Theodore's World

Some Wounded GIs Opt to Stay in Iraq
MAHMOUDIYA, Iraq — Parallel scars running down 1st Sgt. Rick Skidis’ calf tell the story of how he nearly lost his leg when a roadside bomb blew through the door of his armored Humvee.
The blast shredded muscle, ligament and tendon, leaving Skidis in a daze as medics and fellow soldiers rushed to help him. Skidis remembers little of that day last November except someone warning him that when he woke, his foot might be gone.
After five months and six surgeries, the foot remains intact but causes Skidis haunting numbness and searing pain caused by nerve damage.
CountryWatch: Iraq
Skidis, 36, of Sullivan, Ill., fought through the surgeries and therapy to return in April to Iraq, conducting the same type of patrols that nearly killed him.
He is not an exception.
Nearly 18,000 military personnel have been wounded in combat since the war began in Iraq more than three years ago, according to Defense Department statistics. Some have lost legs and arms, suffered horrific burns to their bodies and gone home permanently.
But the vast majority have remained in Iraq or returned later — their bodies marked by small scars and their lives plagued by aches and pains.

“I wear my scars proudly,” said Skidis as he gingerly lifted his pant leg to show the railroad-like tracks where doctors made incisions to save his foot. Why didn’t he stay home? “I felt guilty because I wasn’t sharing the same hardships that they were,” Skidis said shyly, while another soldier nodded at his side.

For some soldiers in Iraq, it was a roadside blast that muffled their hearing or peppered their body in shrapnel. Others have been ripped by gunfire, sometimes leaving them with jabbing pains in their limbs and compromised movement.
Their wounds are often similar but there are many reasons for remaining at war when their wounds are a ticket home.
Some can’t imagine any other job than being a soldier. Some know no other life. Others, like Skidis, feel the guilt, an obligation to their fellow soldiers.
Staff Sgt. Katherine Yocom-Delgado, 28, of Brooklyn, N.Y., lost 70 percent of the hearing in her left ear weeks ago when an artillery shell landed just a few feet away from her. Her teeth still hurt and she has frequent headaches, especially in the morning.
Yocom-Delgado tilts her head when she listens to people talk.
But she hasn’t considered leaving — the wounds are not as important as the mission.

“I’m alive and I’m happy to be alive,” she said with a smile. “I don’t hurt every day.”

As a woman, Yocom-Delgado represents just two percent of those injured in Iraq, a figure she quotes and has read in new articles. It’s an odd distinction, she said, just her luck.
Spc. Steven Clark’s luck is worse. The 25-year-old has been shot three times and wounded by shrapnel from a grenade that tore into his legs and back. He has been awarded three purple hearts — a fourth is on the way — and a bronze star with valor.
His friends have nicknamed him “Bullet Magnet” — but he won’t consider leaving.
Clark, of Fitzgerald, Ga., says getting wounded was a mistake and his pain is punishment for letting people down. He won’t show the scars on his calf or shoulder or back. He calls the attacks “incidents.”

“I have pains. I have numbness from nerve damage. But it’s just something I’m going to have to live with,” Clark said. “I’m not going to change what I am just because it’s dangerous.”

Soldiers in the battalion, the 502nd Infantry Regiment of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, have been struck by more than 230 roadside bombs since they arrived in Iraq last October, leaving 15 dead. They’ve discovered about 350 more on the roads that crisscross their swath of desert.
More than 100 of the soldiers have been wounded, mostly on patrols in their sector south of Baghdad where Shiite and Sunni Arab tribes often clash with coalition forces. Twenty-seven of those wounded were evacuated from Iraq and remain at hospitals in the United States.
Pfc. Salvadore Bertolone, 21, of Ortonville, Mich., was injured when a roadside bomb blew glass shards into his face and arm. A scar curls down his cheek, but he dismisses his injury.
There are perks to staying in the fight after an injury, he said.

“I get free license plates for the rest of my life,” Bertolone said. “And I’ve got people who are definitely going to be buying me drinks when I get home.”

Though proud of their fellow soldiers, medics fear long-term health problems lie ahead.

“The soldiers here are so focused on staying in the fight that they suck up the pain and push through,” said Capt. Dennison Segui, 33, a medic and physician’s assistant from Browns Mills, N.J. “I know I’m busy here, but I’m nowhere near as busy as I will be when we get back.”

Many of the injured soldiers have begged their commanders to let them come back. One soldier was sent home after a bomb exploded in his face and damaged his eyes. He likely will never return to Iraq, but still asks. Another was sent home because of a heart condition, but returned to Iraq three times, according to Lt. Col. Thomas Kunk, a commander in the 502nd Infantry Regiment.

Maj. Thomas Kunk, center, is “The Bald Eagle,” the basso-profundo (deep bass) voice of “The Eagle has landed; the Strike Force is in your house.”

Kunk, who is not a doctor, decides every week which wounded soldiers can return to duty. Often the soldiers research regulations and argue endlessly, he said.
It’s heartbreaking when he has to say no, but he does.

“Sometimes there’s too much ‘Hooah!’ in us guys,” Kunk said. While he doesn’t want to dampen that enthusiasm, he said, “I don’t want to hurt the guy the rest of his life.”

Kunk has injuries of his own, so he understands a soldier’s conviction to fight. His leg swells and throbs by the end of the day, the lingering effect of a roadside bomb that damaged nerves and muscle. But he, too, won’t think of leaving.

“I’m a father. Heck, I’m a grandpa to be honest with you. So I just kind of look at it from that perspective,” said Kunk, 48. “I want to do right by them.”

Wild Thing’s comment…..
Thank you Jack H. for sending this to me. This is Jack H.’s old unit from Vietnam.
I rememebr them from my visit to Camp Eagle with Bob Hope.
As Jack H. said……” it’s the good old 50duce or for people that dont know the 502nd inf.”
Courage isn’t something you can see or touch. It comes from deep within us, it comes from deep within our troops. We can never thank them enough for all they do.

British troops from the 20th Armoured Brigade in Basra celebrate England’s goal against Paraguay. Photo: Corp. Anthony Boocock RLC

Nuremberg protest over Iran visit
By Ray Furlong
BBC News, Nuremberg
Demonstrations are due to take place in Nuremberg on Sunday ahead of a World Cup match in which Iran faces Mexico. The Iranian vice-president is attending the match and protests have been announced by the local Jewish community as well as Iranian exile groups.
One of the biggest fears the Germans have for the World Cup is that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will come here to watch his team play.
His comments casting doubt on the Holocaust caused outrage in Germany.
This match is serving as a focus for protests against him, even though he is only sent his deputy, Vice-President Mohammed Aliabadi.
Historical reference
Nuremberg is where the Nazis promulgated their infamous race laws and the head of the German Jewish community has declared that the Iranian president is “a second Hitler”.
Another leading member of the community said this demonstration would also be a protest against the proposals made for resolving the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme, which he described as latter-day appeasement.
The protest will also be supported with speeches by important German politicians such as the interior minister of Bavaria and the leader of the Green Party.
And with exile Iranian opposition groups planning a separate demonstration, the authorities are deploying extra police to ensure security.

Castro: Al-Zarqawi Killing a ‘Barbarity’
Sunday June 11, 2006 4:01 AM
HAVANA (AP) –

President Fidel Castro called the U.S. airstrike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi a “barbarity,” saying he should have been put on trial.
The United States acted as “judge and jury” against the leader of the al-Qaida in Iraq, Castro said late Friday.

“They bragged, they were practically drunk with happiness.”

“The accused cannot just be eliminated,” he told a literacy conference. “This barbarity cannot be done.”

The U.S. military has said al-Zarqawi initially survived the dropping of two 500-pound bombs on his hide-out Wednesday, but died a short time later.
Castro said if Cuba used the same logic, it could bomb the United States to kill its No. 1 enemy, Luis Posada Carriles, who is being held in El Paso, Texas on immigration charges.
The communist government accuses the Cuban-born Posada of masterminding numerous violent attacks against the island, including the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people in 1976. Posada denies involvement in the bombing of the plane.

Wild Thing’s comment….
Laughable coming from this champion of human rights. It can’t be long now, till Jimma Carter jumps in.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a former commander of the 82nd Airborne Division and now a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq,
Special ops units had role
Fort Bragg special operations forces played an integral role in the air strike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a congressional source.
Al-Zarqawi was al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq and the mastermind behind a bloody campaign of terrorist attacks on U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
Army officials in the United States and Iraq would not discuss the role of special operations soldiers, but a congressional source confirmed that Fort Bragg special operations soldiers took part in the operation.
President Bush said in a statement Thursday morning that special operations soldiers played a role in the bombing of al-Zarqawi, and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s office confirmed that special operations forces from North Carolina were involved in the hunt for him.
Andrew Cochran, founder and editor of The Counterterrorism Blog, said special operations soldiers from Fort Bragg “are on the front lines. They are right up to their eyeballs in this.” His site is the first multi-expert blog dedicated solely to counterterrorism issues.
“Reliable reports have said that the (task force) is divided into four teams, three U.S. and one from the U.K. The teams have been occasionally augmented by Army Rangers and paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division, and have been supported by special operations helicopter and combat units, as well as by fixed-wing aircraft units operating in support of quick reaction targeting.”
See Video HERE……….I LOVE this! Thank you Hot Air!

Comments by a U.S. soldier in Baghdad this morning to his parents here: “I know it is the middle of the night there, but have you heard the news? We got Zarqawi. We bombed his place just outside of Baqubah and got a lot of them. It is so great! The guys really needed this. We are all so proud.”

Wild Thing’s comment…..
I am so proud of you, thank you troops!

* Hot Air ( Michelle Malkin) the video
* Counterterrorism Blog

Please click
photo above
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Video is of the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment battle insurgents in Ramadi, and MP’s visit Iraqi police station.

There are more Video’s at this LINK

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Wild Thing’s comment…….This is a great write up and I would like to share it with you. I never heard of this writer before. His name is John Burtis. He is a former Broome County, NY firefighter, a retired Santa Monica, CA, police officer, and obtained his BA in European History at Boston University and is fluent in German. He resides in NH with his wife, Betsy.

Zarqawi, the left–Never give a sucker an even break
By John Burtis
Saturday, June 10, 2006

It’s so darned funny and I am such a naïf. I thought it would take a day or two for the left to begin to down play the death of Zarqawi, one of the premier death dealers on the planet today, and a guy responsible for a litany of murder and mayhem among our troops–OUR TROOPS. You know, the guys everybody pledges to support even though the liberal cognoscenti and the progressive Nomenklatura all hate the war.
But my feeble calculations were off by a power of ten. It appears that the left, the Democrats and Air America were right in there slinging mud, down playing the impact of Mr. Zarqawi’s death, belittling the accomplishments of the “Prince of al-Qaeda” in Iraq–directed last fall to set-up a caliphate in Iraq by none other than Mr. Zawahiri–and calling for our withdrawal almost as soon as the news broke.
But from John Kerry, to Knight-Ridder, UPI, Pete Stark, Dennis Kucinich, and Randi Rhodes, among the other notables, the great round up of left wing apologists were right in there pitching their tales of woe before the dust had cleared around the bomb blasted house and before the plastic surgeons had rearranged Abu’s shattered face for the early morning roll-out.
Mr. Kerry (H-UA) stepped right in to call for the withdrawal of combat troops by the end of the year, not a new tune for the Winter Soldier, but the death of Mr. Zarqawi has served to add another verse and refrain to the same old song he sings so well.
Nancy Pelosi (S-OL) congratulated our troops, before calling for our retreat because of the loss of the VA records of the WWII veterans, which she valiantly confused with those currently serving.
The faux Night Riders scribbled that the death of the foremost murderer in Iraq will have no impact there, of course, not where he has been killing a ton of people for years, or in Jordanian hotels during weddings for that matter. While the left-handed UPI sky writers exclaimed that the capture of Mr. bin-Laden would be of absolutely no help for Mr. Bush, let alone anybody else who might be on the receiving end of one of his dastardly upcoming “plans.”
Brother Pete Stark (D-OA) goes on to say that whole thing is a cover for Mr. Bush’s nether regions, in an echo of anther quaint liberal voice belonging to that sweet Ms. Whoopi Goldberg, and a last gasp to improve his poll numbers, while Br’er Dennis Kucinich (D-IP) touts his own addled version of reality where Mr. Zarqawi was just a walk-on bit player on an already booming anti-American stage, though the name of the director currently escapes him.
Randi Rhodes, fellow assassination jokester with Alan Hevesi, and impromptu impresario of the amazing disappearing Air America, which has finally lost their flagship station in NYC after a prolonged scuttling, extolled al-Qaeda for pleading with Mr. Zarqawi to slow down the slaughter of the innocents, and opined that we should do the same with our troops.
For days, if not weeks, there will be a deafening silence to be heard from those two outlandishly pantomiming former chief executives, Mr. Carter and Mr. Clinton, who will reserve judgment until the proper audience can be assembled and properly shaken down for cash.
For Mr. Carter, this will have something to do with the confluence of those two great pro-American bodies, the lily pure UN and the perfectly democratic Palestinian State, and will feature Mr. Peanut’s views on how the premeditated murder of a poor suffering Mr. Zarqawi, the victim of a troubled youth, will in some way deleteriously affect the rightful operations of these two sainted and august bodies.
Mr. Clinton, before a paying foreign audience, where he can really let fly, will sagely review his own wise anti-terrorist policies and recall how their implementation by the Bush administration, had they but taken his wise counsel, so often and painfully offered, would have resulted in the stultification of radical Islam, the marginalization of dubious characters like Mr. Zarqawi, and an enduring legacy for Mr. Clinton.
And it saddens me, as it should all Americans, that the party in opposition, must sit down and compose themselves and their thoughts, and not appear too joyous, too happy, and not too glad that the primary killer of their sons and daughters — our sons and daughters, too — has been taken out by a precision combined arms operation directed by Iraqis and Americans.
There are no even breaks offered from the left, not in a war that threatens every American with annihilation of some kind to be delivered by boyos just like Mr. Zarqawi, especially when the old gods — Stalin, Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, Mao — are gone.
The new gods of the left — Chavez, Castro, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il — are lesser men than the old, while the new tin gods — Clinton, Annan, Carter — are reed thin jokes.
But in the end, I am a sucker, as we all are, to think that the left wing, the Democrats and their slavish tools in the drive-by media could in any way whatsoever view the swift elimination of a piratical serial killing bandit as anything other than a ploy or a hoax to be denigrated.
On we go, into the next bit of high camp, where the next bit of good news for all Americans will be greeted with silence, sneers, denunciation and lip service from our friends on the left — such is the bottomless depth of their love for their country and its citizens.
And it won’t matter if we capture Osama, if the Dow hits 12,000, if housing starts are way up, if unemployment reaches 4.2%, if Mr. Ahmadinejad surrenders to Great Britain, and if gasoline falls to $2.21 a gallon.

A Dying Al-Zarqawi Tried to Get Away
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi could barely speak, but he struggled and tried to get away from American soldiers as he lay dying on a stretcher in the ruins of his hideout.
The U.S. forces recognized his face, and knew they had the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.
Initially, the U.S. military had said al-Zarqawi was killed outright. But Friday new details emerged of his final moments.
For three years, al-Zarqawi orchestrated horrific acts of violence guided by his extremist vision of jihad, or holy war – first against the U.S. soldiers he considered occupiers of Arab lands, then against the Shiites he considered infidels.
On Wednesday, the U.S. military tracked him to a house northwest of Baghdad, and blew it up with two 500-pound bombs.
Al-Zarqawi somehow managed to survive the impact of the bombs, weapons so powerful they tore a huge crater in the date palm forest where the house was nestled just outside the town of Baqouba.
Iraqi police reached the scene first, and found the 39-year-old al-Zarqawi alive.

“He mumbled something, but it was indistinguishable and it was very short,” Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said Friday of the Jordanian-born terrorist’s last words.

Iraqi police pulled him from the flattened home and placed him on a makeshift stretcher. U.S. troops arrived, saw that al-Zarqawi was conscious, and tried to provide medical treatment, the spokesman said.

“He obviously had some kind of visual recognition of who they were because he attempted to roll off the stretcher, as I am told, and get away, realizing it was the U.S. military,” Caldwell told Pentagon reporters via videoconference from Baghdad.

Al-Zarqawi “attempted to, sort of, turn away off the stretcher,” he said. “Everybody re-secured him back onto the stretcher, but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he’d received from this airstrike.”

So much blood covered al-Zarqawi’s body that U.S. forces cleaned him up before taking photographs. “Despite the fact that this person actually had no regard for human life, we were not going to treat him in the same manner,” Caldwell said.

The airstrike killed two other men and three women who were in the house, but only al-Zarqawi and his spiritual adviser have been positively identified, he said.
Caldwell also said experts told him it is not unheard of for people to survive a blast of that magnitude.

“There are cases when people, in fact, can survive even an attack like that on a building structure. Obviously, the other five in the building did not, but he did for some reason,” Caldwell said.

He said he did not know if al-Zarqawi was inside or outside the house when the bombs struck.

“Well, what we had found, as with anything, first reports are not always fully accurate as we continue the debriefings. But we were not aware yesterday that, in fact, Zarqawi was alive when U.S. forces arrived on the site,” Caldwell said.

His recounting of the aftermath of the airstrike could not be independently verified. The Iraqi government confirmed only that Iraqi forces were first on the scene, followed by the Americans.
An aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said he saw Caldwell’s news briefing but could neither confirm nor deny that al-Zarqawi briefly survived the blast.
“Well, I think it’s clear: The Americans said he was seriously wounded and he died,” the aide said.

ATTENTION EDITORS: CLARIFYING IN CAPTION THAT THIS PHOTO DEPICTS ACTUAL SITE OF SAFEHOUSE WHERE AL-ZARQAWI WAS KILLED An Iraqi boy holds a picture of U.S. President George W. Bush found amongst the rubble of a safe house destroyed in a U.S. raid which killed al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in the village of Hibhib near Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, June 8, 2006. (REUTERS/Helmiy al-Azawi) (IRAQ)

Wild Thing’s coment….
I cannot tell you how happy I am that his last vision was that of one of our troops. Big smile on my face!

A couple of our guys at QAIM, Iraq

Observing Iraq
QAIM, Iraq
US Dept. of Defense
American Forces Press Service
AFPS reporter Jim Garamone ( no photo available) has traveled in the U.S. Central Command theater since April, covering various aspects of the mission and the men and women who make it happen. He is a photographer and journalist.
Here are a few of those vignettes:

Boom, Boom! Out Go the Lights
Early one morning at Camp Hit came the unmistakable sound of a mortar launching. A door opened and a woman yelled, “Is that incoming or outgoing?”
Before anyone could answer came a huge “boom” that rocked the mud buildings. “Oh, that’s definitely incoming,” she said, and shut the door.
No one was injured in the attack.

Be Like Mike
Anbar province is the center of anti-coalition sentiment. Or is it?
The Iraqis in Anbar profess to not like Americans, but they are trying mighty hard to look like them. As you pass the men in the streets, they look with flint-hard stares — underneath their New York Yankees or Chicago Bulls caps.
American companies find excellent billboards on Iraqi T-shirts, and Nike and Reebok shoes are “tres chic” here.
The Iraqis even emulate the servicemembers who are enforcing security around their cities. The latest fad among young men is to get “high and tight” haircuts like the soldiers and Marines who patrol in the area.

Silence is Scary
A line of servicemembers coming out of an Internet café is a moment of dread in Iraq.
“I hate to see that,” said an officer as soldiers filed out of the facility at an Anbar province forward operating base.
He didn’t like it because commanders shut down the Internet and phone lines without notice if they take casualties. Military officials do not want families to find out of the death or wounding of a loved one via e-mail or a satellite phone call. “Most soldiers wouldn’t do that, but who wants to take the chance?” said a coalition official.
In this case, the café wasn’t closed for a casualty, but a power surge that crashed the system. It may have been the only time losing all data was greeted with a sigh of relief.

Joseph Vento, whose grandparents came from Italy, insists that customers at Geno’s Steaks order in English. “Why should I have to bend?” he says.

Vento is also a huge supporter of the cause of Police Officer Danny Faulkner, who was murdered by Wesely Cook, AKA Mumia Abul Jamal. Many events and fund raisers have been helped by him and his establishment.

Eatery’s English-only sign raises irePHILADELPHIA (Reuters)

A sign in a landmark Philadelphia restaurant asking customers to order in English is sparking controversy in the metropolis known as the “City of Brotherly Love.”
The owner of Geno’s Steaks said on Thursday that the sign, “This is America — when ordering speak English,” is intended to encourage immigrants to learn the language and assimilate into U.S. society, but one Latino activist said it’s racist.
The controversy comes amid a national debate over immigration in the United States. The U.S. Senate passed an immigration bill last month that includes a provision which would make English the national language.
“They should be glad that I put the sign up. I’m trying to help them to speak English,” said Joey Vento, 66, whose grandparents moved to the United States from Italy. “Without the English language, they are going to have a lot of problems in this country.
“There is nobody who can say they are turned down because of the language,” he added. “They can point if they want to.”
The sign, which Vento posted at his cheese steak restaurant about six months ago and says he has no intention of removing, has made some people angry.
Roberto Santiago, executive director of Philadelphia’s Council of Spanish Speaking Organizations, said he was “appalled” by the policy.
“I think what’s coming out of his mouth is racist,” said Santiago. “He is saying, ‘I don’t like these brown faces in my community and I will do everything I can to get them out of there.'”
Santiago said he has urged Latinos to boycott Geno’s Steaks, a fixture in South Philadelphia’s Little Italy neighborhood which has seen an influx of Hispanic immigrants in recent years.
Vento denied that anyone would be refused service if they ordered one of the sliced beef-and-cheese sandwiches, a famed bit of cuisine in the Quaker-founded “City of Brotherly Love,” in a language other than English.