Memorial Weekend - Honor After The Fall photo essay from Time

This article is from Time magazine... well done... not politicized either which makes it even better. Please continue to surround our Military members and their families with our love, thoughts and prayers. It is they that make the sacrifices .... Before you count your blessings.......please remember to thank our past, present and future military members for making those blessings possible in the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.

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Adventures in living in an old house surrounded by water.

Welcome to our Bay Tower Home in Bay Center, Washington on the Willapa Bay.

Arthur, Lietta and Jake

We're the homesteaders in what some residents consider to be "God's Valium" (cause it's so quiet most of the time.)
After years of renting beach houses on weekends and vacations, we finally bought our own beach house as our permanent residence.
Bay Center is an old fishing village on a finger of land that juts out into the center of Willapa Bay on the Washington Coast. We're 45 miles north of the mouth of the Columbia River and about the same distance due south on Hwy 101 from Aberdeen, Washington.
Cities?
Well, if you drive south east 125 miles you'll be in Portland and to the northeast some 150 miles is Seattle.
Bay Center ain't no city. From our house if you go 4 blocks east or west you'll be in the Willapa Bay. If you head north you'll be in the woods on the tip of Goose Point. If you head due south 4 blocks from our house you'll be at the only dining facility within 15 miles.

Bay Center (the house is inside the small elipse in the center of the foto)

on Goose Point

Entry by Arthur Ruger, I'm half as old as my house.

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Recommending; Pictorial Essay Says 'I've Had Enough'

The photo outlay at this DailyKos diary today provides a narrative beyond words. It really gets to you and serves as a historical reminder of how Administration has pretty much written us all off....

Recommending, and will likely place a permanent recommend on my blogs right hand column.

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Beyond Stop Loss; Army Using Policy to Deny Reserve Officer Resignations

Army Using Policy to Deny Reserve Officer Resignations

The reserve has used the unpublicized policy, first adopted in 2004 and strengthened in a May 2005 memo signed by Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, its commander, to disapprove the resignations of at least 400 reserve officers, according to Army figures.

"I don't think during a time of war you would want to let people go when you have a shortage of people," Army Reserve spokesman Steve Stromvall said when asked to comment on the memo, which surfaced during litigation over the policy. At least 10 reserve officers have sued the Army, saying they should be allowed to get out because they have finished their mandatory eight years of service.

Blocking reserve officers' resignations is one of several steps the Army has undertaken in recent years to keep soldiers beyond their original terms of service, as today's wars place unprecedented demands on the all-volunteer force. Under another practice, known as "stop-loss," thousands of active-duty Army and reserve soldiers have been temporarily prevented from leaving the military, either because their skills were needed or because their units were going overseas. As of January, more than 13,000 soldiers were being kept in the service under stop-loss, a policy criticized by some as a "backdoor draft," which the Army says it seeks to end.

read more at Washington Post article May 11, 2006; Army Using Policy To Deny Reserve Officer Resignations;

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Sending in Sailors and Airmen ground combat in Iraq; overly strained military

USATODAY.com - Sailors, airmen land new role:

"WASHINGTON — The Navy and Air Force are training their sailors and airmen for war duty far from the seas or skies: jobs typically performed by a strained Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Navy and Air Force personnel are replacing Army soldiers to carry out such duties as guarding convoys, patrolling bases and watching for homemade bombs, the top killer of U.S. troops in Iraq.

The Navy also is running a prison in Iraq, patrolling rivers and helping to clear and search buildings.

About 8,000 sailors are on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Rear Adm. David Gove, head of the Navy Personnel Command. By the end of the year, that number is expected to grow to as many as 12,000, he says.

Gove says it makes sense to tap into a broader pool of talent. 'There is a realization of capability in other parts of the services that we need to leverage,' he says.

The Air Force has not said how many airmen are doing Army jobs.

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Carl Ey says the training gives commanders more flexibility and doesn't signal a shortage of soldiers.

Andrew Krepinevich, a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, counters: 'If the Army wasn't having recruiting challenges and exceeding rotation rates, we wouldn't be having this discussion.'

Krepinevich authored a Pentagon-sponsored report earlier this year that found extended deployments were straining the military.

Frederick Kagan, a military historian at the American Enterprise Institute, says training sailors and airmen to do the jobs of seasoned soldiers is 'what you do only when you're desperate.'

The Navy's crash course on combat at the Army's Fort Jackson in South Carolina is staffed by Army instructors and trains about 200 sailors every two weeks. It stresses rifle skills, troop movements, first aid, convoy security and identifying roadside bombs.

Master Chief Doug Boswell, 46, who recently completed the course, says he'll rely on the skills to keep him and his sailors safe during their one-year tour in Iraq. "They're trying to get sailors ready for rigors of shore duty in potentially hostile overseas ports," he says.

The Air Force this year extended its basic training course to eight weeks from six. "I see our future as an expeditionary force in this long war on terrorism," Air Force chief of staff Michael Moseley says.

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Waiting till Nov elections = 350 or more U.S. troops will die in Iraq

If Congress waits until November to act, it is likely that 350 or more U.S. servicemen and women will die along with countless Iraqi children, women and men.


Since March, 2003, on average, over two service men and women have died each day as a result of the war in Iraq; that fatality rate continues in May, 2006. Discussions in Congress about the war in Iraq and exit strategies include many proposals for bringing troops home after the mid-term election in November, 2006. If Congress waits until November to act, it is likely that 350 or more U.S. servicemen and women will die along with countless Iraqi children, women and men.


from May 10 press release Military Families Speak Out

New Addition to Eyes Wide Open Exhibit Highlights Those Currently in Harm's Way Who Will Perish if Iraq War Continues


Contact: Jen Bergman, 206-447-1801, Janis D. Shields, 215-241-7060, 302-545-6596 (cell) - for event info or Katya Kruglak, 703-304-5075, Nancy Lessin, 617-320-5301 - for interviews

News Advisory:

-- New Addition to Eyes Wide Open Exhibit Highlights Those Currently in Harm's Way Who Will Perish if Iraq War Continues

-- Military Families travel to D.C.; tell Congress "No More Deaths in an Unnecessary War!"

Military Families will travel from across the country to Washington, D.C. and help unveil a new section of the American Friends Service Committee's Eyes Wide Open: The Human Cost of War exhibit highlighting lives that will be lost if Congress does not take action to end the war in Iraq. Eyes Wide Open has been a memorial to the fallen, with combat boots and shoes representing U.S. troops and Iraqis who have lost their lives in this war. The new prospective boots display will focus attention on those who are currently in harm's way, who will fall if the war in Iraq continues.

Since March, 2003, on average, over two service men and women have died each day as a result of the war in Iraq; that fatality rate continues in May, 2006. Discussions in Congress about the war in Iraq and exit strategies include many proposals for bringing troops home after the mid-term election in November, 2006. If Congress waits until November to act, it is likely that 350 or more U.S. servicemen and women will die along with countless Iraqi children, women and men.

"This is a poignant and painful addition to the Eyes Wide Open exhibit, but one that all decision-makers should see," stated Larry Syverson of Richmond, Virginia, whose son in the Army is currently serving a second tour of duty in the Persian Gulf. "I hope every member of Congress and Senator visits this exhibit and reflects on the urgency of ending this war. Their failure to act could mean that the next pair of boots that is moved from this section to the section devoted to the boots of the fallen could be my son's."

"The Eyes Wide Open exhibit on the National Mall May 11-14 will pay tribute to those who have fallen," commented Anne Roesler of Saratoga, California, whose son in the 82nd Airborne Division faces a fourth deployment to Iraq, "and the new prospective boots display highlights the need for an immediate end to the war in Iraq so that no more lives are lost in a war that should never have been."

WHAT: Prospective boots display added to EYES WIDE OPEN: THE HUMAN COST OF WAR, the American Friends Service Committees' widely acclaimed memorial exhibit that has traditionally featured a pair of combat boots for every U.S. military casualty, and civilian shoes representing a fraction of Iraqi civilian casualties. The prospective boots display features boots for service men and women currently serving in Iraq, whose lives WILL BE lost if the war continues through November, 2006.

WHEN: Thursday to Sunday, May 11 -14. Families will be gathering onsite at 10:30 AM on Saturday, May 13.

WHERE: National Mall, Washington, D.C. (at the gravel path at 13th Street and Jefferson Drive.)

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW:

Members of Military Families Speak Out -- http://www.mfso.org -- with relatives/loved ones currently serving in Iraq or facing deployment/re-deployment will be participating in a silent march and rally on Saturday, May 13 on the National Mall and are available for interview before or at that event. To schedule an interview with a military family, contact Katya Kruglak, 703-304- 5075, or Nancy Lessin, 617-320-5301. Interviews with Iraq veterans and Gold Star Families who lost loved ones in the Iraq war are also available. For details, contact 215-241-7060.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

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