Ramblins of a Mad Man..

NAWA, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. Marines suffered their first casualties of a massive new military campaign Thursday as they engaged in sporadic gunbattles along 55 miles of Taliban-controlled heartland in southern Afghanistan.

One Marine was killed and several others were injured or wounded on the first full day of the assault, the largest military operation in Afghanistan since the fall of Taliban government in 2001.

The offensive will test the Obama administration’s new strategy of holding territory and letting the Afghan government sink roots in Helmand province. The insurgency has proven particularly resilient in this area, where foreign troops have never before operated in such large numbers.

President Obama told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that he has a "very narrow definition of success when it comes to our national security interests" in the region. "And that is that al-Qaeda and its affiliates cannot set up safe havens from which to attack Americans."

"I think we can measure it by whether or not they’ve got training camps where people are coming in and getting trained in explosives, being sent out and directed in carrying out terrorist activity," Obama said in Washington.

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Every Flag Day, June 14, America recognizes birthday of Old Glory with its own holiday.  In 1885, Wisconsin school teacher B.J. Cigrand started a grassroots campaign that began with his students celebrating Flag Day. After nearly 30 years of state and local celebrations, President Woodrow Wilson made Flag Day official in 1916. Flag Day became a national observance by an Act of Congress in 1949 and was signed into law by President Harry Truman. For more information, including educational materials, visit the National Flag Day Foundation website, USFlag.org, the Library of Congress website, and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) website.

SULLIVAN, Ill. (AP) — A drive around the small central Illinois town of Sullivan is a lesson in patriotism. The lamp posts and telephone poles on two streets are adorned with white signs bearing the names of local military members serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The effort started in 2004, and parents have updated the signs to keep pace with deployments. If someone comes home and then is redeployed, their name goes back up. Members of individual families are displayed on the same post.

More than 100 residents of this town of 4,400 have served in the current wars and dozens are still deployed.

The latest added was 21-year-old Marine Reservist A.J. Woodworth, bound for Afghanistan.

Kathy Woodworth says her son was a high school freshman when he watched the Sept. 11 attacks on television. As she hung his sign last week, Woodworth said that day seems so far away, "but to us, it’s an everyday thing."

The town also supports its soldiers and their families with holiday care packages and a telephone tree to keep everyone informed if something happens.

"We all kind of met at the post office, sending our kids stuff. We started talking," said Marsha Thompson, 53, whose son John Booker served a tour in Iraq and now works on Chinook helicopters in Afghanistan.

The National Guard’s Headquarters Co. of the 634th Brigade Support Battalion helps spouses of deployed soldiers complete taxes and other paperwork. But most of the support in town comes from families helping families.

"You’ve been there, done that," said Mike Shasteen, 63, whose son Jake went to Iraq with the Guard. "You know what they’ve been through."

• By F. James Sensenbrenner

  

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Monday begins the unofficial start of summer. Pools across the country are opening, picnic tables are being wiped clean from a winter of gathering grime and grills are being fired up for the season’s first cookout.

The long weekend is often one of celebration and relaxation. And while many of us enjoy having that extra day off – with the excitement of summer finally being here, the school year almost being over and the taste of that first summer bratwurst – it’s easy to forget the true meaning and purpose of Memorial Day: remember, reflect and honor those who have given service to our country and made the ultimate sacrifice.

Although we don’t know all the details of the first official Memorial Day celebration, which historians date back to the 1860s, with the significance of the day often being overshadowed and so many troops currently serving overseas, the need to honor those who served is greater than ever.

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Home built massage chair strikes inexpugnable fear into aching joints by Paul Miller, posted May 17th 2009 at 1:49AM It’s important to remember that when we make inevitable war with the machines, it was really all our fault — take this guy Lin, for example. Sure, he means well, building this massage chair out of scrap for his aging wife, who suffers from joint pain, but future generations scraping together a meager existence as they huddle for protection from homicidal robots and a rage-filled Christian Bale won’t be exactly forgiving of Lin’s plight. "Why couldn’t he just travel backwards in time to stop the joint pain before it started?" they’ll ask. "Didn’t he know he was endangering the entire human race?"

New AF Dress Coat Left Flapping in the Wind

It could just be that the Air Force is entering an era that, in part, will be defined by what will not be a hot-button issue: uniforms.

“First things first,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz responded Sept. 17 when asked by Military.com whether uniforms — new ones or modifications to current dress — will be relegated to the back burner during his tenure.

Schwartz, who had just listened as his major command chiefs offered up a list of things the Air Force needs today-right-now-thank-you-very much — including new tankers, more manpower, new tankers, upgrades and maintenance to mobility and fighter planes and, oh yeah, new tankers — said the Air Force has any number of critical programs it must tackle.

Maybe, at some point down the road, when these other things have been taken care of, he said, uniforms may again be on the agenda.

For now, Schwartz does have to deal with proposed uniform changes that he inherited, including the adoption of a new service dress uniform modeled after one worn by legendary airman Hap Arnold.

The Air Force has a long record of changing or tweaking its uniforms. Acting Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley made a humorous reference to this fact on Monday, the opening day of the Air Force Association’s Air and Space Symposium in Washington, D.C. The Air Force dress uniform only recently underwent a change, with the addition of a belt to the jacket, and Donley noted that the last time he worked for the Air Force, as an assistant secretary and then acting secretary in 1993, the uniform went through major changes under then Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak.

He said he would answer questions today about uniforms the same way he answered them back then: “Ask the chief.”

Schwartz last month decided to defer until sometime next year a decision on a Hap Arnold-esque service coat. The proposed jacket came out of a 2006 uniform board under Schwartz’s predecessor, Gen. T. Michael Moseley.

Some uniform changes have been greeted critically by airmen — including a proposed blue cammie BDU several years ago — who argue that the Air Force has more important issues facing it than whether it should have a belt on a service dress jacket or whether BDUs should come with a permanent crease.

The proposed new dress jacket will cost about $125 million to manufacture if it’s approved, the Air Force estimated.

– Bryant Jordan

September 11 – Patriot Day

September 17 – U.S. Constitution Approved (1787)

September 18 – U.S. Air Force Established (1947) – Hoorah!!

September 19 – POW/MIA Recognition Day

September 29 – VFW Established (1899)

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will now use a locality-based approach in raising ceilings on its no-down payment home loans from the current $417,000 to as much as $729,000. The VA’s Specially Adapted Housing Program has also raised primary grants from $50,000 to $60,000 toward constructing a new home or modifying an existing home to meet adaptive needs of veterans or active-duty servicemembers with certain service-connected disabilities. Veterans with certain service-connected disabilities resulting from severe burns can receive the adaptive housing grants. For more information, call the VA at 1- 877-827-3702 or at the VA Loan Guaranty website.

The Fleet Reserve Association reports that those with military service prior to 2001 may be entitled to an extra monetary benefit when filing for Social Security benefits. This benefit includes all military veterans with active-duty service from 1957 – 2001. Under certain circumstances, special extra earnings for military service for this period can be credited to Social Security. The DD-214 can establish eligibility for up to $1,200 per year of earnings credited at time of application. Taking your DD-214 to the Social Security Administration when applying for benefits will help ensure extra earnings for military service. For more information, visit the Social Security website.

The new Pentagon Memorial will be dedicated in Washington, D.C. at 7 p.m., E.T., on the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. More than 5,000 people are expected to attend on Sept. 11, 2008. The memorial is just outside the area of the Pentagon where the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building. Each victim is represented with his or her name inscribed on one of 184 benches illuminated by lighted reflection pools below. For more information, visit the Pentagon Memorial website.