Ed Johnson and James Rupert Ed Johnson And James Rupert – Thu Jul 2, 5:20 am ET

Almost 4,000 U.S. and 650 Afghan forces encountered little initial resistance as they spread through the Helmand River valley using helicopters and armored vehicles, said Captain Bill Pelletier, a Marine spokesman in southern Afghanistan. The offensive is the first of its size under the administration’s shift of emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Where we go, we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold,” Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said in a statement. Nicholson commands a Marine Expeditionary Brigade that is part of the additional 17,000 U.S. troops ordered to Afghanistan by President Barack Obama.

The offensive comes two days after U.S. combat troops withdrew from Iraqi cities under a drawdown that will let the Pentagon focus on the Afghan war.

The U.S.-led force moved before dawn and “encountered only light contact” with guerrillas by mid-morning local time, Pelletier said in a telephone interview from the Marine brigade’s headquarters near Lashkar Gah, the Helmand provincial capital.

The Marines said in their statement that they aim to take control of Nawa and Garmsir, two largely desert Helmand districts that are part of Afghanistan’s largest opium-growing region. International forces in the districts have been limited before now to a few British bases.

Opium Trade

Poppy fields in Helmand province produced two-thirds of Afghanistan’s opium in 2008, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The opium trade is a major financial pillar for the Taliban, which with local warlords gathered as much as $470 million from opium commerce last year, according to the UN office.

After the U.S. toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001, Taliban guerrillas fled to Pakistan. No international forces occupied Helmand and adjacent southern provinces of Afghanistan, and Taliban guerrillas slowly regained control, forcing out the few Afghan government and police officials.

Beginning in 2006, British troops established several bases in Helmand, and were unable to oust the Taliban, which operates in part from sanctuaries in Pakistan, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the area of today’s offensive.

Pakistan’s army is “reorganizing our forces near Helmand to ensure that Taliban fleeing the U.S. operation cannot cross the border into Pakistan,” Major General Athar Abbas, Pakistan’s military spokesman, said by telephone from the capital, Islamabad.

New Commander

U.S. General Stanley McChrystal assumed command of international forces in Afghanistan last month and has ordered new counterinsurgency tactics that he says will better protect civilians from the Taliban.

McChrystal has said troops must focus on gaining the trust of the people to win the conflict and told the Wall Street Journal last month he will push soldiers farther out from their bases among Afghan civilians to try to bring stability.

“The measure of effectiveness will not be the number of enemy killed, it will be the number of Afghans shielded from violence,” the general said in a statement last month.

The Helmand offensive aims to “connect local civilians with their legitimate governmentâ€

Troops will “build bases to provide security for the local people,” Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal said in the statement.

‘Classic Counterinsurgency’

The U.S. has about 54,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, with 36,000 in NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and 18,000 in a separate counterterrorism operation. The number of U.S. soldiers in the country is set to rise to 68,000 this year under Obama’s policy.

The reinforcements should enable the U.S. to follow a “classic counterinsurgency strategy of clear, hold and build,” something troops have failed to do since toppling the Taliban regime, said Anthony Bubalo, director of the West Asia Program at Australia’s Lowy Institute for International Policy.

“If you cannot hold territory and provide security, you can’t undertake the kind of development work you need to do to win hearts and minds and strengthen the authority of the government in Kabul,” he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ed Johnson in Sydney at ejohnson28@bloomberg.net ; James Rupert in New Delhi at jrupert3@bloomberg.net .

By: JASON STRAZIUSO
Associated Press
July 2, 2009

The offensive was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday local time (4:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, 2030 GMT Wednesday) in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and the world's largest opium poppy-producing area. The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested region before the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election.

The Marines have not suffered any serious casualties and have seen only a sporadic resistance, said Lt. Abe Sipe, a spokesman for the unit.

"The enemy has chosen to withdraw rather than engage for the most part," Sipe said. "We had a couple of heat casualties, but not deemed serious in nature at this time."

The operation came as U.S. military announced that one of its soldiers was missing and believed captured by insurgents in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday. The missing soldier was not involved in the Helmand operation.

Officials described the offensive — dubbed Khanjar or "Strike of the Sword" — as the largest and fastest-moving of the war's new phase and the biggest Marine offensive since the one in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. It involves nearly 4,000 newly arrived Marines plus 650 Afghan forces. British forces last week led similar, but smaller, missions to clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar province.

"Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in a statement.

Pakistan's army said it had moved troops from elsewhere on its side of the Afghan border to the stretch opposite Helmand to try to stop any militants from fleeing the offensive. It gave no more details, but U.S. and Pakistani officials have expressed concern that stepped-up operations in southern Afghanistan could push the insurgents across the border.

Transport helicopters carried hundreds of Marines into the village of Nawa, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, in a region where no U.S. or other NATO troops have operated in large numbers.

The troops took many insurgents by surprise, dropping behind Taliban lines, said Capt. Drew Schoenmaker, from Greene, New York.

"We are kind of forging new ground here. We are going to a place nobody has been before," said Schoenmaker, 31, who commands Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.

Daybreak brought the sporadic crackle of gunfire. Medical helicopters circled overhead and landed, indicating possible early casualties among the Marines.

A Marine unit in Nawa traded gunfire with a group of some 20 insurgents, while Afghan troops exchanged small arms fire with militants after they were attacked with rocket propelled grenades fired from several houses. A Cobra helicopter circling overhead for most of the day fired rockets at a tree line nearby. Other troops walked through fields of corn and past mud-wall homes. Only a handful of villagers dared to venture outside.

A roadside bomb early in the mission wounded one Marine, but he was able to continue, spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier said.

Southern Afghanistan is a Taliban stronghold but also a region where Afghan President Hamid Karzai is seeking votes from fellow Pashtun tribesmen.

The Pentagon is deploying 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in time for the elections and expects the total number of U.S. forces there to reach 68,000 by year's end. That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008 but still half as many as are now in Iraq.

The Taliban, who took control of Afghanistan in 1996 and were ousted from power following a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, have made a violent comeback, wreaking havoc in much of the country's south and east, forcing the United States to pour in the new troops.

Pelletier said troops in Thursday's operation were sent in by a mixture of aircraft and ground transport under the cover of darkness.

The operation aims to show "the Afghan people that when we come in, we are going to stay long enough to set up their own institutions," Pelletier said.

Once on the ground, the troops will meet with local leaders, hear their needs and act on them, Pelletier said.

"We do not want people of Helmand province to see us as an enemy. We want to protect them from the enemy," Pelletier said.

Thousands of British forces, fighting under NATO command, have been in Helmand since 2006 with broadly the same strategy, but security has deteriorated. They have met with stronger resistance than initially expected against Taliban fighters bankrolled by the vast opium and heroin trade.

Reversing the insurgency's momentum has been a key component of the new U.S. strategy, and thousands of additional troops allow commanders to push and stay into areas where international and Afghan troops had no permanent presence before.

While Marine troops were the bulk of the force, recently arrived U.S. Army helicopters were also taking part in the operation.

In March, Obama unveiled his strategy for Afghanistan, seeking to defeat al-Qaida terrorists there and in Pakistan with a bigger force and a new commander. Taliban and other extremists, including those allied with al-Qaida, routinely cross the two nations' border in Afghanistan's remote south.

Last year, NATO and Pakistani forces cooperated in a series of complementary operations on the border, but the overall commitment of Islamabad to Washington's aims in Afghanistan has long been questioned. Pakistan has frequently been accused in the past of failing to stop — and sometimes aiding — the movement of insurgents into Afghanistan from its side of the border.

The governor of Helmand province predicted Operation Khanjar would be "very effective."

"The security forces will build bases to provide security for the local people so that they can carry out every activity with this favorable background and take their lives forward in peace," Gov. Gulab Mangal said in a Pentagon news release.

Obama aims to boost the Afghan army from 80,000 to 134,000 troops by 2011 — and greatly increase training by U.S. troops accompanying them — so the Afghan military can take control of the war. The White House also is pushing forces to set clear goals for a war gone awry, provide more resources and make a better case for international support.

There is no timetable for withdrawal, and the White House has not estimated how many billions of dollars its plan will cost.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, insurgents captured an American soldier on Tuesday, said Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a U.S. military spokeswoman. The missing soldier was not part of the Helmand operation.

"We are using all of our resources to find him and provide for his safe return," Mathias said.

Mathias did not provide details on the soldier, the location where he was captured or the circumstances.

Afghan Police Gen. Nabi Mullakheil said the soldier went missing in the Mullakheil area of eastern Paktika province, where there is an American base.

Zabiullah Mujaheed, a spokesman for the Taliban, could not confirm that the soldier was with any of their militant forces. A myriad of insurgent groups operate in eastern Afghanistan, and the Taliban is only one of them.

The soldier was noticed missing during a routine check of the unit on Tuesday and was first listed as "duty status whereabouts unknown," a U.S. defense official said on condition of anonymity because details are still sketchy.

Two U.S. defense sources said the soldier "just walked off" post with three Afghan counterparts after he finished working. They said they had no explanation for why he left the base. He was assigned to a combat outpost, one of a number of smaller bases set up by foreign forces in Afghanistan, the officials said.

The most important insurgent group operating in that area is known as Haqqani network and is led by Siraj Haqqani, whom the U.S. has accused of masterminding beheadings and suicide bombings.

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer Jason Straziuso, Associated Press Writer – July 2, 2009

Elsewhere, the U.S. military announced that insurgents were believed to have captured an American soldier missing in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday.
The missing soldier was not involved in Operation Khanjar, or "Strike of the Sword," under way in southern Afghanistan.

The southern offensive was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday (4:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, 2030 GMT), as thousands of Marines poured from helicopters and armored vehicles into Taliban-controlled villages along roughly 20 miles of the Helmand River in Helmand province, the world's largest opium poppy-producing area.
The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested region before the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election.

The Marines have not suffered any serious casualties and have seen only a sporadic resistance, said Lt. Abe Sipe, a spokesman for the unit.

"The enemy has chosen to withdraw rather than engage for the most part," Sipe said.
"We had a couple of heat casualties, but not deemed serious in nature at this time."

Officials described the offensive as the largest and fastest-moving of the war's new phase and the biggest Marine assault since the one in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004.
It involves nearly 4,000 newly arrived Marines plus 650 Afghan forces.
British forces last week led similar, but smaller, missions to clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar province.

"Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in a statement.

Pakistan's army said it had moved troops from elsewhere on its side of the Afghan border to the stretch opposite Helmand to try to stop any militants from fleeing the offensive.
It gave no more details, but U.S. and Pakistani officials have expressed concern that stepped-up operations in southern Afghanistan could push the insurgents across the border.

Transport helicopters carried hundreds of Marines into the village of Nawa, some 20 miles south of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, in a region where no U.S. or other NATO troops have operated in large numbers.

The troops took many insurgents by surprise, dropping behind Taliban lines, said Capt. Drew Schoenmaker, from Greene, N.Y.

"We are kind of forging new ground here.
We are going to a place nobody has been before," said Schoenmaker, 31, who commands Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.

Several hundred Marines took positions in a freshly plowed dirt field at 3 a.m.
The soft, deep dirt proved challenging for troops weighed down with days' worth of water, food and gear, and many frequently stumbled.

At daybreak the Marines walked along tree lines, and at 6:15 a.m. the company took its first incoming fire, likely from an AK-47 along a tree-line.
The next three hours brought repeated bursts of gunfire and volleys of rocket-propelled grenades, sending deep booms across the countryside.

A small force of Afghan soldiers accompanying the Camp Pendleton-based Marines got into several scraps with an insurgent force of about 20 fighters.
The fire came from a mud-brick compound, and the Marines, the Afghan soldiers and their British advisers surrounded the compound on the east and the south.

Before the mission, Schoenmaker, the company commander, said he would practice "tactical patience" as a way to avoid civilian casualties — an issue newly arrived Gen. Stanley McChrystal has underscored in recent weeks.
Though troops in many similar circumstances have called in airstrikes on such a militant-controlled compound, Schoenmaker did not.

"We made the decision to isolate the compound and not destroy it because we couldn't confirm if civilians were inside," he said.
The militants were believed to have escaped out the back.

A Cobra helicopter circling overhead for most of the day fired rockets at a tree line nearby. Other troops walked through fields of corn and past mud-wall homes.
Only a handful of villagers dared to venture outside.

Helmand's deadly heat, well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, proved to be another enemy the Marines had to fight.
Because soldiers were on foot, they had to carry all their own water and food.
Forward observers and snipers spent the entire day under the cloudless sky.

"It's like when you open up the oven when you're cooking a pizza and you want to see if it's done.
You get that blast of hot air. That's how it feels the whole time," said Lance Corp. Charlie Duggan Jr., 21, of Baldwinsville, N.Y.

The Marines trained for months in the heat of the Mojave desert for the deployment, and many appeared happy to be here.

At one point Thursday, some 50 Marines were relaxing in an abandoned and dilapidated mud brick compound, their dusty-brown uniforms stained with perspiration.
Suddenly someone spotted an Afghan male who appeared to be watching them from a nearby road.

The Marines quickly threw on their flak jackets and Kevlar helmets.

"It sucks but it's what you've been training for your whole life," Lt. Chris Wilson, 25, of Ramsey, N.J., said with a smile as he held a radio with an eight-foot antenna.
Thursday was Wilson's first mission into a combat zone.

Last summer, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit took the town of Garmser — about 15 miles south of Schoenmaker's company — and helped provide security for an area U.S. commanders say is now relatively secure.

The U.S. would like to replicate the success in Garmser to the north and south.
The strategic setting can help the military slow the opium poppy and heroin trade and interdict fighters coming from Pakistan.

Of immediate need is security for the country's Aug. 20 election.

Southern Afghanistan is a Taliban stronghold but also a region where Afghan President Hamid Karzai is seeking votes from fellow Pashtun tribesmen.
Without such a massive Marine assault in this southern section of Helmand, the Afghan government would likely not have been able to set up voting booths to which citizens could safely travel.

The Pentagon is deploying 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in time for the elections and expects the total number of U.S. forces there to reach 68,000 by year's end.
That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008 but still half as many as are now in Iraq.

The Taliban, who took control of Afghanistan in 1996 and were ousted from power following a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, have made a violent comeback, wreaking havoc in much of the country's south and east.

Thousands of British forces, fighting under NATO command, have been in Helmand since 2006 with broadly the same strategy, but security has deteriorated.
They have encountered stronger resistance than had been expected from Taliban fighters bankrolled by the vast opium and heroin trade.

Reversing the insurgency's momentum has been a key component of the new U.S. strategy, and thousands of additional troops allow commanders to push into and stay in areas where international and Afghan troops had no permanent presence.

In March, Obama unveiled his strategy for Afghanistan, seeking to defeat al-Qaida terrorists there and in Pakistan with a bigger force and a new commander.
Taliban and other extremists, including those allied with al-Qaida, routinely cross the two nations' border.

Obama told The Associated Press on Thursday that he will reassess the possible need for additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan after the August elections.

The president said the main U.S. goal is to keep al-Qaida from acquiring a haven from which it can train fighters and launch attacks on the United States or its allies.
He said the U.S. and its allies also must build up the Afghan national army and police and enable Pakistan to secure its borders against terrorist movements.

Last year, NATO and Pakistani forces cooperated in a series of complementary operations on the border, but the overall commitment of Islamabad to Washington's aims in Afghanistan has long been questioned.
Pakistan has frequently been accused in the past of failing to stop — and sometimes aiding — the movement of insurgents into Afghanistan from its side of the border.

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: July 1, 2009

The Marine Expeditionary Brigade leading the operation represents a large number of the 21,000 additional troops that President Obama ordered to Afghanistan earlier this year amid rising violence and the Taliban’s increasing domination in much of the country.
The operation is described as the first major push in southern Afghanistan by the newly bolstered American force.

Helmand is one of the deadliest provinces in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters have practiced sleek, hit-and-run guerrilla warfare against the British forces based there.

British troops in Helmand say they rarely get a clear shot at Taliban attackers, who ambush them with improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.
The explosive devices — some made with fertilizer distributed to Afghan farmers in an effort to wean them from opium production — are the most feared weapon.
The Taliban favor ambushes in the morning and evening and do not often strike during the blazing afternoon heat.

In recent weeks some British troops have been setting up what are known as “blocking positions” on bridges over irrigation canals and at other locations, apparently to help stop the flow of insurgents during the main military operation and to establish greater security before the presidential election scheduled for August.
The British forces, whose main base in Helmand is adjacent to the main Marine base, will continue to support the new operation.

The British have had too few troops to conduct full-scale counterinsurgency operations and have often relied on heavy aerial weapons, including bombs and helicopter gunships, to attack suspected fighters and their hideouts.
The strategy has alienated much of the population because of the potential for civilian deaths.

Now, the Marines say their new mission, called Operation Khanjar, will include more troops and resources than ever before, as well as a commitment by the troops to live and patrol near population centers to ensure that residents are protected.
More than 600 Afghan soldiers and police officers are also involved.

“What makes Operation Khanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert, and the fact that where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces,” the Marine commander in Helmand Province, Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, said in a statement released after the operation began.

The Marines will be pushing into areas where NATO and Afghan troops have not previously established a permanent presence.
As part of the counterinsurgency strategy, the troops will meet with local leaders, help determine their needs and take a variety of actions to make towns and villages more secure, said Capt. Bill Pelletier, a spokesman for the Marines, according to The Associated Press.

“We do not want people of Helmand Province to see us as an enemy; we want to protect them from the enemy,” Captain Pelletier said, The A.P. reported.

The goal of the operation is to put pressure on the Taliban militants “and to show our commitment to the Afghan people that when we come in we are going to stay long enough to set up their own institutions,” he said.

The 21,000 additional American troops that Mr. Obama authorized after taking office in January almost precisely matches the original number of additional troops that President George W. Bush sent to Iraq two years ago.
It will bring the overall American deployment in Afghanistan to more than 60,000 troops.
But Mr. Obama avoided calling it a surge and resisted sending the full reinforcements initially sought by military commanders.

Instead, Mr. Obama chose to re-evaluate troop levels over the next year, officials said.
The Obama administration has said that the additional American commitment has three main strategies for denying havens for the Taliban and Al Qaeda: training Afghan security forces, supporting the weak central Afghan government in Kabul and securing the population.

In late March, Mr. Obama warned Congressional leaders that he would need more than the $50 billion in his budget for military operations and development efforts.

Asked by lawmakers about the prospect of reconciliation with moderate members of the Taliban, officials said Mr. Obama replied that he wanted to sift out hard-core radicals from those who were fighting simply to earn money.

By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Online Edition, Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The Defense Department awarded a contract for 2,244 MRAP All-Terrain Vehicles on Tuesday to Oshkosh Corporation.

After the vehicles are built, it will take an extra 30 days to get them ready to ship to Afghanistan, said Brogan, head of Marine Corps Systems Command.

Initially, the M-ATVs will be flown to Afghanistan, which will pose a challenge because with extra troops going there.

"We are flowing additional forces into Afghanistan right now, Army brigade combat teams as well as Marines units, and so the air bridge into Afghanistan is completely full," Brogan said.

Officials hope to transition to sending large quantities of M-ATVs by ship "as soon as we can," he said.

MRAPs have proven to withstand blasts from roadside bombs better than Humvees, but Afghanistan lacks Iraq’s road network, limiting where the vehicles can go.

M-ATVs are meant to be light enough to go off-road while maintaining the V-shaped hull that provides protection against blasts from underneath.

In June, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council approved a total of 5,244 M-ATVs for U.S. troops and testing, including 2,598 for the Army and 1,565 for the Marine Corps, said Defense Department spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin.
The military has yet to award contracts for the remaining 3,000 vehicles.

All of the M-ATVs are expected to be built by the end of March 2010, Brogan said.

M-ATVs are smaller than other MRAPs and they carry fewer servicemembers, allowing them to be lighter than MRAPs that troops use now, said Andy Hove of Oshkosh Corporation.

“But the testing of this was the same testing for survivability that the MRAPs went through,” Hove said.

The vehicles can carry up to five servicemembers and weigh less than 25,000 pounds, he said. They will also have an independent suspension system that will allow them to go off road into areas that conventional MRAPs cannot venture.

Oshkosh plans to increase production of M-ATVs from about three a day now to about 1,000 per month in five months, Hove said; The first vehicles are expected to be delivered to the government this month.

By Ryan J. Foley - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jun 29, 2009 15:25:23 EDT

The university also has improved services for veterans after hiring an assistant dean with a military background last year.

“It really is a group effort to reach out to the military in a way we never have before, at least not in the last 20 to 30 years,” UW-Madison history professor Jeremi Suri said.
“We’ve actually in the last few months, out of circumstance, made enormous headway. ... We’re getting beyond this really silly notion people have that we’re antimilitary.”

The image dates to the 1960s and ’70s, when the university was a hotbed of Vietnam War protests.
In 1970, four student radicals used a car bomb to destroy a building housing the Army Mathematics Research Center, killing a young scientist.

Suri is teaching the online course on the history of U.S. war and 20th-century diplomatic strategy to military officers this summer.
His graduate assistant, retired Capt. Scott Mobley, commanded a Navy ship in the first days of the Iraq war in 2003 and helped develop the course.

Mobley said he received lots of interest in the course and more than two dozen Army, Navy and Air Force officers signed up.

They include Joshua McAuliffe, a first lieutenant in the Army who is an intelligence officer at a military prison in Iraq.
The 25-year-old from Potosi, Wis., uses free time at Camp Bucca to listen to online lectures and do course reading and homework.

“I am taking this course to better understand the historical backdrops that have led to the United States using military intervention,” he wrote in an e-mail.
“I hope through a better understanding. ... I will come out as a better leader, one that is informed and able to speak intelligently on the subject.”

Suri said he hopes to provide a new model for educating military employees if the class offered over the Internet is successful.

“If we can be educating officers out there, I’m idealistic enough to believe we’ll do a lot better job as a country,” he said.
“The idea is to give military officers a firmer historical grounding in the kinds of issues they are confronting every day — the problems of cultural difference, counterinsurgency, problems with nation-building.”

His outreach hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Roger Hertog, a conservative-leaning philanthropist in New York, agreed to donate $200,000 to the university in February to help Suri’s efforts.
“Jeremi is someone who tries to do new things — witness this whole reaching out to the military online,” Hertog said.

Suri also led the search for the university’s new military history professor, which ended in the April hiring of Maj.
John Hall, a historian who had worked in the Future Warfare Division of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command in Virginia.

Hall’s position is supported through a donation from the late historian Stephen Ambrose, a UW-Madison alumnus best known as the author of “Band of Brothers.
” He created an endowment in 1996 to support the job after the school’s longtime military historian retired.
The school received about $500,000 when Ambrose died in 2002.

The university had kept the position open until now, prompting accusations that liberals on the faculty were deliberately blocking the hiring of a military historian.
The university denied that, saying it did not want to fill the position until the endowment was worth more and it had money to pay the professor’s salary.

A search started in 2006 failed to find a suitable candidate.
The second ended with the hiring of Hall, 36, an expert on the history of U.S.-Indian military and diplomatic relations in the Great Lakes region.

“I think a lot of people see me as being perhaps uniquely capable of bridging whatever divide exists between the military and the University of Wisconsin,” Hall said.

James Kurtz, commander of a local Veterans of Foreign Wars post, recalled being angered by anti-war protests in Madison after he returned from the Vietnam War in 1967, an especially turbulent time on campus.
But this year, he served on the committee that interviewed Hall, who he said would provide a valuable viewpoint for the faculty.

“This is a very positive step,” he said.

Military groups also have praised the university for hiring retired Army Lt. Col. John Bechtol last year as an assistant dean of students to serve veterans, who are enrolling in greater numbers.

Bechtol has helped the school’s 650 veterans find benefits, sped up processing of financial aid by months in some cases and resolved disputes with students called to active duty. He said he is working to change the negative perception many veterans have of the school.

“They say, ‘They don’t like veterans in Madison’ and I tell them that’s not the case at all,” he said.

By Alysia Patterson - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Jun 28, 2009 13:48:10 EDT

Tramadol for pain.
Midrin for debilitating headaches.
Minipress to suppress nightmares.
Klonopin to control anger and anxiety.

His next dose of treatment will come from an unlikely source: a purebred Golden Retriever.

A new Veterans Administration program adopts dogs from animal shelters, trains them and matches them with wounded warriors home from Iraq and Afghanistan to help with their recovery.

For Briggs, his dog will be trained to help him find his wallet, cell phone and keys, which he habitually loses because of cognitive memory loss.
The dog also will brace Briggs, who has an ankle injury, so he doesn’t have to use a cane or walker in public.

“I call him my little battle buddy,” the 24-year-old Briggs said as he strapped his old camouflage assault vest onto Harper.
It’s modified to store biscuits and toys instead of ammunition.
“I most definitely think he’ll help me transfer back to civilian life.”

VA hospitals nationwide are integrating service dogs into treatment plans for disabled vets, said Will Baldwin, a vocational rehabilitation counselor for the VA in Denver.
The program was formed after Freedom Service Dogs, a Denver-based nonprofit, recently partnered with the VA.

Training takes up to nine months and costs $23,000.
Service Dogs doesn’t charge its clients but relies on private donations and foundation grants.

“The population is growing exponentially down in Fort Carson with the Wounded Warriors program,” said Freedom Service Dogs’ Diane Vertovec, referring to the Army unit that prepares wounded soldiers for civilian life.
“We feel like a dog can help a vet meet physical challenges but, more importantly, can really, really help them overcome a lot of the mental instability that they’re feeling.”

Service Dogs can train 43 dogs per year — a number that doesn’t come close to meeting demand.
There are about 450 soldiers in the Wounded Warrior Battalion at Fort Carson.

David Watson, a 43-year-old Gulf War veteran who lives in Strasburg, about 40 miles east of Denver, gets out of bed every morning with the help of Summer, a trained yellow lab.
Watson’s knees were injured in the war, and daily tasks are painful.

Baldwin suggested Watson get a service dog so he also could take better care of his wife, Trish, a Navy veteran who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.

“The relationship is just one big circle.
We just keep helping each other out,” said Watson.
“If I can’t roll over or get out of bed, [Summer] will have a little toy that she uses and she’ll pull me up.
It’s a tug-of-war game for her.”

“Get shoe, Summer!” Watson commands.
Summer drops them at his bedside so he can slip them on without bending.

Summer also helps Watson navigate a world that doesn’t always accommodate his disabilities.

“Uneven ground — she will notice that before I do and she will either nudge me over or step in front of me so I don’t trip,” Watson said.

Key, an 8-month-old mixed black Labrador puppy, is being trained to open and close doors, get food from the fridge, alert bark, pick up keys and other items and brace to provide support.

Key’s biggest service might be to “just snug up to a person in bed, which sometimes is very comforting, especially for someone that might have PTSD,” said head trainer Patti Yoensky.
“Just knowing that the dog’s there helps the person feel more confident, feel that they’re not alone.”

At Fort Carson, Briggs hopes that Harper will help him adjust.
“I don’t like large crowds of people,” Briggs said, alluding to a PTSD symptom.
“I get really fidgety and I just hate it.
So anytime a stranger comes into your personal bubble, the dog will always stand between you and the stranger.”

Stephanie Baigent, manager of dog training at Service Dogs, believes that Harper can give Briggs something “unconditional that a lot of us can’t give, because no matter what we hear about Cameron or his experiences, we can’t fully understand.

“Harper doesn’t have to understand. He just loves Cameron because he’s Cameron,” she said.

Story and photos by Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, June 28, 2009

Their roots go back 3,800 years to when the city of Babylon was the heart of a Mesopotamian empire, and the remnants include great slabs of stone that are said to be the remains of King Nebuchadnezzar’s castle. A giant stone lion guards one end of the fortifications, but the most stunning remnants were removed by European archaeologists in the early 20th century.

Now soldiers with the 172nd Infantry Brigade are exploring the ruins as part of a U.S.-Iraqi effort to preserve the ancient city and plan for the return of Western tourists.

Members of the brigade’s 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment escorted a group of U.S. heritage tourism experts to the ruins last week for the first of several visits to develop a preservation and tourism plan for the area.

U.S. and coalition troops have been criticized in the past for damaging and contaminating artifacts. In a 2006 report, the head of the British Museum’s Near East department said that, among other things, military vehicles crushed a 2,600-year-old brick pavement, and sand and archeological fragments were used to fill military sandbags.

Now the rapidly improving security situation in surrounding Babil province has persuaded the U.S. State Department and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage to embark on the preservation project, dubbed the Future of Babylon Project.

The State Department and the World Monuments Fund have committed $700,000 to the project, which will see U.S. and Iraqi experts develop a plan to preserve the site and develop a local tourism industry, said Diane Siebrandt, the U.S. embassy’s cultural heritage officer.

The Babylon project is one of several that the State Department is involved in to conserve ancient sites in partnership with the Iraqi government, she said.

Two people with expertise developing tourism plans for historic sites in third-world nations, Gina Haney and Jeff Allen, have been employed by the State Department to run the U.S. side of the project. They visited the ruins for the first time last weekend.

Haney said the pair will involve the local community in the plan’s development, as they did with a similar project encouraging Western tourists to visit Ghana’s Gold Coast.

“You could throw money at it and do all this work, but unless you can create a sustainable situation, your opportunities for tourism will run out,” Allen said. “The idea is to develop something that is going to be here 30 to 40 years from now and has benefits for the local people. We don’t want something that will only benefit outsiders.”

The Iraqi government will be involved in the planning as well.

“If you have 200,000 people a year coming to this site, you will have people staying at hotels, visiting restaurants, buying souvenirs,” Allen said. “The site is in some ways a revenue generator for the local community.”

Babylon could be comparable to the Egyptian pyramids, which draw millions of tourists each year. But the area lacks the tourist infrastructure that has been built at sites such as the pyramids, he said.

“There is nothing for tourists here, but if you interpret and present it in the right way, you can spark interest,” he said.

Allen, who has experience designing walkways and signs for other heritage sites, said detailed planning won’t happen until authorities have worked out how best to preserve the ruins. The crumbling rocks of the original city are surrounded by more elaborate and modern fortifications, including a maze-like collection of interior walls built on top of genuine ruins during Saddam Hussein’s time.

“Some of the past restoration work hasn’t been very good,” he said. “Saddam was trying to inherit the power of the ancients and continue that legacy. His restoration methods helped reinforce that vision of himself, and he created a pattern of restoration and repair work that benefited a certain agenda.”

One of the 172nd soldiers who visited the ruins, 1st Lt. Bryan Kelso, 24, of Jacksonville, Fla., walked in wonder near the ancient stones.

“It’s amazing to be surrounded by this history. To think that we are standing where Alexander the Great has been,” he said, referring to the great Macedonian conqueror who died in Babylon. “Babylon is one of the oldest and first civilizations known to man. They created the wheel and the first calendars. Everybody coming here gets a sense of what this place really is and how it all traces back.”

Members of the Corps’ Executive Safety Board are considering whether protective jackets should join the list of personal protective equipment required for Marine motorcycle riders.

By Trista Talton - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Jun 27, 2009 9:15:21 EDT

“Right now, the requirement is for long sleeves,” said Maj. Tracey Jenkins, Safety Division ground branch head, but that provides little to no protection for that unfortunate Marine who skids across the blacktop in a wreck.

If they do become mandatory, jackets could be among the PPE that Marine Corps Community Services retail stores sell at discount to riders who take the required motorcycle courses, officials said in Marine Administrative message 364/09, which also officially ends the requirement that Marines wear reflective vests while riding.
The board, which has until Tuesday to make a recommendation about the jackets, plans to offer vouchers to Marines and sailors who complete the Basic Rider Course, Experienced Rider Course and Military Sportbike Course.

“It’s an incentive for Marines who have perhaps not registered their bikes on base,” which is required, Jenkins said.
“We just want to see them get the training they need.”

Officials at the Personal and Family Readiness Division, which will oversee the voucher program, have not determined how big — or how small — the discount will be, a spokesman said.
No other details about the voucher plan were immediately available.

Marines are required to wear gloves, helmets, eye protection and over-the-ankle footwear while riding motorcycles, and the equipment can be costly, depending on the brand.
Helmets and jackets, for example, can range from $50 to $450 or more.

If board members decide to include riding jackets in the PPE policy, Jenkins, a rider himself, said they’ll likely identify various types that can be worn.

“I have worn leather in summer traffic, and it’s miserable,” he said.
“The mesh jacket’s a little bit better, but it’s hot when you’re sitting stopped in traffic.
I think everything’s going to be taken into consideration.
We’re concerned about the safety of Marines.”

A record 25 Marines were killed in motorcycle crashes in fiscal 2008.
Eleven have died in motorcycle wrecks since October, according to the Naval Safety Center.

As the fatality rate has risen, the Corps has pushed tougher rules on riders.
About a year ago, officials began requiring Marines to inform their commands if they plan to buy a motorcycle.
Marines also must register their bikes with their base.

Aside from mandatory training courses, the Corps has offered “track days,” where Marines can ride on high-speed tracks aboard a base.

“What leadership found is it becomes very much a training event,” Jenkins said.
“You’re able to identify Marines that may need a little extra attention.”

The safety board also is looking for ways to refine what to offer at these events and plan to standardize the training requirements for riding coaches who run track days.