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FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska, Dec. 15, 2006 – Christmas came early this year for the Skeen family as they celebrated what Joanna Skeen called the best gift she could ever ask for: the safe return of her husband. Staff Sgt. Michael Skeen, his wife, Joanna, and daughter, Lillian, have already started celebrating Christmas now that they’re together again after Skeen’s 16-month deployment to Iraq with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. Photo by William D. Moss  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Staff Sgt. Michael Skeen and his fellow 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team soldiers returned to Alaska this...

FAIRBANKS, Alaska, Dec. 15, 2006 -- Army leaders praised military families here during ceremonies this week for standing solidly behind the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team during its 16-month deployment to Iraq. Ashley McCulloh and her son, Brooke, welcome home their husband and father, Army Capt. Timothy McCulloh, at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, after his 16-month deployment to Iraq with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. Courtesy photo  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Secretary Francis Harvey told families of brigade members during the “Arctic Wolves’” redeployment ceremony here Dec. 12 that the Army recognizes their sacrifices and will...

FAIRBANKS, Alaska, Dec. 13, 2006 – Some 4,000 members of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team gathered here yesterday to celebrate their accomplishments during 16 months in Iraq and mourn their losses as they uncased the unit’s colors during a stirring redeployment ceremony. Servicemembers of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team salute the colors during a redeployment ceremony near Fort Wainwright, Alaska, Dec. 12. Photo by William D. Moss  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The soldiers assembled at the Carlson Community Center, just down the road from Fort Wainwright here, to reflect on their deployment and receive a...

Despite the insistence of the authors of ColoradoPols.com that the site is nonpartisan, during the last election it became increasingly clear the site was nothing more than a vehicle for releasing opposition research on Republican candidates into the mainstream. The reality of the matter is ColoradoPols.com was a stealth project launched with the intention of manipulating media coverage in Colorado to favor Democrats. John J. Miller explained the forces at work behind the scenes in the article “The Color Purple” in the latest issue of National Review: The mini-Soroses of Colorado [Gill, Stryker, & Polis] aren’t merely dabbling in elections...

Michigan Republicans may be playing the ``gay card'' to counter the $5 million impact of Kalamazoo billionaire Jon Stryker's new political-action committee.

Wednesday October 25, 2006 By DAVID EGGERT Associated Press Writer LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Republicans have good reason to be worried about an unprecedented and expensive ad campaign designed to help Democrats win control of the GOP-controlled Legislature for the first time in years. Democratic billionaire Jon Stryker of Kalamazoo has given $4.6 million to the Michigan Coalition for Progress, a new political action committee he founded. The committee is targeting Republican incumbents in key legislative races with negative ads and campaign literature. Stryker's sister Pat, who contributed another $500,000 to the PAC as of Wednesday's campaign finance deadline, helped...

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reserved $630,000 in TV advertising for Angie Paccione’s bid to unseat Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, but has apparently pulled the money. “If this isn’t the final nail in Angie Paccione’s political coffin, it’s pretty close,” Musgrave campaign manager Shaun Kenney said in a press release. “Coming on top of the poll earlier this week showing Marilyn Musgrave leading by 10 percentage points, it is clear that national Democrats have completely given up hope for “Angry Angie”.” Paccione was recently named to the DCCC’s coveted “Red to Blue” program, designed to funnel...

Republicans allege two members of Michigan's Stryker family may have links to a fraud case in South Dakota involving Medicare and the Stryker Corp. Stryker is a medical products company. Jon Stryker has contributed to groups protecting gay rights. Anti-gay rights U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., has called for an investigation into the fraud case to see if it extends further... The fraud case reportedly involves a medical clinic in South Dakota and the Stryker Corp. aggreeing to repay Medicare $345,000. The government says the clinic took money from the Stryker Corp. in exchange for using the company's orthopedic products....

Stryker base here is found illegal Plaintiffs claim the Army must halt related work while preparing a supplemental study » A look at the Stryker situation By Gregg K. Kakesako gkakesako@starbulletin.com A federal appellate court found yesterday that the Army had violated environmental laws by not considering all alternatives in establishing a Stryker Combat Brigade in Hawaii. The 2-1 vote by a three-judge panel assigned to the San Francisco 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was seen as a victory for the nonprofit environmental group Earthjustice. Earthjustice attorney David Henkin said the federal appeals court ruling meant "the Army must...

FORT LEWIS, Wash. (Army News Service, Aug. 29, 2006) – A long wait is over for Stryker Mobile Gun System (MSG) crews of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. The 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry, received its complement of MGS vehicles last month after more than a year of waiting. They are the first vehicles to be fielded in the Army. “I think its going to give the infantry a whole new dimension of what they can do. Armor and infantry have kept each other at arm’s length for years and years," said Sgt. 1st Class David Cooper, an MGS platoon...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 27, 2006 – Iraqi security forces, supported by Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers, expanded their combined security effort into the Adhamiyah neighborhood of northeast Baghdad today in support of “Operation Together Forward.” The combined operations are being led by the soldiers of 1st Brigade, 9th Iraqi Army Division and 2nd Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, officials in Iraq said. They are supported by Iraqi National Police from 1st Brigade, 1st National Police Division and soldiers from 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. The operations are designed to reduce the level of murders, kidnappings, assassinations, terrorism and sectarian violence in northern...

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (Reuters) - The wives of soldiers whose duty in Iraq was extended to add troop strength to Baghdad peppered U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with tough questions, some that he could not answer, at a closed-door meeting in Alaska on Saturday. Rumsfeld, who received a mixed reception from a crowd that offered more applause for the questions asked than the answers provided, praised the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. He would not commit to a date for bringing those soldiers home, but told a 12-year-old girl in the audience, "I'd bet your daddy gets home before Christmas." He...

Nine veterans groups in California are criticizing 1st Lt. Ehren Watada for his decision to disobey deployment orders to Iraq. Watada is trying to "make himself a martyr and a hero," said Robert M. Wada, a charter president of the Japanese American Korean War Veterans. He said Watada's actions disrespect a legacy of military service by Japanese-American soldiers dating back to World War II. "No Japanese-Americans did anything like that and that is why Japanese-Americans are so upset," Wada said. "He is doing something that has never been done by Japanese-Americans." The groups expressed their outrage at Watada in a...

FT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska (Army News Service, Aug. 18, 2006) -- In a press conference Aug. 14 between the Pentagon and Forts Wainwright and Richardson, U.S. Army Alaska announced the decision to return 301 Soldiers from the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team — who recently redeployed to Alaska — back to Iraq to join the 172nd in Baghdad. In June and July, 378 Soldiers from the 172nd SBCT returned from Iraq. Further redeployments were halted following a request by Gen. George Casey Jr., commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. The request was approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “Immediately following...

BAGHDAD -- Soldiers from 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Multi-National Division – Baghdad, detained two suspected terrorists and seized a large weapons cache in a warehouse during a search of Nur and Ghazalyia Friday in support of Operation Together Forward. The weapons and munitions seized included more than 580 mortar rounds, about 39,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition, more than 100 rocket-propelled grenades, more than 270 rockets, two landmines, a shape charge, a crater charge, 11 fragmentation grenades, several machine guns, ammunition drums, 5,000 feet of detonation cord, mortar tubes and bipods, land mines, more than 50 rocket motors and...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2006 – The most important thing military leaders can offer their people is an up-front assessment of what they’re facing, as exemplified by the way the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s leaders informed the troops about their extension in Iraq, DoD’s top enlisted adviser told American Forces Press Service. Army Command Sgt. Maj. William J. Gainey, senior enlisted adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shared his thoughts after returning from Alaska, home of the “Arctic Wolves.” The Defense Department announced July 27 that the brigade, which was in the midst of wrapping up...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2006 – Three hundred one soldiers with an Alaska-based unit extended in Iraq will return to the combat zone to serve with their comrades in arms, Army officials announced yesterday. A total of 378 soldiers with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team had returned to Alaska in June and July at the end of their scheduled 12-month tour in Iraq. But before the rest of the 4,000-soldier unit could redeploy, officials halted their return to bolster Iraqi and coalition forces in Baghdad. Now, 301 of those soldiers who made it back to Alaska will return to their...

I wrote a commentary recently about my husband’s upcoming third deployment. In that article, I referred to him as a hero. When he read it, he zeroed in on that word and said I was wrong, that he wasn’t a hero – just another Soldier doing what he was told to do. I explained to him my reasons for describing him a hero: because he was able to leave his family and step foot on a plane when he knew he may not come back. Because he was one of the people who volunteered to do that. Because he saw...

WASHINGTON, August 6, 2006 – The 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team handed over operations in Mosul, Iraq, and other surrounding areas in the Ninewa province to the 3rd SBCT, 2nd Infantry Division, in a transfer-of-authority ceremony at Forward Operating Base Marez today. The 172nd SBCT soldiers were deployed in August 2005 and since have conducted more than 15,000 missions, including cordon and searches, combat patrols, counter-mortar and rocket missions, raids, escort missions and humanitarian aid throughout Dohuk, Ninewa and Irbil provinces. “The accomplishments of the 172nd SBCT have been truly remarkable,” said Army Maj. Gen. Thomas Turner, commanding general of...

WASHINGTON, August 2, 2006 – The Army is taking significant steps to ensure soldiers and families of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team are taken care of now that the unit’s deployment to Iraq has been extended four months. U.S. Army, Alaska leaders are working with higher headquarters to ensure support programs, including financial compensation and personnel support, are available to the soldiers, Army and Defense Department officials said. “We are responding rapidly to provide all the appropriate support and services to these outstanding patriotic professionals and their families, who continue to inspire us all with their unwavering commitment to...