Rosemary's Thoughts: Weekend Open Trackback+Military Stuff

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Weekend Open Trackback+Military Stuff

Posted by Rosemary Welch at 1/12/2008 05:43:00 PM Labels: books, Military, News

Good evening. I will be hosting an open trackback weekend, so feel free to share with others your fabulous works. I have quite a bit to do, so I shall be using this trackback post to add news and other information as the weekend progresses. Check back later, because I am going to adding some really great news from our military.

Now hold it! I said I was busy. This shall happen later or tomorrow. lol. Have a great weekend everyone, and say a prayer and/or hold good thoughts for our courageous men and women who are working to keep us free. We owe them more than we could ever repay. God bless them.

Update: As I had promised, I have three articles for you so far. One is about an amazing task that our Airmen were faced with when they reached Afghanistan, another is about the handing over of control of one of the bases in Iraq, and the best - a book that is written by the guys who actually went there and did that.

The team’s original mission was to mentor their Afghan counterparts and teach them medical skills to treat Afghan military and police members, said Air Force Col. Mike Skidmore, the team’s senior mentor officer and administrator.

All that changed when the team arrived several months ago, he said. The hospital was 500 days behind schedule, and instead of finding equipment and eager ANA medical personnel, the team found an empty, incomplete facility. “We had to move from a mentoring mission to a new mindset of equipping the hospital, opening it and then mentoring,” said Air Force Col. (Dr.) Thomas Seay, the senior medical mentor and chief radiologist. [Continue reading.]

Our guys are AWESOME! You really should continue reading this one. You will be amazed at what our men can accomplish but the government cannot. (lol)

Control of Multinational Division Baghdad changed hands during a ceremony here yesterday [December 19, 2007]. The 1st Cavalry Division will redeploy to Fort Hood, Texas, while 4th Infantry Division takes over operations in the Iraqi capital. Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, presided over the ceremony. He said the battle in Iraq has changed significantly during the last year, and that the success could be directly linked to the 1st Cavalry Division’s efforts in and around Baghdad.

“Significant events are often a result of the right people being in the right place at the right time,” Odierno said. “In the case of Baghdad in 2006 and 2007, the right people were the magnificent men and women of Multinational Division Baghdad and their dedicated Iraqi security force partners.” [Continue reading.]

Ah, the sweet sounds of progress...

Like many Soldiers deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, Soldiers from the Oregon National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry brought their personal cameras to Iraq during their deployment in 2004. They snapped photos of each other firing weapons, shot video of explosives they detonated and logged plenty of footage of their own commentaries intermixed with Soldier humor.

But they never expected that their day-to-day antics would one day represent deployed National Guard Soldiers everywhere, preserved in a feature-length documentary film called "This is War: Memories of Iraq." [Continue reading, really.]