Free Republic

Ron White calls his remarkable capabilities "Operation Enduring Memory," a one-man tribute to those who lost their lives in Afghanistan. White, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist who served in Afghanistan in 2007, has memorized the name of every service member, and many U.S. civilians, killed during the Afghanistan war. A memory expert, it took him about 10 months to learn rank, first and last name of almost 2,200 people. Then, on Feb. 28 in Fort Worth, he used a white pen to write the names on a 50 foot long, 7 foot tall black wall, creating a finished product that...

..."Instead of blaming Taliban infiltration or other causes, the draft of a new Army handbook says ignorance of local culture drove many of the insider attacks that killed 63 Americans and other allied forces this year alone." ... The handbook says troops should avoid “making derogatory comments about the Taliban, advocating women’s rights, any criticism of pedophilia, directing any criticism towards Afghans, mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct” or “anything related to Islam.” ... "Maybe, just maybe, if Allen suddenly approves the outrageous field manual, the probe against him will be dropped. Stranger things have happened in the last four years."

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - It was once President Barack Obama's "war of necessity." Now, it's America's forgotten war. The Afghan conflict generates barely a whisper on the U.S. presidential campaign trail. It's not a hot topic at the office water cooler or in the halls of Congress - even though more than 80,000 American troops are still fighting here and dying at a rate of one a day. Americans show more interest in the economy and taxes than the latest suicide bombings in a different, distant land. They're more tuned in to the political ad war playing out on television...