american flag 1 jpg, karenswhimsy
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LEST WE FORGET …
DANIEL JAMES STARK, age 46.
Born: August 5, 1963 in Cadillac, Michigan.
Died: October 27, 2009 in Utah.
Military Service:
Daniel served in the U.S. Army Reserves from 1980 to 1987. He did his basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
Survived by:
Father, James E. Stark; stepmother, Patsy; brothers Terry and Jeff; sisters Kathy, Kim, and Becky.
ROBERT L. PETERSON, age 74.
Born: December 12, 1934 in Cadillac, Michigan.
Died: November 8, 2009 at Mercy Hospital, Cadillac, Michigan.
Military Service:
Robert served in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1959.
Survived by:
Daughter, Janice; grandson, Zachary; brother, Maurice; sisters, Phyllis, Kathleen, Dolores; and nieces and nephews.
JUNIOR SMALL, age 85.
Born: 1924 in Cadillac, Michigan.
Died: November 6, 2009 in Pompano Beach, Florida.
Military Service:
Junior served in the U.S. Navy during WWII, aboard the USS Missouri, where he witnessed the signing of the Peace Treaty that ended the war.
Survived by:
Wife, Reva; sons Richard and John; brothers Don and Bob; sister Doris; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
KENNETH D. BOVEN, age 55.
Born: September 8, 1954 in Cadillac, Michigan.
Resided in McBain, Michigan.
Died: November 11, 2009 at Munson Medical Center, Traverse
City, Michigan.
Military Service:
Kenneth served in the U.S. Air Force from 1977 to 1981.
Survived by:
Wife, Karen; daughters Katrina and Kourtney; grandchildren Tim, Trent, Tanner, Willow; as well as his mother, brothers and sisters.
ROLAND EDWARD SCHULTZ, age 76.
Born: November 6, 1933 in Detroit, Michigan.
Died: November 11, 2009 in Lake City, Michigan.
Military Service:
Roland served in the U.S. Air Force until his honorable discharge in 1954.
Survived by:
Wife Bonnie; sons Edward, Steve, David; daughter Karen; and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
NICHOLAS DUNSKY, age 71.
Born: May 2, 1938 in Highland Park, Michigan.
Died: November 11, 2009 at home in Falmouth, Michigan.
Military Service:
Nickolas served in the U.S. Army until he received his honorable discharge in 1963.
Survived by:
Sons Nicholis and Russell; six grandchildren; 7 great-grandchildren; and one niece.
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November 9, 2009
Sources: Obama near decision
on Afghanistan troops
AP – A U.S. army soldier pass by a burning fuel truck on a road outside Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, east … By ANNE GEARAN and STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to add tens of thousands more forces to Afghanistan, though likely not quite the 40,000 sought by his top general there, as Pentagon planners work to ready bases and provide equipment the troops would need in a country with scant resources.
The White House emphasized Monday that the president hasn’t made a decision yet about troop levels or other aspects of the revised U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.
Administration officials told The Associated Press on Monday the deployment would most likely begin in January with a mission to stiffen the defense of 10 key cities and towns. An Army brigade that had been training for deployment to Iraq that month may be the vanguard. The brigade, based at Fort Drum in upstate New York, has been told it will not go to Iraq as planned but has been given no new mission yet.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president would meet again on Wednesday with key members of his foreign policy and military team but was unlikely to announce final plans for Afghanistan until late this month, when he returns from an extended diplomatic trip to Asia.
Gibbs said the Pentagon is “working on additional recommendations” to present to Obama and that Obama has made no decision on troop numbers, or even on what the ratio should be between combat troops and trainers.
Military officials said Obama will have choices that include a phased addition of up to 40,000 forces over some six months or more next year, based on security conditions and the decisions of NATO allies.
Several officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision has not been made also said Obama’s announcement will be much broader than the mathematics of troop numbers, which have dominated the U.S. debate.
Officials said a substantial increase in troops is all but inevitable, but the precise number is less important than the message that an expansion and refocus of U.S. commitment in Afghanistan would send.
It soon will be three months since Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal reported to Obama that the U.S. mission was headed for failure without the addition of about 40,000 troops.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because final plans have not been disclosed, dubbed the likely troop increase as “McChrystal Light” because it would fall short of his request. They also said addition small infusions of troops could be dispatched next spring and summer.
The more gradual buildup, the officials said, would allow time to construct needed housing and add equipment needed for transporting the expanded force.
Besides being sent to cities and towns, the new forces would be stationed to protect important roads and other key infrastructure.
Part of the debate leading to Obama’s decision has been whether to move toward a more robust counterinsurgency strategy by attempting to retake territory from the Taliban insurgency and holding that turf while Americans work to rebuild and improve services for the population.
By using the new troops to protect cities and towns, the administration appears to be moving toward a middle ground that would deny Taliban advances on urban districts with the intention of shoring up support for the government of President Hamid Karzai.
That in turn would allow the fight against the Taliban then to expand to remoter regions.
“Reports that President Obama has made a decision about Afghanistan are absolutely false,” said the president’s national security adviser, James Jones. “He has not received final options for his consideration, he has not reviewed those options with his national security team, and he has not made any decisions about resources. Any reports to the contrary are completely untrue and come from uninformed sources.”
As he makes his decision, Obama told ABC News that he’s been “asking not only Gen. McChrystal but all of our commanders who are familiar with the situation, as well as our civilian folks on the ground, a lot of questions that, until they’re answered, may — may create a situation in which we resource something based on faulty premises.”
He said he wanted to make sure “that if we are sending additional troops that the prospects of a functioning Afghan government are enhanced, that the prospects of al-Qaida being able to attack the U.S. homeland are reduced.”
With winter coming to Afghanistan’s towering mountains, fighting could taper off as movement becomes difficult along the border with Pakistan. The Taliban has used the winter lull to resupply and regroup in years past, and the U.S. and a NATO-led alliance of countries fighting in Afghanistan are planning how to best place reinforcements for heavy fighting in the spring.
Obama has said the United States wants to leave behind an Afghan government that can control the Taliban insurgency on its own and prevent the militants from again hosting al-Qaida. Osama bin Laden and his top aides are believed to have fled into the rugged Pakistan border area where they have been hiding since the U.S. drove the Taliban from power in late 2001.
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AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.
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Traverse City RECORD EAGLE
Soldier gives Veterans Day gift
to students
BY LINDSAY VANHULLE
lvanhulle@record-eagle.com
ELK RAPIDS (Michigan) – Brandon Stites is a soldier.
His ancestors also were soldiers, represented in every American conflict for centuries.
It’d be easy to say Stites enlisted because his relatives did, as if the roots of military service were planted in his genes through each generation. It’s partly true.
But the Gulf War ended during his senior year at Elk Rapids High School, and the principal released students one day to greet a returning Army Reserve unit at a park near the Elk River.
He became a soldier because of them, too.
“We all grabbed every flag in the school and headed down there,” Stites, 36, said by e-mail from Iraq, where he is serving his second tour of duty as a pilot and chief warrant officer with the Army. “That’s the way it should be. I will never forget that.”
He hasn’t forgotten Elk Rapids, even though he hasn’t lived in the region for years: Stites gave an American flag that flew over Iraq to his high school, where it will be on permanent display.
It was dedicated Wednesday during a school Veterans Day assembly.
He chose the flag because it “was a physical reminder of all veterans and that it had actually flown in a combat zone half way (sic) around the world,” Stites wrote. “I think we all should recognize Veterans (sic) no matter what. We are where we are today because normal people stepped up.”
Students today think of Afghanistan and Iraq when they think of war, and several can list family or friends fighting overseas.
But as Principal Mike Travis showed them Wednesday, Veterans Day has existed as they know it since the 1950s, after beginning as Armistice Day following World War I.
Lt. Col. Sam Pfeiffer, a retired Marine Corps pilot who last saw combat during the Gulf War, told students about the sacrifices soldiers make to win freedom for others.
In the trenches, “You are continually thinking about the loved ones you left at home,” Pfeiffer said, adding that it’s evident Stites never lost sight of his hometown. “He is one of you.”
Stites’ great-great-grandfather made Williamsburg home after the Civil War and co-owned a sawmill in the 1800s. His grandmother on his mother’s side was from Yuba.
In high school, Stites worked at the Edward C. Grace Memorial Harbor in Elk Rapids, named for his grandfather, a World War I veteran wounded in France nearly two weeks before the 1918 armistice.
His father, Don Stites, retired in 2004 after a 36-year Army career. At 13, the younger Stites visited an air show with his father and decided to be a pilot.
“I knew of all the opportunities the Army offered,” he wrote, adding that he turned down acceptance to Western Michigan University in favor of the military.
He is scheduled to receive a promotion while in Iraq.
“It is not for everyone,” Stites wrote of a military career. “When I was 25 years old, I was given a 20 million dollar (sic) helicopter and from three to thirty-three (sic) other Soldiers (sic) to be responsible for.
“I am proud to be a part of it.”
Displaying Stites’ flag in the school will have “so much meaning,” said Bridget Granger, 14, an Elk Rapids freshman.
Two of her cousins are serving with the Navy and the Army, respectively, and between them have seen combat in both Afghanistan and Iraq. An aunt also served in the military.
Veterans Day, understandably, has a special meaning for her family.
“I think about them all the time, but it makes me think more about what they’ve done,” Bridget said. “It was really great to honor people who fought so hard and gave so much to this country.”
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November 14, 2009
Mourners grieve for soldiers
killed at Fort Hood
AP – Residents line Michigan Street in downtown Plymouth, Ind., Saturday Nov. 14, 2009, as the funeral procession …
By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press Writer
Across the country, many stood before several flag-draped coffins during funeral services for several of the 13 victims of the Nov. 5 shootings in Fort Hood, Texas.
In Plymouth, Ind. Sheila Ellabarger had placed two foot-high American flags in the grass where she watched the procession for Army Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow. She said her children went to school with DeCrow and his wife — his high school sweetheart — and she knew other members of his family.
“He was killed by a terrorist in my mind but he was still killed in the line of duty. We owe him a debt of gratitude, him and his family and the other soldiers. We owe them our lives, our freedom,” Ellabarger said.
During services in Norman, Okla., snapshots from U.S. Army Spc. Jason Dean Hunt’s recent wedding were projected near his casket. The 22-year-old was described as a loving husband and family man as well as a soldier who left a legacy of selflessness and service.
“We may never find out the reason for what occurred on that fateful day at Fort Hood, Texas,” said Ross Ridge, the deputy commanding general at Fort Sill, Okla. “The military community are all grieving here today over the loss of this dedicated soldier.”
The high school gymnasium in Kiel, Wis. was filled Saturday for Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger’s funeral. A visitation had been held there Friday where the 29-year-old was remembered as a determined, energetic young woman.
She joined the U.S. Army Reserves after the 2001 terrorist attacks and vowed to hunt down bin Laden. When her mother said she couldn’t do it alone, the soldier defiantly told her, “Watch me.”
Krueger was to deploy to Afghanistan for a second time in December and had recently been sent for training at Fort Hood, where authorities allege Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at a processing center.
Krueger had been studying psychology at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and was a mental health specialist who wanted to help soldiers cope with combat stress.
“Her smile would light up any room, her energy would envelope all of those around her,” her parents, Jeri Krueger and David Diem, said in a statement. “It is that smile and that energy that keeps us going throughout this difficult time.”
She was what they call “Army Proud.” Krueger always wore a U.S. Army hat or shirt around town and sported a tattoo that had a tattered American flag and read: “All gave some. Some gave all. Sacrifice.”
In Utah, among those crowded into a Mormon chapel were Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah and U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Lt. Col. Lisa Olsen, Utah National Guard spokesman.
They joined the family and friends of Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka for the funeral honoring the 19-year-old.
Nemelka, of West Jordan, Utah, joined the Army a little more than a year ago and was preparing to deploy to Iraq. He was trained to defuse bombs and relatives say he was planning to ask his girlfriend to marry him in December during a visit home.
Other funerals on Saturday were for Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, a psychiatric nurse who worked for San Diego County, Calif. and Pfc. Michael Pearson, 22, of Bolingbrook, Ill.
Pearson was remembered as a quiet observer and naturally talented musician who liked to share his love of the guitar.
During his service, a lone electric guitarist played a mournful rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
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Associated Press writers Rochelle Hines in Norman, Okla., Rick Callahan in Plymouth, Ind.; Dinesh Ramde in Milwaukee and Jennifer Dobner in West Jordan, Utah contributed to this report.
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November 22, 2009 at 5:02 am
[...] The Taliban has used the winter lull to resupply and regroup in years past, and the U.S. and a NATO -led alliance of countries fighting in Afghanistan are planning how to best place reinforcements for heavy fighting in the spring. … He chose the flag because it “was a physical reminder of all veterans and that it had actually flown in a combat zone half way (sic) around the world,” Stites wrote. “I think we all should recognize Veterans (sic) no matter what. …Continued [...]