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~ Freeper Canteen ~ Canteen Mission StatementShowing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. Today We Want To Know..... Are You A Cook or A Baker? Click here and take the quiz! To share your results, click on the green "HTML" button, then copy and paste the code into a "Reply" box. Have fun! Please remember that The Canteen is here to support and entertain our troops and veterans and their families, and is family friendly.

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. Army's new ban on many types of ethnic hairstyles has African-American women who wear their coifs in dreadlocks, braids and cornrows in a twist. The Army's regulations stipulate such guidance as hair "must be of uniform dimension, small in diameter (approximately ¼ inch), show no more than 1/8 (inch) of the scalp between the braids." Dreadlocks "against the scalp or free-hanging" are banned. "Unkempt" or "matted" braids and cornrows are also considered dreadlocks and "are not authorized," according to the regulations that were updated this month. It's that type of language, words like "unkempt" and...

Harold Rood, a professor of international relations at Claremont McKenna College who died in 2011, was not as well known as he was influential. A soldier in Patton’s army in World War II, he taught his students that war is permanent to the human condition, and that in war it is better to win, for no one ever had to accommodate a loser. America will always have enemies, he told them, and those enemies will forever be planning and expending resources to place themselves in a position to defeat us. It would be nice if it was otherwise, he was...

 A World Without America's Military Caregivers In the classic film It's a Wonderful Life, protagonist George Bailey has to see—literally see with his own eyes—what life would be like without him before realizing his true worth. As an alternate reality unfolds before him, a despondent George slowly learns that the sacrifices he's made for his family and community are undeniably heroic. George Bailey's heroism is quiet. It is everyday. Right now, 5.5 million Americans are serving in similar anonymity. They are America's military caregivers: family and friends who care for America's ill or wounded service members and veterans. Military caregivers provide a range of indispensable...

As with all Americans, my wife, Gena, and I had our hearts broken again last Wednesday as we heard about another killing spree at Fort Hood, Texas, in which four people died and 16 more were injured at the U.S. Army's largest active-duty installation. Chelsea Schilling, WorldNetDaily's commentator editor and journalist extraordinaire, reported shortly after the tragedy: "The shooter, identified as 34-year-old Ivan Lopez, is among the dead. Lopez reportedly died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound," but only after being confronted by a courageous female military police officer in the parking lot. (Interestingly, it was also a female cop who...

Mark the man of integrity, and behold the upright; for there is a future for the man of peace. Psalm 37:37

    ~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Yuma Proving Ground, ArizonaThe U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground is one of the largest military installations in the world. Situated in southwestern La Paz County and western Yuma County in southwestern Arizona, U.S., approximately 30 miles north-east of the city of Yuma. The proving ground is used for testing military equipment and encompasses 1,307.8 square miles in the Sonora Desert. In a typical year, over 500,000 artillery, mortar and missile rounds are fired, 36,000 parachute drops take place, 200,000 grueling road miles are driven on military vehicles, and over 4000 air...

Wow. My daughter is 16, an A student and interested in possibly joining the military. While this fills me with great pride, and my family has a history of male members in the navy and Marine Corp, this kind of blew my mind. Not in a bad way, I guess it's just amazing, wonderful and scary all at the same time coming from MY daughter! I was wondering if anybody would like to share any and everything they know about their daughter or females in general in the military. At this point she is thinking of an eventual career in...

Be not afraid, only believe. Mark 5: 36

Many people chose to dedicate their lives to making the world a better place. Some chose the pen, the artist’s brush, the microscope, or surgical instruments.Peter Van Uhm, chief of defense for the Netherlands, explains why he chose the gun to make the world a better place.

  Our Troops Rock!  Thank you for all you do! For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.   Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!     ~ Hall of Heroes ~   Jonathan Winters Info from Dale Dye.               Mountainlion had some great ideas for stories, and so I went looking and found this gem of a story about comedian Jonathan Winters.  I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!   Ask military veterans about their most...

And, I do have a sensitivity toward people in the military as well as civilians who have developed some sort of "nervous condition." I was medevaced out of Vietnam after 16 months there while serving  in the Marine Corps. At that time, if an enlistee even looked cross-eyed at a superior officer, or showed any sort of deviance - they would be "quickly and efficiently" jailed, hospitalized, or just booted out of the military. IOW soldiers like the most recent Fort Hood killer Ivan Lopez would have stuck out like a sore thumb in yesterday's military, but not in...

Pray For Our American Heroes and Our Nation Stand Firm Ephesians 6:12 New International Version (NIV) 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

WASHINGTON (AP) — New Army regulations meant to help standardize and professionalize soldiers' appearance are now coming under criticism by some black military women, who say changes in the hair requirement are racially biased. The Army earlier this week issued new appearance standards, which included bans on most twists, dreadlocks and large cornrows, all styles used predominantly by African-American women with natural hairstyles. More than 11,000 people have signed a White House petition asking President Barack Obama, the commander in chief, to have the military review the regulations to allow for "neat and maintained natural hairstyles." Some black military women,...

A U.S. Navy warship was headed Saturday to rescue a 1-year-old girl who fell ill on a crippled sailboat that was attempting to circle the world.

      LEADERSHIP AND LISTENING "Listen to what I am saying," Job cried out to his "friends" in the biblical story. "That is all the comfort I ask from you. Give me a chance to speak, and then, when I am through, sneer if you like." Job didn't ask for much. But it was more than these colleagues were prepared to offer. Unfortunately, such encounters are far too frequent -- even among those we would expect to care about what we think or feel. Back in 1989, Admiral Carlisle Trost (then Chief of Naval Operations) asked a group...

When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, "We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him." In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well. He thought, "If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape." Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, 'Go back to your country and your relatives, and...

    ***** Tunes For Our Troops ***** ~ Support The Artists ~   Support the artists you hear throughout the Canteen! Click on the links below! Keep the music going! ArtistDirect l  Internet Radio l  AOL Music l  Sonique (Lycos) l  Real Radio Live365 l  971TheRiver  l  GotRadio  l  Wherehouse  l  Target  l Shoutcast AFRTS l  VH1 l XM Radio l  BET l  audiophile l  Virgin Radio l  Soma (Alternative) Acaza l AudioRealm l VH1 l  Yahoo! Launch Music l  Radio Disney l  Live-Radio Net ITunes l Amazon l Salsa Radio l MTV l CMT l Ticketmaster l...

The bad news: 1. Russian NTV channel reported the detention of 25 Ukrainians on the territory of the Russian Federation. According to NTV, they were planning terrorist attacks in Rostov, Volgograd, Tver, Orlov, Belgorod oblasts [regions] and the Republics of Kalmykia and Tatarstan. Among the detained activists, it was stated there were activists of “Right Sector” [ultra-nationalist group], who “confirmed the receipt of instructions from representatives of the SBU [Security Services of Ukraine].” We can laugh out of habit at this and forget about it – you never know what lies PutinTV will come up with next. But in reality,...