Iraq: U.S. Fighters to be Disarmed???

WTF??

If this is what is going to happen, it is time to get our folks out of that god forsaken crap hole ASAP.  I don’t want any of our folks there if they cannot fire back or carry a weapon. From the AP, Read Below:

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s government is grateful to U.S.-allied Sunni fighters but won’t allow them to keep their weapons indefinitely, the prime minister said Saturday, hinting at a more intense crackdown on the Sunni groups.

In recent weeks, the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has gone after Sunni fighters despite their alliances with the Americans. Some leaders have been arrested, while scores of others have been disarmed and banned from manning checkpoints except alongside security forces.

Al-Maliki’s government has mixed feelings about Sunni tribes that rose up against al-Qaida in Iraq, starting in 2007, and joined the Americans in the fight against the terror network.

The groups, known as Awakening Councils, Sons of Iraq and Popular Committees, have helped rout al-Qaida in some parts of Iraq. But Shiite leaders fear the Sunnis’ switch of allegiance is just a tactic, and that they could one day turn their weapons against the Shiite majority.

The U.S., which put many of the Sunni fighters on its payroll, has urged al-Maliki to incorporate them into his security forces, but the government has been slow to do so.

In a speech to Shiite tribal leaders in Baghdad on Saturday, al-Maliki mixed praise for the Sunni fighters with a warning. He said armed groups, alongside security forces, were tolerated for a limited period because their weapons were “aimed at the chests of the terrorists.”

“So they (the Sunni fighters) deserve our gratitude and the inclusion (into the security forces) because we adhere to a policy that there are no arms but the arms of the government,” he said.

In other developments Saturday, a suicide bomber struck a car bazaar in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing at least five people and wounding at least seven others, according to the U.S. military and Iraqi police.

Among those killed was a senior member of a U.S.-allied Sunni group from nearby Diyala province, said Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir, a senior police official in Kirkuk. The bomber also was from Diyala, which has been an insurgent stronghold and is the site of ongoing U.S.-Iraqi military operations, Qadir said.

In the capital, gunmen killed an adviser to Iraqi Culture Minister Mahir al-Hadithi in a roadside ambush. A bodyguard was wounded in the attack along a main thoroughfare in eastern Baghdad, police and hospital officials said.

Two cars were involved in the killing of the adviser, Kamil Shiya, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media. One vehicle blocked Shiya’s car and gunmen opened fire from the second vehicle.

Shiya’s death was confirmed by officials at nearby Kindi Hospital.

Something has to be done now. Leave a comment below what do you think?

GIBILL2008.org brought to you by our Friends @ IAVA.ORG !!

Folks, Just got info from “IAVA.org” about a new site they created to help get information out about the new GI BILL.  Here is the email.  Go to this site.. it is a real “EYE OPENER”!!
I will have my tuition paid in full + 1000.00 in Books, PLUS $10,710.00 Living Expense Paid to me!!
Now hopefully they will get this thing to work prior to 2009.  Anyways, it is coming!!  Read Below!!

Dear Darrell, We fought for a new GI Bill, and because of you, we won. Now it’s time to take the next step. This morning, I had the honor of addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) National Convention in Orlando, Florida. The VFW was one of our major allies in the fight for the new GI Bill, and we wouldn’t have succeeded without their support. As part of my remarks, I announced IAVA’s relaunch of www.GIBill2008.org. The website, which served as a critical hub of online activism during our fight for the new GI Bill, is now a resource center for members of the military to learn about their hard-earned education benefits. Starting this week, www.GIBill2008.org will provide America’s newest generation of veterans with the tools they need to access the new GI Bill. It includes an interactive benefits calculator based on your zip code, answers to Frequently Asked Questions, and the latest news and information about the new GI Bill as it goes into effect. IAVA is committed to helping eligible veterans access their new benefit, and we’ve begun community outreach with ads in newspapers across the country, urging veterans to visit www.GIBill2008.org. The original GI Bill made education affordable for millions of veterans during the 20th century. Thanks to your help in fighting for the new GI Bill, millions more will have the same opportunity in the 21st century. None of this would be possible without your continued support. Thank you. Sincerely, Paul Rieckhoff Iraq Veteran Executive Director Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

Please visit both sites. We are a member of the IAVA here at Corpsman.com. We would not have the new GI bill if not for them.

Support those who support you.

Thanks!
Da-Chief

Tsk tsk tsk.. And they want to be treated as adults….

Military motorcyclists arrested going 140mph

BAY MINETTE, Ala. — It appears that a group of motorcycle riders — many of them service members — didn’t get the memo about obeying traffic laws.

Alabama state troopers said 12 cyclists were arrested after they were clocked at speeds of over 140 miles per hour on Interstate 10. All were stopped Sunday afternoon between the Daphne and Malbis exit ramps. Seven were airmen; three were sailors.

Eleven men and one woman were each charged with speeding and reckless endangerment. The group was placed in the county jail in Bay Minette.

Have you locked down your Network Connection?

There is a great article in the San Francisco Chronicle, about;

“WARDRIVING”

For those of you who don’t understand the term, picture folks cruising your neighberhoods looking for open wireless network connections so they can leech off of your connection.

This can slow down your system, but worse if they get in, and you do banking on your system either on your home computer or even online, they can get your data and access your accounts.

This is SCARY Stuff.  All they have to do is install to your HD a “KEYLOGGER” which records all your keystrokes on your system and then reports the info to them.

Read the entire article “HERE”

Or the Wikipedia article “HERE”

We are going to be starting a computer / Electronics Geek section up here to help you out.  I will educate you on programs that can help you lock down your system even if your not the “TECH GEEK” like Da-Chief is.

A article will be in this months newsletter as well as on our site.

First assingment though, read the article.

D/C

CALLING ALL ARMY MEDIC’s!! 68W’s, Air Force Medics, Coast Guard Corpsman & Interntaional Doc’s

Come on in and join the Corpsman.com Fold.

Myth:  We are a site only for Navy Corpsman.

Fact:   We are a site for “ALL” Enlisted Doc’s from all U.S. Services.

Myth: We don’t like Medic’s from other Nations, I.e Brit’s, Aussies, Frenchies, etc..

FACT:  We do indeed want Medic’s from all Nations to join our site, we are even thinking of starting a forum for Medic’s of all Nations.

We serve more and more togethor, heck we are even moving down to your neck of the woods in San Antonio.  You had better be able to show us Navy Swabbies a good time!  Don’t worry we can put the Air Force Weenies in the closet and lock it.. (I Kiiiid.. I kiiiid, The Air Force has the $$ they can buy the drinks!)
Look like in real life all of us are falling under “1″ Umbrella soon,  Help us make Corpsman.com a place called home for you as well.

I am looking for folks who are in both the Army as well a as the Air Force and Coast Guard who know your systems well enough to join our team and help us help our fellow Soldiers, Airmen, and Coast Gaurdsmen and Guardswomen.

We have also served with other NATO and UN forces.  Our medic’s have cared for Aussies, Brit’s, etc.. And they have taken care of our mates as well.

A Doc is a DOC.

Please Join our free Scuttlebutt forums, then intro yourself in the quarterdeck.

If you want more info, please email 8404 @ 8404@corpsman.com, or myself @ admin1@corpsman.com.

As Uncle Sam used to say..
WE WANT YOU!

2 Top Air Force Positions “YOUR FIRED”.

Wow!! 2 for the price of “1″!!  D/C

Top two Air Force officials resigning

NBC: Secretary refused to fire chief of staff so both are forced out

WASHINGTON - The nation’s top two Air Force officials are resigning, and military sources told NBC News Thursday that they were being forced out.

At the White House, press secretary Dana Perino said President Bush knew about the resignations of Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, but that the White House “has not played any role” in the shake-up.

Moseley, a general, is the Air Force’s top uniformed officer. Wynne is the top civilian official.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week told Wynne to fire Moseley but Wynne refused, sources told NBC. As a result, Gates took the unprecedented step of asking both men to resign.

Gates wanted Moseley out because of several different scandals plaguing the Air Force in recent months, the sources added.

Word of the resignations was first reported by InsideDefense.com and the Air Force Times earlier Thursday.

‘Resign or be fired’
After Wynne’s refusal, Moseley reportedly was told Thursday that he had to leave. “Top-level Pentagon officials gave Moseley the option to resign or be fired during a meeting this morning,” the InsideDefense.com reported, quoting an unidentified military official.

The Air Force Times noted that the resignations follow high-profile scandals and disagreements with lawmakers and Gates over the Air Force’s role in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Susan Walsh / AP Air Force Gen. Michael Moseley

Gates earlier this year publicly stated that the Air Force could dedicate more resources, especially unmanned drones, to those battlefronts.

Other controversies include the awarding of a contract for the Air Force’s elite Thunderbirds flying group and the service’s mistaken shipment of fuses for nuclear missiles to Taiwan in 2006, a congressional source who had been informed about the matter told Reuters.

“There has been a lack of accountability that raised concerns,” the source said.

More resignations to follow?
Sources told the Air Force Times that other senior officers could also be relieved.

A public announcement was expected later in the day. There was no immediate word on who would be nominated to replace Moseley and Wynne.

The Air Force has endured a number of embarrassing setbacks over the past year. In August, for instance, a B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown across the country. The pilot and crew were unaware they had nuclear arms aboard.

The error was considered so grave that President Bush was quickly informed.

Moseley later announced that in response to flaws exposed during the nuclear weapons error, the Air Force would change the way bomber crews organize for their nuclear training mission.

Gates also has been trying to learn more about how fuses for Air Force ballistic missiles were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan. Gates was briefed last week on the conclusions of an internal investigation of that matter but the results have not been made public.

Four cone-shaped electrical fuses used in intercontinental ballistic missile warheads were shipped to the Taiwanese instead of the helicopter batteries they had ordered. The fuses originated at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo., but the mix-up apparently occurred after the parts were shipped to Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

Authority ‘compromised,’ senator said
In another incident, the Pentagon inspector general found in April that a $50 million contract to promote the Thunderbirds aerial stunt team was tainted by improper influence and preferential treatment. No criminal conduct was found.

Moseley was not singled out for blame, but the investigation laid out a trail of communications from him and other Air Force leaders that eventually influenced the 2005 contract award. Included in that were friendly e-mails between Moseley and an executive in the company that won the bid.

“It is my sense that General Moseley’s command authority has been compromised,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said at the time.

Moseley became Air Force chief in September 2005; Wynne took office in November 2005.

Wynne is the second civilian chief of a military service to be forced out by Gates. In March 2007 the defense secretary pushed out Francis Harvey, the Army secretary, because Gates was dissatisfied with Harvey’s handling of revelations of inadequate housing conditions and bureaucratic delays for troops recovering from war wounds at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Important Military Service Links

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Medical technician in war can’t get licensed in Wisconsin

Nicole Moore holds a girl who she had as a patient while in Afghanistan. The girl had fallen on a piece of metal and it went through her eye. Moore, who is from Poynette, said she grew close to her and was happy to see her discharged from the hospital in good shape.

She remembers walking to the gym at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, some 45 miles north of Kabul, when the base’s siren suddenly went off.

Everything else that happened on the morning of Feb. 27, 2007, is pretty much a blur, said 23-year-old Nicole Moore of Poynette, who was serving as an Air Force emergency medical technician at the time.

Within seconds, Moore found herself at the scene of one of the deadliest suicide bombings of the Afghanistan war. The bomber had somehow gotten inside the base’s heavily guarded front gate and then blew himself up — killing 23 people and injuring more than 20 others in an attack that many believe was aimed at Vice President Dick Cheney, who was visiting the base that day.

Moore, who’d arrived at Bagram just two months earlier, said she was stunned by the devastation the blast had caused. Limbs and other body parts were scattered everywhere, and screams of horror filled the air.

“It was crazy, but you couldn’t think about that,” said Moore, a 2002 graduate of Poynette High School. “You just had to concentrate on your job. You couldn’t afford to lose your focus.”

Two of the victims Moore tended to that day died. One was an 8-year-old boy whose intestines were hanging out of his body as Moore and a doctor worked in vain to save him. The other was a civilian contractor from the United States who eventually bled to death.

Moore had a lot of grim days during her five-month stint at Craig Joint Theater Hospital at Bagram, the largest trauma center in Afghanistan, where her duties included those of a typical LPN. While she said she’s proud of her service, she admitted being relieved when her tour ended and she returned to Travis Air Force Base in California in May 2007.

“It was definitely humbling,” she said. “And after it was over, I had such an extreme appreciation for America and how good we have it. It was a real eye-opener for me.”

It left such an impression that Moore decided she wanted to become an LPN in the private sector and devote the rest of her life to caring for others. Unfortunately, those plans recently hit a snag, Moore said.

Upon returning to California, Moore was allowed to take the state’s nursing board exams — which she passed with flying colors, because California allows nursing candidates to substitute military education and experience for college credits.

However, when she moved back to Poynette early this year, she was shocked to learn that her license won’t transfer to Wisconsin. Not only that, but the Wisconsin Board of Nursing won’t even allow her to take the nursing boards because she hasn’t graduated from a board-approved school of nursing.

“I was very disappointed, naturally,” said Moore, who is enrolled at Madison Area Technical College, which has a two-year wait to get into its LPN program. “I feel I have a lot to offer, a lot of experience I could bring to the job. I’m adaptable and I’ve worked under pressure.”

After graduating from the EMT program at Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas, Moore went through seven months of medical training at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. Then she headed off to Afghanistan, where she treated both military and local trauma victims — including members of the Taliban. She served 5 1/2 years in the military, from 2002 to January 2008.

“If I can practice nursing on our soldiers and as a civilian in California, why isn’t that good enough for Wisconsin?” she said. “Especially when there’s such a critical nursing shortage.”

Sgt. Melissa Martinez, who worked alongside Moore in the ER at Bagram and is now stationed at Travis, agreed.

“I think Wisconsin officials need to do a little research and find out what a medical technician in the military does on a day-to-day basis — especially overseas — and compare that to a regular LPN who works in a hospital,” Martinez said. “Because being in a war situation, you experience so much more than any civilian nurse.”

Martinez said that besides working intense 12-hour shifts and getting few days off during her five months in Afghanistan, Moore was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for saving the life of a young Army officer who’d collapsed and gone into cardiac arrest while working out at the Bagram gym.

So for anyone to suggest that Moore isn’t qualified to be an LPN is nonsense, Martinez said.

Kim Nania, division administrator of board services for the Wisconsin Board of Nursing, disagreed.

Nania said each state board has its own criteria, and just because California’s allows military vets without a degree from an accredited nursing school to takes its boards doesn’t mean Wisconsin should follow suit.

The military, she said, trains people to meet its specific needs. “And not all military training is substantially equivalent to what’s required in order to become a nurse,” she said. “And please remember the words substantially equivalent, because that’s the piece that’s very important. Because you need to know you’ve gotten all of the training — not just a piece of it or three-quarters of it — that is deemed necessary.”

Nania said some military schools offer excellent training and are accredited. Many others, however, fall far short.

Nania said it’s unfortunate that there’s a two-year waiting list to get into MATC’s LPN program. But she suggests that Moore check out the online nursing program at Excelsior College of New York, which not only is accredited but often grants credit for military experience.

Thanks but no thanks, said Moore, who’s decided to finish the year at MATC and then transfer to UW-Madison’s RN program — even though it means she’ll spend the next four years basically relearning what she already knows. She’ll work minimum-wage jobs to help pay her bills.

“I’m certainly not giving up on nursing, because I love it,” she said.

But it’s exasperating, she said, knowing that she’s proven herself in the most demanding, high-pressure situations imaginable — and yet Wisconsin officials say that’s not good enough. Then in the next breath, Moore said, they’ll complain about the nursing shortage.

“I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t make sense.”

From the “PORTAGE DAILY REGISTER“

SECDEF Cuts Air Force Pilot Training due to budget cuts

From: http://militarymotivator.blogspot.com/

Overcoming Obstacles is Key to Veterans’ Success Stories

“The American Veteran” Highlights Helpful Programs

WASHINGTON - Military members are trained to overcome obstacles, as part of a team, to achieve their mission. Returning to civilian life, especially after a combat tour, poses new challenges for many service members, requiring new tools and new forms of support.

Programs to help these veterans, available from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and partnering organizations, are the focus of the April edition of “The American Veteran,” VA’s monthly half-hour news magazine.

“We are committed to outreaching to veterans and military personnel about the VA programs available to help these warriors recover from their physical and mental injuries,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James B. Peake. “These stories showcase the courage and determination of the veterans, as well as the commitment of those willing to help - many of whom are veterans themselves.”

The lead story looks at veteran suicide, examining the programs VA has put in place to ensure that everyone from front line clerks to mental health providers are prepared to recognize the early warning signs of suicide and know how to respond.

A second feature looks at a unique rehabilitation program in Florida, “Shake A Leg,” designed to help disabled veterans cope with physical and mental difficulties by teaching them how to sail.

In another story, VA partners with city leaders in Fargo, N.D., to support Project HART, a program created to help homeless veterans get off the street and stay off the street with a unique four-step program.

The series is designed to inform active duty members, veterans, their families and their communities about the services and benefits they have earned and to recognize and honor them. VA’s Office of Public Affairs and the VA Learning University/ Employee Education System (VALU/EES) produce the program and broadcast it to VA facilities around the world on The Pentagon Channel and to community cable outlets.

Aimed at veterans of all eras, VA also tells stories of heroism and sacrifice, and relives moments in history with those who were there, reminding veterans of the bond of service they all share.

The VA Office of Public Affairs offers the program to local broadcasters and cable outlets and makes it available for viewing on the VA Web site, www.va.gov. Just click on “Public Affairs” and then “Featured Items.”

“The American Veteran” schedule on The Pentagon Channel is available at * http://www.pentagonchannel.mil *. The Pentagon Channel has more than 1 million military viewers and is delivered domestically via DISH, EchoStar, T-Warner and Cox cable systems. (Check for service in your area.)

Additional stories on the April edition of “The American Veteran” include:

VA’s Newest Liver Transplant Center — A look at VA’s third and newest Liver Transplant Center at the Michael E. DeBakey Medical Center in Houston where Michael Abshire became the first patient to go through their liver transplant program.

* VA dedicates a new national cemetery in South Florida.

* A new Travel Nurse Corps is designed to address the nursing shortage.

* New GI Bill rules provide an increase in educational benefits.

* A VA research project searching for a vaccine against Salmonella bacterium is carried aboard a NASA space shuttle to the International space station.

* James H. Parke Youth Volunteer Award Winner — Meet Megan Smith a high school junior from Miami. Megan is this year’s winner of VA’s James H. Parke $20,000.00 Youth Volunteer Award Scholarship.

For information about “The American Veteran” program and how to obtain it for local programming, contact VA at 202-461-7502.

* Indicates a link to a non-VA Web site.

People wishing to receive e-mail from VA with the latest news releases and updated fact sheets can subscribe to the VA Office of Public Affairs Distribution List.

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