Operation Thanks for Freedom!

Help collect cards, e-mails, etc, to send to the troops for the Fourth of July. Details at DoD Daily News-2. This will remain up until June 9, 2007. Have a blessed day.

With Honor

New Medal of Honor Museum honors selfless service to country, comrades.
By Jack Jacobs
Military analyst
MSNBC
Updated: 9:02 p.m. PT May 20, 2007.

This Wednesday, May 23, Brian Williams will host NBC’s "Nightly News" from Charleston, South Carolina, and moored nearby is the USS Yorktown, a World War II aircraft carrier. Brian is a member of the Board of Directors of the Medal of Honor Foundation, and the occasion is the grand opening of the new Medal of Honor Museum aboard the Yorktown.

The Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award, was the brainchild of Abraham Lincoln, who sought to recognize exceptional bravery during the Civil War. At the time, the only battlefield distinction was the Purple Heart, awarded in those days for meritorious service, not as it is today, for wounds received in combat.

Since then, about 3,500 Medals of Honor have been awarded. In more recent times, since World War I, most have been posthumous, and there has been no living recipient for any conflict since Vietnam. Today, there are only 110 living recipients, and many of them will be on the Yorktown on Wednesday for the grand opening of the Medal of Honor Museum in South Carolina.

Among them are the oldest living recipient, John Finn, who will be 98 this July and was decorated for action on Pearl Harbor Day. He enlisted in the Navy in 1926 and can transfix the most jaded audience with first-person descriptions of life in America before World War I and tales of his participation in American naval operations in China a decade before the Second World War.

The museum is the principal repository for artifacts relating to the Medal of Honor, but the real thrust of the place is not just the display of things but also the perpetuation of the concept of selfless service to country and comrades. There is an emotion generated there that can be duplicated nowhere else, and one reason is the actions of people. Try these:
Jack Lucas
Jack Lucas was a bit bigger than other kids his age and spent some time at a military prep school. So, when World War II began, he successfully lied about his age and enlisted in the Marines Corps when he was 13 years old. He was so good in boot camp that he was made an instructor, at 14. Not content to serve in the States while his buddies were in combat, he got himself aboard a ship bound for the South Pacific. Landing on Iwo Jima, Lucas saved his fellow Marines by throwing himself on two hand grenades. He miraculously survived devastating injuries, and when he received the Medal [of Honor] from President Harry Truman, Lucas was the youngest recipient since the Civil War.

George Sakato
In danger of being sent to an internment camp like other Japanese-American families, George Sakato moved to Arizona and tried to enlist after Pearl Harbor, but he was rejected as an undesirable alien. In 1943, the government wised up and allowed Sakato and thousands of other patriotic Americans of Japanese descent to fight, and he became a member of the legendary 442nd Regimental Combat Team. In eastern France, in difficult, mountainous terrain, he singlehandedly attacked a German strong point and then, only a 22-year-old private, led his squad through ferocious enemy fire to capture dozens of German soldiers.

Jim Stockdale
After being shot down and injured over North Vietnam, Jim Stockdale was a prisoner for eight long years, and for three of those years he was in solitary confinement. By any standard, the treatment he received was criminal and inhumane: beaten, tortured, strangled until he was nearly asphyxiated. He was brought to the brink of death and resuscitated, time and time again, year after year.

But he never gave any more than his name, rank and service number.

He had told his fellow prisoners that they were honor-bound to resist, and he led by example. Rather than let himself be used by the North Vietnamese in a propaganda film, Stockdale beat his own face to a bloody pulp and cut himself with a dull razor so that he could not be presented on film.

They threw him in solitary again, and he feared that he would ultimately break under the torture and cooperate. So he shattered the window of his cell and slit his wrists with the glass. He was found before he bled to death, but the torture stopped because the guards realized that Stockdale would rather die with honor than serve their purposes.

Clarence Sasser
In 1967, Clarence Sasser was a medic in the Mekong River delta of Vietnam. Under continuous and intense enemy fire, and without regard to his own safety, he crawled from soldier to soldier to aid the injured. He ignored his own many painful shrapnel and bullet wounds to save others and did not cease his assistance until loss of blood made him incapable of continuing.

The behavior of these gallant people was extraordinary, but the basic underpinnings of it are not. American service members are imbued with a code that transcends background, race and every other demographic distinction: don’t surrender if you can fight, never cooperate with your captors, accomplish the mission at all cost, love your comrades.

And so it’s not surprising that every recipient of the Medal of Honor will tell you that he wears it not for himself but for those who can’t: all the men and women who sacrificed so that we can live in freedom. It’s something worth remembering each time we have a chance to help our neighbors and instead turn the other way.

Japanese premier defends invasion of Iraq

By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Tuesday, May 15, 2007.

TOKYO: Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe on Monday strongly defended the invasion of Iraq, calling Saddam Hussein a dictator who posed a threat to the region. Abe is seeking parliamentary approval to extend an air-force mission in Iraq amid growing international criticism of the war, with Britain's likely next premier Gordon Brown promising a new approach. "It is a certainty that Iraq once used weapons of mass destruction in its attacks against Kurdish people - its own nationals - and used them in the Iran-Iraq War," Abe said, referring to Saddam's use of poison gas. "We had to conclude it was a threat to peace and stability in the Middle East to allow the Iraqi dictator to have weapons of mass destruction (WMD)," Abe told a lower house committee. "They had a number of chances to prove that they abandoned WMDs, but they didn't." - AFP.

China's Sudan Foray Falls Far Short: Mia Farrow

Source: Radio Free Asia.

WASHINGTON—China’s bid to answer critics by using its clout to stop violence in troubled Sudan falls far short of what’s needed to make a difference, actress and UNICEF goodwill ambassador Mia Farrow has said.

Farrow’s March 28 comment in The Wall Street Journal used the term “Genocide Olympics” to call for a boycott of the 2008 Games in Beijing. While Sudan had agreed to allow a small UN peacekeeping force to Darfur, she said, no timeframe had been set, and the proposed 3,000 troops had yet to materialize under an unclear mandate.

“I feel that what Khartoum has agreed to is so minimal as to be nothing,” Farrow told RFA’s Mandarin service.

There is more to read, but it cannot be copied. Please continue reading this article. Thank you.

Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation that broadcasts news and information in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. The purpose of RFA is to provide a forum for a variety of opinions and voices from within these Asian countries. Our Web site adds a global dimension to this objective. RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors. If you no longer wish to receive RFA news alerts, send an e-mail to engnews-leave@rfanews.org. To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to engnews-join@rfanews.org.

Navy plans massive war games off Guam

Source: CNN.

April 10, 2007

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) -- The Navy will send three aircraft carriers to waters off Guam for large-scale exercises late this summer, the outgoing U.S. Pacific Fleet commander said.

The Valiant Shield war games will resemble exercises held near the U.S. territory last June. Those brought together some 28 ships, 280 airplanes and 22,000 troops.

Adm. Gary Roughead, announcing the exercises in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, said the Navy learned a great deal from last year's large-scale exercises and wanted to hold similar drills again to improve on some of the tactics used.

"It was very important I think to take that information and while everything was still fresh to say let's go ahead and do things again," Roughead said.

The war games will only involve U.S. troops but will include forces from different services. The Marine Corps and Air Force participated in last year's drills.

Last year's exercises -- the first Valiant Shield -- were the largest the United States has had in the Pacific since the Vietnam War.

The war games underscore the Navy boosted presence in the Pacific.

The Navy is moving forward with plans to base a majority of its attack submarines in the ocean by 2010. It also intends to have six of its 11 aircraft carriers in the Pacific.

Just last month, the Navy announced plans to base the USS Carl Vinson in San Diego after it undergoes maintenance in Virginia. The Vinson's move to California would bring to six the number of Pacific-based carriers.

The Navy has two carriers in San Diego, two in Washington state, and one based in Yokosuka, Japan.

Roughead, who is due to leave Hawaii next month to become the U.S. Fleet Forces commander in Norfolk, Virginia, included last year's Valiant Shield exercises among the highlights of his accomplishments at the Pacific Fleet.

He also cited the fleet's use of its ballistic missile tracking systems to track North Korea's launch of missiles last July and humanitarian work with the USNS Mercy as accomplishments.

But Roughead said the sailors deserved the praise.

"It really had been great being out here and being able to watch the men and women of our Navy go do so many things and to do it really well," Roughead said. "The credit goes to the sailors who are out there making it happen."

At Fleet Forces Command, Roughead will be responsible for planning how the Navy trains and equips its sailors in upcoming years. He will also direct Navy ships in the Atlantic, reporting to the U.S. Northern Command.

President Bush has nominated the current vice chief of naval operations, Navy Adm. Robert F. Willard, to succeed Roughead.