Kudos to Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV for his post yesterday on Small Wars Journal, wherein he says it's long past time to turn loose the blogging and viral video-posting capabilities of America's men and women in uniform on the e-media battlefield.

Good commentary on Caldwell's take here and here, among other places.

Some of the 10 Silver Star recipients from the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division will no doubt get heroes' welcomes 10 a.m. Friday at the Washington state Legislature.

Click here for the resolution to be read on the Senate floor.

“This is our way of thanking these men and women for showing such courage in the face of unimaginable adversity. They are to be commended for their bravery,” Sen. Rosa Franklin, one of the sponsors, said in a news release.

You can also read the award citations for the brigade's two latest recipients at the Fort Lewis web site.

Click here for the award citation for Sgt. 1st Class Ismael Iban.

And click here for the citation for Staff Sgt. Jon Hilliard.

Others who were previously awarded the Silver Star for their actions during the 2006-07 Iraq deployment are Maj. Brent Clemmer, Staff Sgt. Mark Grover, Staff Sgt. Shawn McGuire, Staff Sgt. David Plush, Sgt. Steven Peters, Spc. Gildardo Cebreros, Spc. Curtis Lundgren and Sgt. Jason Harkins, who received the award posthumously.

There's more on the link between mild traumatic brain injury – concussions – and post-traumatic stress disorder and other post-deployment health problems in a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The New York Times reported that the study is the Army's first "large-scale attempt to gauge the effect" of mild head injuries.

Said the Times:

The new report finds that soldiers who had concussions were more likely than those with other injuries to report a variety of symptoms in their first months back home, including headaches, poor sleep and balance problems. But they were also at higher risk for the stress disorder, known as PTSD, and that accounted for most of the difference in complaints, the researchers concluded. Symptoms of the disorder include irritability, sleep problems and flashbacks.

The headquarters detachment of the Washington National Guard's 741st Ordnance Battalion – the unit does explosive ordnance disposal – has been alerted for possible mobilization and deployment, Camp Murray said this morning.

The detachment is comprised of about 25 soldiers based in Tacoma. They provide command and control of other bomb squads.

A National Guard spokesman said no word yet on whether the alert will turn into an actual mobilization, or where the unit might be sent if they get the callup.

Military.com's Christian Lowe has a piece up this morning that says Stryker brigade tankers aren't jazzed about how their Mobile Gun System trucks are holding up in Iraq.

The report follows a Bloomberg.com story yesterday that says Congress is holding up $484 million for 92 more of the MGS rigs until Stryker-makers General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc., fixes a number of problems with the trucks.

Two more soldiers from the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division will be awarded the Silver Star for their actions in Iraq last year, Fort Lewis announced.

The brigade has scheduled a ceremony 1:30 p.m. Thursday at Sheridan Gym to present the medals to Sgt. 1st Class Ismael Iban and Staff Sgt. Jon Hilliard, both of the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment. CORRECTION: Hilliard is from the 5/20; Iban is from C Company, 52nd Infantry Regiment, the brigade's anti-tank company.

This makes at least 10 Silver Stars for the Arrowhead Brigade in the 2006-07 deployment. The medal is the nation's third-highest award for combat valor, after the Distinguished Service Cross and the Medal of Honor. Word has it there is a DSC pending for a 3rd Brigade soldier, but more than that I can't say.

From the Fort Lewis press release Tuesday:

=> Read more!

If anybody tries to fly a bomb-laden dirigible – or anything else, for that matter – into the University of Phoenix Stadium next Sunday, the folks at McChord's Western Air Defense Sector want you to know that they'll be all over them.

The Air National Guard operation at the local base is responsible 24-7 for watching U.S. skies from the Mississippi to the Pacific. On Super Bowl Sunday, they'll have command and control of F-16s out of Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson that will be flying game day security missions, according to a joint press release Tuesday by WADS and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, aka NORAD.

Maj. Gen. Hank Morrow, the NORAD commander for the continental United States, said in the release:

“As America’s Air Defenders, our priority is to ensure the air sovereignty and safety of all Americans – including the thousands of fans attending the game. We remain committed to protecting freedom, peace and great American traditions like the Super Bowl.”

Many apologies for the long stretch without posts. Was felled by the bug that seems to making the rounds – first the little squad of guys with flamethrowers ambush your throat, then comes so much sinus goo that you can literally hear the splashing when you turn your head. ... Anyway, grateful for your patience. Normal service to resume presently.

The 'toughest job in the Army?' post a few days back prompted a fair bit of commentary – by FOB Tacoma standards, anyway.

It led to reader K S offering a number of resources that might be helpful for military spouses, vets, and others who may be having trouble with any number of deployment-related issues. So I'm reposting K S's list here figuring that more people might see it this way.

I know so many of you have been around the block on this stuff. Please feel free to add suggestions that you think others might find helpful.

The K S list:

Military OneSource

My Army Life Too Related to Army Community Services, offers lots of help for families, from moving advice to deployment suggestions to finances and more.

VA Vet Centers offer counseling (individual, women's groups, children, marital) to combat vets and their families - www.vetcenter.va.gov

The Family Readiness Center on Fort Lewis -- the big white building you can see east of the freeway near the DuPont gate.

Army Community Services (at Waller Hall on Fort Lewis) offers 'military life counselors' -- they'll talk to you about anything, and ACS has a bunch of services for spouses, including help with resumes, Army Emergency Relief loans and so on.

Army Family Team Building - AFTB - also at Waller Hall on Fort Lewis - offers classes for family members to aid in adjustment to various Army phases, from 'welcome to the Army' for newbies to 'how to teach others' for more experienced spouses. (Looks like the web site may be a little dated; in-person visit might be more productive. MG)

The Fort Lewis Craft Center is a great place to meet other spouses while doing fun things - classes are fun.

Enlisted/Officer's Spouses Clubs

The Fisher House (there's a link about scholarships).

Oh, and about a million non-profit groups out there, too numerous to list them all.

Click here for the Mother of All Links pages, including links to some or all of these groups: Operation Hero Miles, CinCHouse, Operation HomeFront, eCarePackage.org, National Military Family Association, US Army Community and Family Support Center.

Finally, K S says:

The bottom line is the recruiters are selling something that isn't helpful in the long run. The best resources you can have are FRIENDS and INFORMATION. And neither arrive by fairy godmother, and the FRG leader can only do so much. Successful families help themselves, too.

The Christian Science Monitor's Scott Peterson was along with scouts from A Troop of the 2-1 Cav on a mission that uncovered an al Qaida in Iraq hideout in a remote Diyala village. They found what appeared to be an insurgent expense report:

For the month of November, the ledger notes that AQI paid snipers 273,000 Iraqi dinars ($230). Roadside bombers got twice that amount. The largest single expense: $3,000 paid to "martyrs" and their families.

The document is topped with an obscure name for the militant cell, and signed simply: "The Management."

The fleet of Strykers getting the rubber glove treatment at Fort Lewis is, by my count, the third brigade set delivered to the Army by General Dynamics Land Systems.

3rd Brigade took the first set to Iraq in 2003, of course, and then left the trucks behind for their then-Fort Lewis comrades from the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.

Meantime, the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Alaska got the second set.

1-25 brought their "gently used" rigs back to Lewis in late 2005, where they underwent a major overhaul.

3rd Brigade, meantime, got a new set to take with them on Deployment No. 2.

Which leaves that original set still in the hands of 1-25, which has since become the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, which has since taken them back to Iraq.

=> Read more!

USA Today has a good interview with a company-level family readiness group leader, a young captain's wife at Fort Bragg.

I'm glad she was willing to tell her story. The folks who do this work deserve a lot of respect.

No telling whether anything will be settled by the time Washington's party caucuses and presidential primary roll around next month.

But if you're a civic-minded Joe or Josephine deployed to the box – or just somewhere stateside on TDY – and you want to participate in the selection of your next commander-in-chief, there are some logistical issues to consider.

Washington Democrats are going to use the Feb. 9 caucuses to decide how they'll allocate their convention delegates for president. The Feb. 19 primary, for the Ds, will be a beauty contest.

The Republicans are going to split the bill: they'll pick half their delegates via the caucuses, and half via the primary.

If you are a D, you can fill out a Caucus Surrogate Affidavit Request form and have your choice counted at the caucuses. Deadline is Feb. 1.

And of course, you can fill out a Democratic ballot and vote in the primary, even though there's really nothing more than spin on the line.

If you are an R, you have to be present to participate in the caucuses. The party hasn't set up a mechanism for overseas or military voters to participate if they can't attend, a party spokesman said.

However, the Rs have half their delegates riding on the Feb. 19 primary, so a vote there will count for something.

To participate in the primary, voters must be registered by Saturday (Jan. 19). The counties are required to mail overseas and military ballots by the next day.

Click here for more information about military and overseas voting.

Save the dates: The Thunderbirds will headline this summer's Air Expo at McChord Air Force Base July 19-20, base officials announced this morning.

“We’re extremely pleased to have the Thunderbirds be a part of our McChord Air Expo 2008,” Maj. Doug Edwards, McChord Air Expo director, said via press release. “We plan on making this summer’s air expo an outstanding show to commemorate the history of air power and to showcase the aircraft currently engaged in the Global War on Terrorism.”

A team of airmen and a couple of the trademark red, white and blue F-16s will be in town Wednesday afternoon for an advance meeting with Air Expo planners.

This will be the first expo at McChord in three years – they used to have the big show every summer but had to back off with "optempo" being what it is.

Heavy-duty fighter jock video:

More boom-boom from Fort Lewis. The public affairs office says they'll be doing the following:
• Day and night today: demolitions, bangalore torpedos and C4.
• 6 p.m. to midnight today through Thursday: approximately 40 Howitzer rounds per night.
• Day and night Tuesday through Friday: demolitions.
• Day and night Jan. 22: demolitions.

Same alibis apply as the last time we posted on this subject.

The public affairs office recorded complaint line is 253-967-0852.

Strykernews.com has a few more links to stories that ran over the weekend about Phantom Phoenix/Iron Harvest/Raider Harvest.

Some more:

The Christian Science Monitor has one datelined from Baqouba.

The Washington Times also reports from FOB Normandy (in Muqdadiyah). One nit: It's the 38th Engineer Company, not the 38th Engineer Battalion, but the reporter is entitled to at least one mulligan after getting his bell rung in an IED strike vs the Buffalo he was riding in.

UPDATE: Times reporter Richard Tompkins writes about his encounter with the IED. (Hat tip Strykernews.com)

The Department of Defense this afternoon released the names of the six soldiers killed in the house bombing Wednesday in Sinsil, Iraq.

They were from the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment out of Vilseck, Germany – a unit previously stationed at Fort Lewis and previously known as the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment.

The soldiers:

Spc. Todd E. Davis, 22, of Raymore, Mo.
Staff Sgt. Jonathan K. Dozier, 30, of Rutherford, Tenn.
Staff Sgt. Sean M. Gaul, 29, of Reno, Nev.
Sgt. Zachary W. McBride, 20, of Bend, Ore.
Sgt. 1st Class Matthew I. Pionk, 30, of Superior, Wis.
Sgt. Christopher A. Sanders, 22, of Roswell, N.M.

Cpl. Tim Ayers, the Fort Lewis Stryker soldier charged with murder in the death of his platoon sergeant in Iraq, tells the Long Beach Press-Telegram it was an accident. Sgt. 1st Class David A. Cooper, Jr., was shot to death Sept. 5 at FOB Falcon in Baghdad.

The Press-Telegram reported in today's editions:

Reached at Fort Lewis on Thursday, Timothy Ayers said he was deeply remorseful for what had happened. He said Cooper was his friend, mentor and role model and that the two shared a sense of humor and a mutual admiration.

"I feel worse than I ever have," said Ayers, the youngest of three brothers. "I was raised not to show much emotion, but I'm shattered by this."

The incident, he said, occurred on a day when his unit was set to move to another post in northern Iraq.

Ayers recalled that the soldiers were cleaning their weapons when Cooper approached him and told him to hurry up so they could head to "chow." Ayers said he began joking around with Cooper, engaging in their usual sarcastic banter.

"I happened to pull (the gun) out," he said. "I pointed it at him to show him it was clean."

Ayers said he immediately pulled the trigger in jest - not remembering that he had reloaded the magazine just moments before.

"For some strange reason," he said, "it slipped my head."

Ayers said everyone froze. Paramedics rushed to Cooper's side, saw a hole in Cooper's arm and determined that the wound was not life-threatening.

What they couldn't see, however, was that the bullet had travelled through Cooper's arm and into his torso. It had pierced his lung, Ayers said, and become lodged in his collar bone.

Cooper died of his injuries on the way to the nearest hospital.

An Article 32 hearing is scheduled for Feb. 5, where an investigating officer will examine the evidence and recommend to Lt. Gen. Charles Jacoby whether the case should proceed to a court-martial.

Sgt. Marcus Barton, the Fort Lewis soldier we told you about in a post last month, looks to have found some relief to the subprime mortgage mess he found himself in after his return from a second tour in Iraq.

My friend Mike Barber at the Seattle P-I followed up with a story about Barton's plight, and today reports that although he's going to have to sell his home, he and his family are on their way out of the woods, thanks to the help of Barber's readers and others.

A soldier from the 4th Brigade headquarters company scans for threats on a main road in Muqdadiyah on Wednesday during Operation Raider Harvest. Photo: Spc. John Crosby/U.S. Army via The Associated Press

More coverage from the big papers, including additional details regarding the house-borne IED that claimed the lives of six U.S. soldiers and an interpreter.

As of this afternoon Fort Lewis officials said they haven't been notified that any soldiers from the post are among those killed in the blast.

It's a small relief if they aren't from here, but folks in the Fort Lewis community know all too well the shock and pain of losing so many at once.

From the LA Times:

Soldiers in Operation Raider Harvest - the Diyala River valley effort of the nationwide Operation Phantom Phoenix campaign - were clearing a village when a local Iraqi pointed out "an enemy compound," said Staff Sgt. Russell Bassett, a spokesman for the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.

"He said it was a house that Al Qaeda in Iraq was using," Bassett said. "The soldiers asked him if it was booby-trapped. He said no. They went in to clear the house and it exploded on them. It was rigged with crushed wire and multiple drums of homemade explosives."

The house, which had a "for sale" sign out front, was wired to ensure the structure collapsed, Bassett said. The bomb did not explode until the soldiers were well inside, he said.

Military intelligence officers said they did not know what ties the Iraqi might have to Al Qaeda -- whether he was an innocent villager forced to show them the home or if he was an insurgent intentionally luring the soldiers.

"I don't know why he did it," Bassett said, adding that the man did not enter the home. The man has been detained.

The Washington Post and The New York Times also have updates.

McChord Air Force Base is conducting a security exercise today through Saturday that will make it a little tougher to get on base and may cause some traffic congestion in the area.

Said a McChord press release:

Roads surrounding McChord may also become congested as various security measures are tested. Base officials are advising people to expect delays throughout the exercise and to be patient with base personnel. Movement throughout the base will be difficult during the exercise as simulated emergencies will snarl traffic.

Folks who live nearby may also hear chatter on the base's "Giant Voice" public address system.

All security threats announced on the Giant Voice will begin and end with the phrase “exercise, exercise, exercise.”

U.S. Rep. Adam Smith is in the Philippines to observe U.S. military special operations forces training with their Filipino counterparts, or so reports the Manila Times. The Tacoma Democrat is there in his capacity as chairman of the terrorism, unconventional threats and capabilities subcommittee of the House Armed Services Commmittee.

Don't have anything confirming this but these exercises have traditionally been the province of the 1st Special Forces Group out of Fort Lewis.

A Smith spokesman told me:

He’s visiting special operations forces to get a better sense of SOCOM’s indirect work to prevent terrorism. He’s made several trips to Iraq and Afghanistan to see our forces at work in the roles they’re being forced to play; the idea is to get a sense of what the forces do by design vs. the role we’ve made them play in those two conflicts.

No telling if he'll get sucked into the local controversy over U.S. troops' alleged forced nighttime closure of a local hospital in Sulu. The U.S. Embassy says it didn't happen; the Philippine military is investigating, and the Philippine media is hot on the story.

All the news services are running stories about the new joint estimate by the World Health Organization and the Iraqi government that put the number of Iraqi civilians and combatants killed in the war at 151,000. The study is posted here at the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Associated Press version wasn't going out on a limb when in its lede it said the latest effort "... still may not settle the fierce debate over the war's true toll on civilians and others."

The main source of that debate was the study published October 2006 in the journal Lancet that put civilian deaths at more than 650,000.

Now the National Journal is out with a comprehensive analysis of that 2006 study, which I think provides some useful insight into understanding the latest numbers in the WHO/Iraq study.

Hat tip: Danger Room.

UPDATE: Changed the headline on this post to reflect the fact that the studies are an attempt to calculate the number of all Iraqis killed in war-related violence – civilians, Iraqi security forces and insurgents alike.

Looks like the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division is participating in full in the latest offensive, dubbed Operation Phantom Phoenix.

The Long War Journal has a piece, and it appears The LA Times' intrepid Alexandra Zavis is out with the Strykers from the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. (Readers will recall her strong coverage from Baqouba during Operation Arrowhead Ripper. I'd give you a link, but the LA Times stories expire after a while. Here's what the Columbia Journalism Review had to report on her work and others'.)

Will post more on this as we find it.

UPDATE: We pulled material from the Zavis story, and from reports by The Washington Post and The New York Times to pull together the story we ran today. Looks like the Post and the Times are with the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment (that's the old Deuce Four from the 1-25 days).

The 4-2 piece of Phantom Phoenix, in the Diyala Bread Basket, is called Raider Harvest. The headquarters for northern Iraq is also calling its op Iron Harvest. That is because the Multi-National Division-North is being led by the 1st Armored Division ("Old Ironsides"), whose commander is Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling (who was the last pre-Stryker commander of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, BTW). Raider Harvest, of course, comes from the 4th Brigade's nickname, the Raider Brigade.

As for where they got Phantom Phoenix, I can't help you there.

We'll post more updates as we find them.

It must be the Christmas arrival of Guitar Hero III, or something, but at FOB Tacoma we find ourselves particularly inspired by the Usual Suspect's latest post, entited simply, The Rock.

(My editors would probably appreciate me adding that there's cussing and other blunt soldier talk at that site, just in case you're concerned about that kind of thing.)

Strykernews.com has a good collection of links covering the death of Maj. Andrew Olmstead, one of the best of the milbloggers whose work also appeared in the Rocky Mountain News in Denver.

Olmstead was killed Thursday when his unit was ambushed in Sadiyah.

Also killed in the attack was another member of his MiTT team, former Fort Lewis trooper Capt. Tom Casey.

Casey, 32, went to Iraq with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division on its first deployment in 2003-04, serving with the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment. Some of his old Fort Lewis friends are among those who passed along their condolences in the comments section of the KOB story above, including:

Tom will be greatly missed... He was a great man and loved his family very much. We were looking forward to having them in Hawaii when he got back from his tour. Our prayers go out to Leslie and the rest of the Casey family... A hui hou my friend until we meet again, The Clemens Ohana

News Monday of Pfc. Jason Lemke's death in Iraq broke up what had been a welcome quiet spell for the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. The brigade had gone 48 days since its last fatal casualties, the Nov. 18 bombing in Baqouba that claimed the lives of Cpls. Christopher Nelson and Jason Lee and Pfc. Marius Ferrero.

A Fort Lewis MP, Sgt. Blair Emery, 24, was killed Nov. 30, also in Baqouba – the last of the post's 87 soldiers killed in Iraq in 2007.

Eighty-seven in 2007 is one fewer than the post lost in the previous three years of the war, combined. Fort Lewis had more soldiers in Iraq in 2007 than at any other time in the war.

According to the military press releases, Lemke was killed in Ibrahim Al Adham, a village I'd not previously heard of. It looks to be a farming town on the Diyala River between Baqouba and Muqdadiyah.

A Fort Lewis release included information about his service record but not much else. More to come elsewhere.

UPDATE: The Associated Press out of Wisconsin has more today about Pfc. Lemke.

Col. Jeffrey L. Stephenson will take over from Col. Jerry Martinez later this month as commander at the 62nd Airlift Wing and McChord Air Force Base, officials confirmed Monday. Change of command is set for Jan. 23.

Stephenson	Martinez

Stephenson is the vice commander at the 15th Airlift Wing at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

He spent a couple years in 2003-05 as the U.S. Transportation Command liaison to U.S. Forces Korea at Yongsan, which may serve him well in explaining to his new charges what it's like to live and work on a U.S. Army installation. (Sooner or later, the BRAC-mandated merger of Fort Lewis and McChord will have to go through, no?)

Martinez, here since March 2006, is moving on to become executive officer to the Air Mobility Command boss, Gen. Arthur J. Lichte, at Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

Haven't heard yet whether Martinez will follow in the succession of former McChord bosses to pin on stars. That streak now stands at 12 in a row, at least. They are:

=> Read more!

Based solely on anecdotal evidence – phone calls, blurbs in the papers, etc. – it occurs to me that people are more sensitive lately to the sounds of military training coming from Fort Lewis.

So heads up: More late night firing on the way at Lewis, the post says via press release this afternoon.

Specifically, they'll be firing mortars day and night Jan. 7-11. It will look kind of like this, but hopefully not this or this.

They'll be setting off demolitions day and night Jan. 7-10.

And they'll be shooting howitzers from 6 p.m. to midnight Jan. 9-11 (although they say it'll be only about 20 rounds per night).

=> Read more!