, post here to find fellow gamers, share screen shots, reviews, helps, and tips. Gamer tables are updated and published weekly. We currently have 72 gamers playing over 60 different games. Top Games: Battlefield/Battlefield 2 (16 gamers) World Of Warcraft (13 gamers) Unreal Tournament (9 gamers) City Of Heroes (7 gamers)

CAMP SLAYER, Iraq — They’ve been called the forgotten few. But to Sgt. Tonja Jackson, the Headquarters Platoon exists to ensure the soldiers of the 69th Signal Company are not forgotten when it comes to promotions, leave and a number of requirements that keep an Army unit going. As the administrative noncommissioned officer-in-charge, Jackson would appear to be a person out of her element. She is a cable dog, and she admits missing the physical work of running communications lines. When the company headquarters was being set up, lines had to be installed and Jackson said, “I took off my...

If you are a Freeper, and also like online gaming, post here to find fellow gamers, share screen shots, reviews, helps, and tips. Gamer tables are updated and published weekly. We currently have 71 gamers playing over 60 different games. Top Games: Battlefield/Battlefield 2 (16 gamers) World Of Warcraft (12 gamers) Unreal Tournament (9 gamers) City Of Heroes (8 gamers)

If you are a Freeper, and also like online gaming, post here to find fellow gamers, share screen shots, reviews, helps, and tips. Gamer tables are updated and published weekly. We currently have 70 gamers playing over 60 different games. Top Games: Battlefield/Battlefield 2 (15 gamers) World Of Warcraft (12 gamers) City Of Heroes (8 gamers) Unreal Tournament (8 gamers)

If you are a Freeper, and also like online gaming, post here to find fellow gamers, share screen shots, reviews, helps, and tips. Gamer tables are updated and published weekly. We currently have 68 gamers playing over 60 different games. Top Games: Battlefield/Battlefield 2 (15 gamers) World Of Warcraft (12 gamers) City Of Heroes (8 gamers) Unreal Tournament (8 gamers)

If you are a Freeper, and also like online gaming, post here to find fellow gamers, share screen shots, reviews, helps, and tips. Gamer tables are updated and published weekly. We currently have 61 gamers playing over 60 different games. Top Games: Battlefield/Battlefield 2 (14 gamers) World Of Warcraft (11 gamers) City Of Heroes (8 gamers) Unreal Tournament (8 gamers)

If you are a Freeper, and also like online gaming, post here to find fellow gamers, share screen shots, reviews, helps, and tips. Gamer tables are updated and published weekly. We currently have 59 gamers playing over 60 different games. Top Games: Battlefield/Battlefield 2 (14 gamers) World Of Warcraft (10 gamers) City Of Heroes (8 gamers) Unreal Tournament (8 gamers)

If you are a Freeper, and also like online gaming, post here to find fellow gamers, share screen shots, reviews, helps, and tips. Gamer tables are updated and published weekly. We currently have 57 gamers playing over 60 different games. Top Games: Battlefield/Battlefield 2 (12 gamers) World Of Warcraft (9 gamers) City Of Heroes (9 gamers) Unreal Tournament (8 gamers)