Free Republic

MIAMI - A Cuban father allowed his young daughter to emigrate legally to the United States with her mother to find a better life. But months later, the mother has become incapable of caring for the girl and the father wants to take the child home. It would seem a simple case, especially since the mother agrees her daughter should return to Cuba. Yet on the eve of the trial, a judge has warned that it could "inflame the community," where the battle over Elian Gonzalez nearly eight years ago divided the city and became an international incident. Testimony is...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2006 – Chicago will remember the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and the nation’s past and present veterans with a Freedom Walk on Sept. 10 at the north lawn of Soldier Field. The event is one of more than 120 similar events planned this weekend in all 50 states to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the attacks. Chicago felt a deep-seated need to hold a Freedom Walk, Eric Schuller, senior policy advisor to Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, said. “Chicago’s kind of the heartland of the United States,” he said....

MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII, KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii (Dec. 2, 2005) -- Like hail during a thunderstorm, the bullets landed all around the Marine as he simultaneously fired two M-16 service rifles, one in each arm. His own weapon and the weapon of his platoon sergeant, who was busy carrying another wounded Marine on his back to safety, continuously erupted as he methodically emptied magazine after magazine into the insurgent position. The four Marines were in an open field in Fallujah, Iraq, with no cover. It was later called a miracle that any of them survived, especially considering that two rocket-propelled...