Casualty Reports:Marine 1st Lt. David Borden--It has been nearly four months since a suicide bomber detonated an explosive near the 27-year-old Delone Catholic High School graduate in Ramadi, Iraq - a blast that took the life of another Marine and injured three others. Borden was leading a platoon of about 40 Marines through Ramadi when fighting broke out between them and a group of insurgents. When the bomb went off, few parts of Borden's body escaped injury. His right foot was blown off by the blast, and doctors later amputated from the knee down. Both of his forearms were broken, the left one shattered. He suffered a collapsed lung, a ruptured bladder and the loss of hearing in his left ear. About 150 ball bearings struck him all over his body, many of which remain embedded in his skin. He has already undergone 18 operations and still cannot sit up.
Amputee Marine has long recovery at Walter Reed
The Evening Sun (Hanover)
Article Last Updated: 05/13/2008 07:52:09 AM EDT
The pain reads like a book on the face of U.S Marine 1st Lt. David Borden.
Between winces and saying words he later apologizes for using, Borden struggles to move leg muscles that have not supported his weight in months during a recent physical therapy session at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
Sometimes the pain is so bad his attention focuses entirely on fighting through it.
Borden said the area where his right leg was amputated from the knee down felt like it was on fire as he worked through the different stretches and exercises.
It has been nearly four months since a suicide bomber detonated an explosive near the 27-year-old Delone Catholic High School graduate in Ramadi, Iraq - a blast that took the life of another Marine and injured three others.
Borden was leading a platoon of about 40 Marines through Ramadi when fighting broke out between them and a group of insurgents.
When the bomb went off, few parts of Borden's body escaped injury.
His right foot was blown off by the blast, and doctors later amputated from the knee down.
Both of his forearms were broken, the left one shattered. He suffered a collapsed lung, a ruptured bladder and the loss of hearing in his left ear.
About 150 ball bearings struck him all over his body, many of which remain embedded in his skin.
He has already undergone 18 operations and still cannot sit up.
Borden is expected to make a full recovery, but progress is slow while
he lives as a patient at Walter Reid.
Now a 1st lieutenant and a recent recipient of a Purple Heart, Borden said he is nothing special. He feels he does not deserve of the attention his service and injuries have subsequently brought him.
Borden will tell you he is just "fine."
And asked whether the price he has already paid to serve his country was worth it, he said, "I'd do it again."
Source: warnewstoday@blogspot.com
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
CASUALTY REPORT ON MARINE 1ST LT. DAVID BORDEN
CNN REPORTS: SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 22 IN BAGHDAD
Iraqi official: Suicide bomber kills 22 near mourners in Baghdad.
Still another sign the "surge" is a sham and was the creation of the Bush adminsitration and FOX NEWS and never accomplished a single thing. What little progress was made in Anbar Province had to do with Iraqi groups banding together to rid their province of Al Qaeda and the US military had absolutely NOTHING to do with it.
Story Highlights
NEW: Abu Ghraib suicide bomber hits group mourning educator's death
Educator's cousin is a senior police officer in Falluja
A female suicide bomber kills two at a checkpoint near Baghdad
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/14/iraq.main/index.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- At least 22 people were killed and 40 wounded in a suicide bombing Wednesday evening in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, an Interior Ministry official said.
The U.S. military says women are being used more often in Iraqi suicide bombings.
The bomber detonated his explosives at a gathering of mourners in the predominantly Sunni city about 20 miles west of Baghdad.
Police in the nearby city of Falluja said the gathering was for the principal of a technical school in the village of Abu Minasir in Abu Ghraib. The principal was shot dead Monday.
The principal's cousin is a senior police officer in Falluja, and his brother is a leading member of the Sons of Iraq or Awakening, a movement of anti-al Qaeda Sunni groups in the area.
Police and Awakening members have been a target for al Qaeda in Iraq.
In a separate incident, a female suicide bomber attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint south of Baghdad and killed two Iraqi soldiers Wednesday, an Interior Ministry official said.
The official said the bomber detonated an explosive vest, killing an Iraqi commander and a soldier.
The U.S. military also confirmed the incident and said the attacker appeared to be in her late teens. It is the latest in a flurry of attacks carried out by female bombers.
ALSO DON'T MISS:
5 Iraqi soldiers die in Mosul roadside bombing
Iraqi government, al-Sadr group sign cease-fire
The Interior Ministry said four people were wounded.
The U.S. military reported one dead and seven wounded and said an Iraqi army battle position was struck.
"Small arms fire ensued for a brief period," the U.S. military said, adding that the incident occurred about 12 miles south of the capital.
The incident occurred as the U.S. military declared success in Operation Lion's Roar, an offensive in northern Iraq targeting Shiite militants.
CNN REPORTS: TRUCE ENDS IN SADR CITY. 11 KILLED
5 Iraqi soldiers die in Mosul roadside bombing
Story Highlights
NEW: Iraqi soldiers killed in Mosul during offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq
In Sadr City, at least 11 people die and 20 wounded Monday in fighting
Deaths occur after rival political blocs agreed to four-day cease-fire
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/13/iraq.ceasefire/index.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A roadside bomb in northern Iraq killed at least five Iraqi soldiers on Tuesday, an Interior Ministry official said.
Iraqi soldiers launched an offensive in Mosul against Sunni insurgents loyal to al Qaeda in Iraq.
The bombing occurred in the Nineveh provincial capital of Mosul, one of the last urban Sunni militia strongholds, during an Iraqi-led operation against al Qaeda in Iraq.
Since launching the offensive on Saturday, Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops have captured nearly 200 suspects, according to Iraq's Defense Ministry said.
Though most military operations in Iraq have focused on conflicts in Shiite regions, the offensive reflects attempts to root out insurgents in and around Mosul, particularly those loyal to al Qaeda in Iraq.
Elsewhere in the country, Iraqi forces continued to battle Shiite militants despite a temporary cease-fire agreement that was announced at the weekend.
At least 11 people were killed and 20 were wounded in overnight fighting in Sadr City, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said Tuesday.
In three encounters late Sunday and early Monday, U.S. troops came under fire and shot back, killing three people, the U.S. military said.
The fighting occurred shortly after rival political blocs, including radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, agreed to a four-day cease-fire in Baghdad's Sadr City.
NOW TELL THIS TO FOX NEWS BECAUSE THEY KEEP SAYING THE WEAPONS ARE COMING FROM IRAN
Thanks goes to Lori Price of Citizens for a Legitimate Government http://www.legitgov.org/ for the heads up on this story which proves the US is now saying the weapons used against US troops in IRAQ are NOT coming from IRAN.
Somebody better tell FOX NEWS about this, especially Fred Barnes who never misses a chance of saying the weapons used against US troops in IRAQ are coming from IRAN.
US confession: Weapons were not made in Iran after all
(source: CASMII)
Saturday, May 10, 2008
CASMII Press Release
10 May 2008
http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/4886
"US confession: Weapons were not made in Iran after all"
In a sharp reversal of its longstanding accusations against Iran arming militants in Iraq , the US military has made an unprecedented albeit quiet confession: the weapons they had recently found in Iraq were not made in Iran at all.
According to a report by the LA Times correspondent Tina Susman in Baghdad: “A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran. A U.S. military spokesman attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin. When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all.”
The US , which until two weeks ago had never provided any proof for its allegations, finally handed over its “evidence” of the Iranian origin of these weapons to the Iraqi government.
Last week, an Iraqi delegation to Iran presented the US “evidence” to Iranian officials. According to Al-Abadi, a parliament member from the ruling United Iraqi Alliance who was on the delegation, the Iranian officials totally refuted “training, financing and arming” militant groups in Iraq . Consequently the Iraqi government announced that there is no hard evidence against Iran.
In another extraordinary event this week, the US spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, for the first time did not blame Iran for the violence in Iraq and in fact did not make any reference to Iran at all in his introductory remarks to the world media on Wednesday when he described the large arsenal of weapons found by Iraqi forces in Karbala.
Click on link to read full story.
STARS AND STRIPES REPORTS BAN ON SEX FOR SOLDIERS IN AFGHANISTAN IS LIFTED....SORT OF
JALALABAD, Afghanistan — Single soldiers and civilians working for the U.S. military in Afghanistan can now have sex legally. Sort of.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008Ban on sex for soldiers in Afghanistan is lifted ... sort of
By Drew Brown, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Wednesday, May 14, 2008
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54774
A new order signed by Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, commander of Combined Joint Task Force-101, has lifted a ban on sexual relations between unmarried men and women in the combat zone.
General Order No. 1 outlines a number of prohibited activities and standards of conduct for U.S. troops and civilians working for the military in Afghanistan. Previously, under the regulation, sexual relations and "intimate behavior" between men and women not married to each other were a strict no-no. The regulation also barred members of the opposite sex from going into each other’s living quarters unless they were married to each other.
But the latest version of General Order No. 1 for Afghanistan, which Schloesser signed April 19, eases those restrictions.
The new regulation warns that sex in a combat zone "can have an adverse impact on unit cohesion, morale, good order and discipline."
But sexual relations and physical intimacy between men and women not married to each other are no longer banned outright. They’re only "highly discouraged," and that’s as long as they’re "not otherwise prohibited" by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, according to the new order.
Single men and women can now also visit each other’s living quarters, as long as everyone else who lives there agrees, and as long as visitors of the opposite sex remain in the open "and not behind closed doors, partitions or other isolated or segregated areas," according to the new regulation.
Unmarried men and women who are alone together in living quarters must leave the door open, according to the new policy.
Men and women "will not cohabit with, reside or sleep with members of the opposite gender in living spaces of any kind," unless they are married or if it’s necessary for military reasons, the new policy states.
A cursory reading of the order would seem to suggest that unmarried men and women could have sex in their living quarters, as long as all other persons who live there agree, or if they left the door open, if they were otherwise alone. But that’s not the case, said Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, a spokeswoman for Regional Command East and Combined Joint Task Force-101.
"Sex in both scenarios … would be a chargeable offense under the UCMJ," Nielson-Green said, referring to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes.
Nielson-Green said the policy change was "not significant on a practical level" since it simply aligns General Order No. 1 in Afghanistan with similar policies in the region. Neither U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, nor Multi-National Forces-Iraq bar sexual relations between unmarried men and women in their version of the order, she said.
"The expectation is that troops should behave professionally and responsibly at all times," Nielson-Green said, adding that while the new regulation does not condone sex, it "does recognize that such behaviors happen, and if they result in any chargeable offenses, then appropriate actions will be pursued."
"The bottom line is that the troops are responsible for their own behavior," Nielson-Green said. She declined to "speculate" on the conditions under which soldiers could engage in legal sexual behavior.
The UCMJ contains several provisions under which sexual relations are prohibited between men and women. For instance, married persons cannot engage legally in sex with anyone other than their spouse, or they can be prosecuted for adultery. Sexual relations between subordinates and higher-ranking personnel are prohibited within the same chain of command. Sexual relations between officers and enlisted personnel are generally prohibited as well. Homosexual relations are completely prohibited under the code.
Nielson-Green said the new policy does allow commanders to make the provision on sex more restrictive, as long as they have approval from the CJTF-101 commander.
In eastern Afghanistan, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which is nearing the end of its 15-month deployment, won approval to stick with the old policy that bans sexual relations between unmarried soldiers.
Maj. Will Helixon, the brigade judge advocate, said the issue was basically one of fairness.
"After we’ve treated the soldiers this way for a year, it’s not really right to change," said Helixon said. "That’s the bottom line."
According to Helixon’s staff, 28 soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade have been punished for having sex in Afghanistan or for violating the no-entry rule in the past year. Those punishments ranged from letters of reprimand to field-grade Article 15s.
At Forward Operating Base Fenty, near Jalalabad, the reaction of soldiers to the lifting of the sex ban was mixed. Some soldiers declined to comment. Others said they were married, so the change would not affect them. Some thought it simply create more problems. "I think it’s a bad idea," said Pfc. Shane Inman, 30, of Fort Dodge, Iowa. "I think there’s going to be a lot more pregnancies going around. Not that there already isn’t. But at least they won’t get in trouble for it."
