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CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (Dec. 6, 2005) -- While serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom here, one sailor temporarily put aside her duties as a religious program specialist to perform another job in Fallujah. Petty Officer 2nd Class Sarah Radel, 25, was among many female service members assigned to search Iraqi women and children entering the city. However, Radel, who is operating with II Marine Expeditionary Force, Headquarters Group, II MEF (Forward), is the only RP to fulfill the duty for II MHG to date. According to Radel, the month-long duty was frightening, but an experience she’ll never forget. “I was kind...

Islamic Heaven officials have announced a major policy shift which could significantly impact upon proclaimed jihads across the world. The Virgins for Martyrs program, a central tenet of jihadist philosophy for more than a thousand years, has been cancelled. “Allah has made the decision. We won’t be housing any more suicidal jihadists,” Islamic Heaven spokeswoman, Sukai Sanchez told the media. “So the virgins are no longer needed.” This dramatic shift in policy is not unexpected. Just last year Brainsnap reported that Islamic Heaven officials were finding it difficult to recruit the necessary virgins to satisfy the increasing number of suicide...

NORTH CANTON, Ohio (Army News Service, Nov. 29, 2005) — More than 50 new recruits gathered at the North Canton Armory Nov. 20 for their one-weekend-a-month drill assembly. But instead of reporting to their new units, they reported to their recruiters. The troops are participating in the restructured Recruit Sustainment Program, a new take on an old idea. Cpt. Robert H. Paley administers the program, which helps integrate recruits into their new role as Soldiers and prepare them for Army basic combat training. His enthusiasm for the program is evident in the smile he wears as he passionately talks about...

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. (Nov. 17, 2005) -- With only six weeks until Christmas, many people have started their holiday shopping. However, not everyone can afford to spend hundreds of dollars on presents. For those Marines and sailors – E-5 and below – on Marine Corps Base Quantico who might be a little tight on cash this holiday season, the Adopt-A-Family program is ready to help. The program, which was started in 1989 by the Personal Readiness and Community Services Center here, is designed to support readiness and enhance the morale of the leathernecks and sailors on base during...

The government agency leading the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay has consistently overstated its progress while minimizing threats to the bay and its own failures to address them, according to a federal oversight report released yesterday. ... The criticism comes amid growing angst among policymakers and the public that an agreement reached five years ago for cleaning the bay by 2010 could fail without a big political and financial boost. In the agreement, known as Chesapeake 2000, the region's political and environmental leaders proposed cutting the amount of major pollutants that enter the bay nearly in half over a decade....

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11, 2005 – CBS commemorated Veterans Day by highlighting troops and causes that support them, particularly the Defense Department's "America Supports You" campaign, on "The Early Show" this morning. Servicemembers and many others shivered in the November cold outside the show's New York studios for hours to spotlight the America Supports You program every time the cameras panned the crowd. Dozens of servicemembers, from newly minted sailors in dress uniforms to soldiers in desert camouflage fatigues, were intermingled among volunteers holding signs that proclaimed "America Supports You" with the program's signature logo. "Serving those who proudly serve," read...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2005 – About 300,000 wallet-sized cards and key fobs with critical employment and job-training information will be distributed to military personnel and veterans over the next six months, the U.S. Department of Labor announced today at its annual pre-Veterans Day salute. The department also unveiled the Recovery and Employment Assistance Lifelines -- REALifelines -- Advisor. This new online tool will provide valuable information and resources to help returning wounded and injured veterans successfully transition into civilian employment, Labor Department officials said. "The 'Key To Career Success' cards and REALifelines online advisor are part of our outreach efforts...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2005 – A unique center here is helping troubled veterans turn their lives around by providing a military-style program designed to help them beat addictions, develop career skills, land jobs, find homes, and become productive citizens. The Maryland Center for Veterans Education and Training, MCVET for short, offers an ambitious array of programs aimed at getting veterans back on their feet and into the mainstream sober, drug-free and self-sufficient. Military service provides the common thread behind the program. All "students," as participants are called, are veterans, as well as 75 percent of the staff. The result is...

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Nov. 10, 2005) – The Army announced that it is changing the name of the Disabled Soldier Support System, or DS3 – a program that assists severely wounded Soldiers – to the U.S. Army Wounded Warrior Program. "The name change of this program is indicative of the Warrior spirit that today’s Soldiers so proudly display,” said Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, Army Chief of Staff. “Medical technology has advanced to the point where Soldiers injured today on the battlefield are much more likely to survive than those injured in previous wars," said Schoomaker. "Soldiers enrolled in the...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8, 2005 – Young veterans face unemployment rates three times the national average, so a new Department of Veterans Affairs program is working to promote job opportunities for those leaving military service, the Veterans Affairs secretary said. R. James Nicholson spoke to the American Forces Press Service and the Pentagon Channel in anticipation of National Veterans Awareness Week, which began Nov. 6 and continues through Nov. 12. "Fulfilling the Commitment - Coming Home to Work" is a new VA initiative focused on veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, Nicholson said. The initiative, announced in mid-October,...

FEMA asks Louisiana for $3.7 billion By BRETT TROXLER btroxler@wbrz.com 2theadvocate.com staff From a report by News 2's Tony Jones tjones@wbrz.com The federal government is asking Louisiana to come up with more than $3.7 billion. According to FEMA, the amount is a down payment for what the state owes for its share of hurricane relief. Denise Bottcher, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kathleen Blanco, said the state just can't come up with that kind of money. Bottcher said when members of the governor's staff first heard the request, they "just about fell over." Louisiana is already facing a $1 billion budget...

CAMP FOSTER, OKINAWA, Japan (Oct. 11, 2005) -- Last July, when the doctors diagnosed his wife with gastric cancer, all the other problems in Sgt. Devin Mitchell’s life no longer seemed to matter. His main concern immediately turned to the health of his wife, Hisano. In September, when the cancer got so bad that doctors had to remove Hisano’s stomach, life became even more complicated. She would now need daily shots and extensive check-ups with her doctors on Okinawa to try and keep her well. But just when life seemed to be getting back under control, orders for a permanent...

QUESTION: What's your reaction to the protests in Iran around the British Embassy? This is a reaction to the IAEA vote, I presume, were there to be a U.S. embassy, they would be protesting there. MR. MCCORMACK: Right. Well, I'll leave it to those on the ground to describe the protests there and who might be organizing those protests. The position where Iran finds itself right now, I think, is one that is probably a surprise to them after the IAEA Board of Governors vote. And where they find themselves is more isolated from the international community than when they...

VOLKEL AIR BASE, Netherlands -- Training young pilots to push the F-16 Fighting Falcon to its operational limits is a job Lt. Col. David Stine loves as much as flying. Even better is doing both those things with the Royal Netherlands Air Force, he said. That is just what he has done for three years as an exchange pilot at this busy fighter base. The colonel is a training instructor pilot with the Dutch air force’s 306th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron. He said the job is satisfying and has an important purpose. “From the start, I try to instill in...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9, 2005 – A new Army National Guard program is helping attract young people with native language skills and cultural expertise into the military to support the global war on terror. The new program focuses on recruiting native speakers in 20 languages and dialects, most spoken in the Middle East, into the Army's 09L "translator aid" career field, Army Capt. Bill Greer, national program manager, said during an interview today with the Pentagon Channel and American Forces Press Service. The active Army began seeking out native Middle Eastern recruits two years ago to help support the war on...

Which kind of intelligence failure is better — the kind that badly understates a threat, such as the one in London, or the kind that overstates a threat, such as the insistent warnings before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein was armed with weapons of mass destruction? Even in the best intelligence services, failures are sometimes inevitable. Foresight will never be as sharp as hindsight. Only after the fact — after the Underground blows up, after 9/11, after the stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons are nowhere to be found — is it clear what the picture looks like...

It seems many may be in for the shock of their lives. But you never hear this information from mainstream ‘media’. We only hear that there is ‘no’ connection between Hussein and al-Qaeda. The ‘UN’, and New York Times are not exactly conservative ‘bastions’. But they’ve recently found evidence that may soften the most stubborn liberal idealist. Even some Christians are ‘doubting’ that the existing war on terrorism is a ‘Just War’. Lest we forget, in the beatitudes, Jesus says “Blessed are the peacemakers”. But that same Jesus told His disciples “let him who has no sword sell his mantle...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - State officials revived California's medical marijuana identification card program Monday, saying state employees weren't violating federal law by issuing pot ID cards. "The state attorney general has reviewed this concern and said that California can issue ID cards to medical marijuana users without state employees facing prosecution for assisting in the commission of a federal crime," state Health Director Sandra Shewry said in a statement. Shewry's office shuttered the pilot program 10 days ago, citing concerns over a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Last month, the court ruled that people who smoke marijuana because their doctors recommend...

Why is special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pursuing so zealously the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, since it is all but impossible to prove that the leaker or leakers committed a crime? So why is Fitzgerald acting like Inspector Javert in "Les Miserables"? The answer may lie in a sentence Walter Pincus of The Washington Post wrote on June 12, 2003. President Bush mentioned the British findings in his State of the Union address in January 2003. In his leaks to Pincus, and earlier to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Wilson claimed Bush knew this was false. The key...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Citing uncertainty prompted by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, California health officials suspended a program on Friday that had begun providing patients who smoke marijuana for medicinal reasons with state-issued identification cards. State Health Director Sandra Shewry has asked the state Attorney General's office to review the court ruling to determine whether the ID program would put patients and state employees at risk of federal prosecution. "I am concerned about unintended potential consequences of issuing medical marijuana ID cards that could affect medical marijuana users, their families and staff of the California Department of Health...