Free Republic

George S. Patton, Jr. experienced his first combat against men loyal to Pancho Villa, leading a detachment of soldiers who killed three of the enemy.It was a burial, but certainly not a funeral. One soldier who looked on muttered, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…If Villa won’t bury you Uncle Sam must.” The three dead men, whose bodies were unceremoniously laid in hastily dug desert graves, had ridden with the revolutionary Pancho Villa, and one of them, Julio Cardenas, was the commander of his personal bodyguard. The men who killed them were U.S. soldiers and their accompanying interpreters, members of...

WASHINGTON, May 6, 2006 – President Bush today honored the memory of a graduate who died in Iraq during his commencement address at Oklahoma State University. The president noted that 27 members of this year's graduating class are also receiving their commissions as Army or Air Force officers today as graduates of the ROTC program. Bush commended the new officers for choosing to embrace public service and for following the example set by a 2002 OSU graduate, Luke James. With a wife and infant son, "Luke had the world at his feet," Bush said. Yet, he chose a life of...

'Big-mouth' bin Laden angered his lieutenants By Francis Harris in Washington (Filed: 06/04/2006) A senior lieutenant to Osama bin Laden has told US interrogators that the al-Qa'eda leader's big mouth was a security liability. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed also complained that the schemes bin Laden approved lacked destructive ambition. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Court papers released in America also depict the world's most notorious terrorist group as riven by internal disputes and hobbled by favouritism. The allegations have emerged from CIA interrogations of Mohammed, the Kuwaiti accused of masterminding the September 11 conspiracy. His comments were released as part of the evidence...

Air Force Layoffs Include Academy Grads (Colorado Springs, CO) - The Air Force plans to lay off more than 17 - hundred lieutenants in the next year, including hundreds of recent Air Force Academy graduates. The cuts will be made in postitions such as security specialists and maintenence experts, but not pilots, satelilite specialists, or navigators. The Air Force hopes to cut four-thousand of it's more than 73 - thousand officers. Air Force spokleswoman Major Jennifer Stephens says the layoffs were triggered by an increase in the number of people staying in the service for full careers. Stephens says the...

Arafat's Top Lieutenants Head to Paris 18 minutes ago Middle East - AP By LARA SUKHTIAN, Associated Press Writer CLAMART, France - Palestinian leaders rushed to Paris on Monday to check on the critically ill Yasser Arafat, but hospital officials said visiting rights were restricted — setting the stage for a dramatic showdown between the delegation and Arafat's wife. Early Monday, Suha Arafat accused the leadership — including top lieutenants Ahmed Qureia and Mahmoud Abbas — of coming to the French capital with the sole intention of usurping her husband's role as head of the Palestinian Authority. "I tell you...

Global manhunt for Bin Laden's lieutenants September 17 2002 at 09:03AM Washington - US counterterrorism officials have identified two key lieutenants of Osama bin Laden - including an alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks - as the most active plotters of several al-Qaeda attacks during the past year. While many top al-Qaeda leaders went into hiding after September 11, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri have taken the lead in arranging new attacks with cells in the field, US officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Mohammed, a Sepember 11 organiser who has risen to be one of...