Free Republic

A Kansas City federal judge today barred the city of Gladstone from enforcing an ordinance that prohibits protests at soldiers’ funerals. Shirley L. Phelps-Roper of Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church asked for the order pending a decision on whether the city’s ordinance is constitutional. The same judge also is considering whether a similar Missouri law is constitutional.

Soldiers with PTSD present the Army with two problems, both involving scary numbers. First, soldiers suffering serious combat stress should not be returned to combat, and if they cannot fight they represent a significant manpower loss for an already stretched military. A recent Rand Corp. study estimates that nearly 20 percent of those Army troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan might suffer from PTSD or major depression. If they were all barred from the battlefield, the Army could lose as many as one out of every five combat troops while trying to fight two wars. Second, if soldiers...

After receiving the tape, Graham forwarded it up the Army chain of command, where it ultimately wound up in the hands of Gen. Richard Cody, then the Army's vice chief of staff. At about this same time, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., a longtime champion of veterans' issues, also became aware of the tape. Bond's staff attempted to prod the Senate Armed Services Committee into an independent investigation of the implications of the tape, but were ignored. Salon has learned that Gerald Leeling, a majority counsel to the Senate Armed Services Committee, was informed of the tape and its contents. Leeling...

"OK," McNinch told Sgt. X. "I will tell you something confidentially that I would have to deny if it were ever public. Not only myself, but all the clinicians up here are being pressured to not diagnose PTSD and diagnose anxiety disorder NOS [instead]." McNinch told him that Army medical boards were "kick[ing] back" his diagnoses of PTSD, saying soldiers had not seen enough trauma to have "serious PTSD issues." "Unfortunately," McNinch told Sgt. X, "yours has not been the only case ... I and other [doctors] are under a lot of pressure to not diagnose PTSD. It's not fair....

U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, had knee replacement surgery Monday at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The decisions have three principal objectives: First, to reaffirm our commitment to take care of the all-volunteer force, which, in my view represents America's greatest strategic asset; Second, we must rebalance this department's programs in order to institutionalize and enhance our capabilities to fight the wars we are in today and the scenarios we are most likely to face in the years ahead, while at the same time providing a hedge against other risks and contingencies. Third, in order to do this, we must reform how and what we buy, meaning a fundamental overhaul of our approach to procurement, acquisition,...

The Giants contended they had a clause in Burress' contract that allowed them to recoup a part of the bonus in the event he was incarcerated or detained by law-enforcement personnel or if he was suspended for conduct detrimental to the team. However, there is no specific language in the collective bargaining agreement for a team going after more than $250,000 in bonus money, which was a basis of the ruling in favor of Burress.

"They fought right alongside their male counterparts in some of the most serious battles during the height of the insurgency in Iraq," Murray said. "When they came home, they faced the daunting challenge of being among the very first female combat veterans." [Shannon]Morgan....needed counseling and went to a Veterans Affairs Department therapist. "He basically said, ‘There is no way you were in combat - you are a female,'"

As so often is the case, people reacted first. Just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the lines at some enlistment centers wrapped around the block. Other offices stayed open 24 hours a day in order to process the new recruits. But not all those who wanted to serve, could. The law prevented blacks from serving in most areas of the military. This policy was based largely on a 1925 study conducted by the U.S. War College. The report claimed African-Americans were unable to perform technical tasks. It also questioned their ability to handle the stress of combat. As...

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte Stallworth will be charged with DUI manslaughter after a Miami car crash that killed a pedestrian, according to people familiar with the case

[Midshipman 4th Class Curtis] Calabrese, from Boca Raton, Fla., was the first in decades to fulfill a tradition of putting his cover, or hat, on top of the chapel's obelisk, earning himself and the 1,200 other plebes - the school's term for freshmen - a week of relaxed restrictions. His accomplishment wasn't about bravado or a daring climb hundreds of feet above the ground as much as it was about engineering, ingenuity and a cooperative weather system.

Everyone in Washington is talking about Pakistan, but few understand it. Here’s how to dazzle the crowd at your next Georgetown cocktail party.

This story came about as a result of a great loss, the death of a U.S. Marine sergeant in Afghanistan. His wife invited our NBC News cameras to his military burial with full military honors to see what loss is like and how it can tear families apart and how sometimes it brings out the very best in people.

"I have learned much from my Muslim friends, foremost this: Political disagreements come and go, but genuine respect for each other, rooted in our respective faith traditions, does not. If there is no respect, there is no relationship, merely a transactional encounter that serves no one in the long term. I want to share the advice given to me from dear Muslim friends worldwide regarding words and concepts that are not useful in building relationships with them. Obviously, we are not going to throw out all of these terms, nor should we. But we do need to be very careful...

"In many ways, this battle can be seen as the last stand of the Protestant evangelicals with whom I was mingling and debating. It's been a rather dismal time for them lately. In the last election they barely had a candidate after Mike Huckabee dropped out and, some would say, not much of one before that. Many Republicans now see them as more of a liability than an asset. As a proportion of the population they are shrinking, and in ethical terms they find themselves more and more in the wilderness of what some of them morosely called, in conversation...

Dr Stephen Wilkinson, a surgeon, said he dealt with the horrific consequences of Tasmania's lethal roads regularly. Dr Wilkinson said one of the main reasons he drove a large, military-style Hummer was to protect himself... "It almost doesn't matter how safely you drive, all you can do is protect yourself with a big car," he said. Dr Wilkinson said that in his line of work the devastation of road accidents was confronting and haunting. "The reason I drive a Hummer is that, about every three or four weeks, I see a family absolutely wiped out because of a road trauma,"...

President Obama’s nominee for secretary of the Navy was involved in a divorce that drew national attention for his secret taping of a conversation between his wife and his family priest that he used against her in court proceedings.

Maj. Gen. Mark Graham is on the frontlines of the Army's struggle to stop its soldiers from killing themselves. Through a series of novel experiments, the 32-year military veteran has turned his sprawling base here into a suicide-prevention laboratory. One reason: Fort Carson has seen nine suicides in the past 15 months. Another: Six years ago, a 21-year-old ROTC cadet at the University of Kentucky killed himself in the apartment he shared with his brother and sister. He was Kevin Graham, Gen. Graham's youngest son.

More than 25 years and $100 billion ago, Ronald Reagan ordered the Pentagon build a system to "intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil." This week, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs said there wasn't much point. Marine General James Cartwright told an audience invested in missile-defense that the bad guys have already abandoned the notion of shooting ballistic missiles toward the United States. "Ballistic missiles are about as passe as e-mail," said Cartwright, who before becoming the nation's No. 2 military officer headed U.S. Strategic Command, which grapples with these issues. "Nobody does...

STUNNED David Beckham gasped in horror yesterday as he shook an injured Royal Marine’s hand — and it came off. England hero Becks went ghostly pale as he clutched the limb while Commando Ben McBean screamed: “My arm! My arm!” But the star’s shock turned to relief as onlookers howled with laughter and he realised he was holding Ben’s prosthetic arm rather than a real one.