Tuesday night's Frontline, "Bad Voodoo's War," on PBS, features a former 3rd Brigade soldier, Sgt. 1st Class Toby Nunn. He is a first-tour Arrowhead vet who is now back in Iraq with a California National Guard unit. (That's him on the link.)

One of his former soldiers told me, "He's a great friend and probably the best NCO that I worked with during my 5.5 years in the Army."

Nunn also wrote a book, "Northern Disclosure," which I regret to say I haven't read yet. More about him here.

(Hat tip: Strykernews.com)

Catching up, a new deputy commanding general for Fort Lewis was among the general officer announcements by the Pentagon earlier this week.

To wit:

Col. Peter C. Bayer Jr., who has been selected to promoted to brigadier general, deputy commander/assistant commandant, U.S. Army Armor Center and Fort Knox, Fort Knox, Ky., to chief of staff, I Corps and Fort Lewis, Fort Lewis, Wash.

Bayer – bio here – was the G3 at 3rd ID for the opening of the Iraq war and later commanded the 11th ACR from Fort Irwin on its tour in northern Iraq in 2004-05.

Fort Lewis old-timers will recall that was back when a certain fixation with, er, decorum, descended on FOB Courage in Mosul. Assuming the nomination passes muster in the Senate, all you Joes would do well to ensure you're dress right dress when the new DCG shows up.

UPDATE: By way of correction of the above headline, technically Bayer will not be the Fort Lewis No. 2. That would be the deputy commanding general to be named later.

Combat artist Patrick Haskett painted this great piece depicting the 14th Engineer Battalion's demolition of a hotel in downtown Tikrit in 2003.

Fort Lewis' 14th Engineer Battalion is heading back to Iraq for the third time. Deployment ceremony is this afternoon at North Fort.

They were there at the beginning, and again from November 2005 to October 2006.

More from the ceremony this afternoon.

UPDATE: Here's the story I'm sending to my editor in a second.

One of the Army’s most decorated engineer units is on its way back to Iraq for a third tour.

The 14th Combat Engineer Battalion shivvered through a deployment ceremony Thursday at Fort Lewis. In a couple weeks the 500-plus soldiers will board planes for the Middle East, and soon after that they’ll be crossing north from Kuwait to forward operating bases in Kirkuk and Tikrit, officials said.

“Most of the soldiers here will only dream about cool weather like this in July,” said their commander, Lt. Col. Pete Helmlinger, as his braced in formation against the chill made worse by a biting wind.

=> Read more!

Another murder trial is nearing its conclusion at Fort Lewis, this time, in the case of an Army sergeant accused of killing another soldier's wife two years ago in her home on post.

Attorneys expect to make their closing arguments as soon tomorrow morning in the court-martial of Sgt. Godfrey J. Hurley, accused of premeditated murder in the March 11, 2006 slaying of Lisa Nossett.

Nossett, 28, was found dead in her home in the post's Old Hillside housing area. She lived there with her two daughters while her husband, Staff Sgt. Christopher Nossett, was serving an unaccompanied tour in South Korea.

Lawyers were making slow progress Tuesday in a court-martial that began March 17 before an Army judge, Lt. Col. John Head. An eight-member panel that includes two colonels is hearing the case.

Hurley, 40, faces life imprisonment if he is convicted. The 16-year Army veteran is assigned to the 62nd Chemical Company and has been stationed at Fort Lewis since December 2002.

There has been a steady succession of murder cases at Fort Lewis the past two years:

=> Read more!

Staff Sgt. William Rose and Brett Moore finally got their medals Monday four years after their heroic actions outside Samarra. They saved five other guys from a Stryker that wound up upside down in nine feet of water near Samarra.

You can read the Army narrative to go along with the awards here for Rose and here for Moore.

As I mentioned in my story in Tuesday's paper, they not only saved lives, they probably saved their commanders and the Army from a considerable amount of heat. With the brigade already reeling from the loss of three soldiers in Strykers that fell into a canal eight days earlier, it is hard to figure what might have happened had they lost more soldiers in this second accident.

As it was, their company commander was relieved. Had there been more losses it's not out of the question to wonder if the battalion commander might've had to go as well. And it wouldn't have made the road any easier for the as-yet unproven Stryker vehicles.

We ran the New York Times story Friday about the death benefit that is paid to spouses and relatives of U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan and Iraq -- a very difficult subject. (NYT version here.)

One reader in Yelm sent an anonymous letter to our editor that I think might reflect how others felt about the story. Our letters folks don't run anonymous letters but they forwarded it to me:

Concerning "They coped with a loss - and then with a gain", this article upset me very much!

The article gives the impression that once our spouse is killed serving our country, we win the lottery! It does NOT however tell of all the hardships we face, i.e. ... the minute our spouse dies, so does our world as we know/knew it. There is no longer the income, it is stopped immediately, so the next house payment, next electric bill, next anything is left for us to try and
come up with, THAT is the reason for the first allotment, without it, we would lose everything else. Second, the life insurance policy is paid for
out of the military members check monthly! It is not free!

It hurt my heart to see this article printed the way it was worded. I don't believe it is anyone's business to know how much money is allotted to the fallen soldier's family. I don't appreciate the overall impression the
article gives. I would gladly give up every penny to know that my spouse will be walking through the door once his duty to our country is complete!

The Pentagon on Friday announced that Maj. Gen. Frank Helmick has been nominated to succeed Lt. Gen. Jim Dubik as commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq. That's the effort to train and equip Iraq's security forces.

No word on the timing; the guess here is that it will be a bit before Helmick's promotion to lieutenant general and nomination are confirmed in the Senate, and then he'll go over and shadow Dubik for a while to learn the job. (Dubik's nomination was announced in January 2007, and he started work in Iraq in May.)

Helmick is a former assistant division commander in the 101st Airborne Division under then-Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, and served in Mosul in 2003-04.

No word either on what Dubik, who left command at Fort Lewis and I Corps for the Iraq job, will do next. He was asked how long he'd be in the MNSTC-I job when he spoke with local reporters in a VTC March 13.

"The agreement is that I stay here as long as they need me, or the Army has another job for me," Dubik said.

He said there are three options: the Army could leave him in the current post, the Army could assign him to a new job, or the Army could not offer another job and he could begin his life in the civilian world.

"I came here thinking it would be 18-to-24 months, and my mind still there. ... We'll see."

UPDATE: Got a response from Dubik, via Lt. Col. Dan Williams, the MNSTC-I PAO:

"As we all know the Senate must approve the nomination before any dates are set or moves are made. Once the legislative approval has been made then it could be at any time. MG Helmick is serving in a tough
assignment at SETAF in Italy, he's an experienced leader, and I expect, if his nomination is approved, he'll do well in this assignment.

"As for what happens to me next, no final decisions are made. But, for now I have my hands full with this assignment; my focus is doing my part in the contintued growth and development of the Iraqi Security Forces -- military and police. They have made huge steps forward in size and quality, we've begun to develop their enablers, we've increased their leader content -- officer and NCO, and we all want that momentum to continue."

The mobilization order that they've been waiting for has come for the Washington National Guard's 81st Brigade Combat Team, the Guard announced Wednesday.

No surprises. The mobilization follows the alert order the brigade got last October. The 81st will go on active-duty in mid-August, do its pre-deployment training at Fort McCoy, Wis., and then head to Kuwait and on into Iraq.

The DoD's current policy for mobilization of National Guard and reserve units will have them on no more than 12 months active duty, from the time they're mobilized to the time they come home and are released back to civilian life.

Guard officials say they can't be specific about the brigade's mission but in general it will be as previously announced: route and base security, and base operations. They'll take all their individual equipment, and fall in on vehicles in Iraq, the Guard said.

The brigade includes about 2,900 Washington Guardsmen and another 900 or so from California.

Its first deployment was from March 2004 to March 2005.

Joe Barrentine, our multimedia producer, put together a slide show of photos by our guys and some from the wire services to go with our anniversary package.

A friend passes along this piece from Sunday's Washington Post, written by a captain at Fort Lewis.

I know a lot of guys in this fellow’s situation. We are asking a lot of them. I can also understand, though, why the Army would want to hold off on making the “pause” available until after a guy has spent his time in command. It’s such a crucible, and in my 20+ years of covering the news I have yet to find a position that places as much responsibility on the shoulders of people in their late 20s/early 30s, rising in their profession.

I wanted to post an unedited version of the Iraq war timeline that I put together for our fifth anniversary coverage in Wednesday's paper. Newshole being what it is, only so much of it got in.

I apologize that the entries are not sprinkled with links; had I thought of this sooner, I'd have done that.

• January 2003: The buildup begins. About 1,200 soldiers from Fort Lewis get the word they are bound for the Middle East. Hundreds more National Guard and reservists also begin mobilizing to deploy, or replace soon-to-be deployed service members at Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base. A Coast Guard port security unit from Tacoma is also called up for duty in the Persian Gulf.

• Early February: The Army loads the 62nd Medical Brigade and the 555th Engineer Brigade's trucks, Humvees and helicopters aboard cargo ships at the Port of Tacoma. No protesters are there – that will change with later load-outs and returns.

• Early March: While some troops wait at Fort Lewis, others get the word to go quick, including the truckdrivers of the 513th Transportation Company and the combat engineers of the 864th Engineer Battalion. The 47th Combat Support Hospital opens in Kuwait. The 40th Transportation Company arrives to haul gas for the invasion forces.

• March 19: The war begins. Units from the 864th break the berm at the Iraq-Kuwait border to make way for the 3rd Infantry Division's lead elements.

=> Read more!

Thanks to all the folks who responded to our invitation. We had intended to run some of them in the paper, but someone *cough, cough* couldn't keep his Iraq war timeline to a manageable length, and we ran out of room.

Ah, but that's old school. We got the web. So here are those others who sent me their thoughts via e-mail. Thank you all for sharing.

A mother’s nightmare. This is how I describe my son’s two deployments to Iraq. I do not like to watch the news, because it upsets me so much.
When I wake in the morning the first thing I do is turn on the computer to see if he has e-mailed, even if it’s a forward, just to know that he is safe. Then I can go on with my day.
I go to Mass every Sunday, and I light candles for my son. Have a few priests that I know keeping him in their prayers, hoping they have more of an influence than me.
I know that this is what he wants to do, and it’s his job, but I will not rest until he is stateside.
Every month since he has been in Iraq, a few family members and his sisters and I make up a love package and we take turns sending it to him, to share with his fellow soldiers. He is never forgotten. At Christmas, each item was individually gift-wrapped.
His picture was made into an ornament and hung in our county courthouse on a special tree made for the soldiers.
Soon my prayers will be answered and he will be back at Fort Lewis, where he is stationed.
I even quit smoking in August, so I can see him retire from the military.
I cry alot, but there are so many other mothers, who have lost their children at war, so I am not alone. I try not to cry when my son calls me, but it’s so hard. I do cry after we hang up. If I miss a call from him I feel terrible. His messages are still on the answering machine, and I play them once in a while just to hear his voice.
How has the war affected me, you ask? It has taken a piece of my heart. I want my son to come home. It’s been a long 18 months!
Thanks for listening!
Harriet Schaeffer, Pottsville, Pa.
mother of CWO4 Bernard Milyo, Jr., FOB Warhorse, Iraq.

=> Read more!

I'm on Reader Rep duty this week so won't be posting much, unless things slow down (%@*!*&# TV listings!!!).

Anyway, if you were stuck in that lockdown Saturday afternoon at McChord Air Force Base, here's what happened:

Sometime after 1 p.m. a Pierce Transit bus came to the main gate on a regular run. Nobody on board but the driver. Routine security check, unattended backpack. Eeek! Shut down the gate. Call the bomb squad to check it out. Bag removed safely, negative findings, gate reopened by about 2:30 p.m. "You can never be too sure with these things," said Master Sgt. Alvin Louther of the public affairs office.

Which stands to reason, given the anniversary coming up Wednesday.

Iraq Veterans Against the War is holding its Winter Soldiers event through the weekend in Silver Spring, Md. You can follow the statements on a live blog or watch and/or listen via streaming video or audio or by satellite broadcast. Details here. There's a viewing party 7-9 pm today at 808 N. Union Ave. in Tacoma.

Meantime, you all have probably seen the back-and-forth in the blogosphere about what is supposed to be a demonstration Saturday afternoon at the military recruiting station near the Tacoma Mall. Service members from across the area have advised to stay away – if you're looking for front row parking, this may be your day. One anonymous organizer tells me via e-mail they aren't looking for trouble and aren't against the people in the military. Tacoma PD spokesman says he hopes that's the case.

Meantime, next Saturday, March 22, a collection of groups opposed to the war in Iraq will hold a “GI Rights Rally” noon to 4:30 p.m. at Harry Todd Park, 8720 North Thorne Lane S.W. Organizers said they’re staging the event to make military service members aware of their free-speech rights and resources for counseling and separating from the military.

Groups sponsoring the event include the Seattle IVAW chapter, GI Voice, the Tacoma chapter of Veterans for Peace, Military Families Speak Out – Oregon, the Olympia Movement for Justice & Peace, the Peace Action Coalition Tacoma, the Tacoma Fellowship of Reconciliation, Tacoma Students for a Democratic Society and United for Peace of Pierce County.

UPDATE: Operation Support Our Troops is planning a rally at Freedom Bridge, also Saturday, from 1-4 p.m. That's at Exit 122 at Interstate 5.

With the Iraq war's fifth anniversary coming up next Wednesday, we're putting together local material to go with a package of wire-service stories to mark the milestone.

It's been a time of great anxiety and change for service members and their families at Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base, at the Washington National Guard, and for anyone else who has had someone they care about in harm's way.

We'd like to invite readers to share their stories about the anniversary. How has the Iraq war changed your life?

Feel free to post in the comments here, or send e-mail to me at mike.gilbert@thenewstribune.com. We're also looking for posts to publish in the newspaper; for those, the deadline is Friday, and we'd ask that you limit your responses to 300 words.

UPDATE: Thank you for the e-mails and comments so far. One note: If you would like to have your responses considered for publication in the newspaper, please send me your contact information so we can get in touch with you for any questions, clarifications, etc. Thanks. MG

Spotted this alma mater on the back of a proud alumnus' SUV out at Fort Lewis this past weekend. Lt. Col. William Palmer of the Washington National Guard developed an attachment to the place when he was there with an armor task force for the January 2005 elections.

Paige Richmond of the Peninsula Gateway tells the story today of Ezra and Elijah Suko of Gig Harbor, brothers who've decided to join the Army to honor their sister Hannah's late husband, Gabriel DeRoo.

DeRoo, a sergeant with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, was killed Aug. 20, 2006, in Mosul. He was the first to be lost in the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division's second deployment to Iraq.

Ezra, 26, said he and Elijah, 19, were inspired by DeRoo in life, and in death.

From the story: “The way he lived … he was an inspiration to us; definitely an inspiration,” Ezra Suko said. “I never thought of going in to the military before (his death).”

An Army Reserve officer from Federal Way is the first U.S. military officer to attend Vietnam's National Defense Academy, reserve officials said Wednesday.

Lt. Col. John Sutherland, a Foreign Area Officer assigned to the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii, began the three-month course in Hanoi on March 4. He is writing a blog about his experiences there. In his civilian job he is a security consultant with the Boeing Corp.

The course focuses on Vietnamese history, culture, politics, economy and its military and international security issues, according to a press release from the Army Reserve's 70th Regional Readiness Command at Fort Lawton in Seattle.

Sutherland has been working on U.S.-Vietnam issues at PACOM for the past eight years but his interest in the nation goes back farther than that, and has personal roots.

“I started studying Vietnamese on my own when I was 19,” Sutherland said in the press release. “I met my future wife (Mary) in college in Seattle. Since she was a recent immigrant from Vietnam, I wanted to learn her language. She was a refugee and a boat person who left Vietnam in 1979. Knowing her and her family gave me a great love for the people of Vietnam and an appreciation for the culture.”

He studied Vietnamese at the Defense Language Institute in Monterrey and attended a civilian graduate fellowship in Saigon in 1994, according to the release.

The Vietnam defense ministry program appears to be similar to numerous exchanges that the U.S. military has with officers from other countries, who attend seminars and other academic programs at the military's various academic institutions, such as the Army War College. Sutherland has classmates from Indonesia, Namibia, Sudan, Pakistan, Malaysia, New Zealand, India, France, Thailand, Singapore, Algeria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, and Indonesia, according to the press release.

This one is from Popular Mechanics. Pretty sure he got the rank wrong with platoon sergeant Scott Collum -- that should be Sgt. 1st Class, not Spc., no? -- but the gist is that soldiers are finding the MGS to be a useful weapon in Iraq.

The Kiowa pilots of the 4th Squadron, 6th U.S. Cavalry out of Fort Lewis are featured in Michael Yon's latest long dispatch out of Iraq. He reports that the fliers are fond of Guitar Hero III.

They dominate the skies above Mosul – and rock "Through the Fire and Flames" for five stars, on expert, natch.

Military.com has a great slide show up today of the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment Manchus working in Baqouba. They could've used a little help with some of the Fort Lewis soldiers' names – they got Capt. Timothy Leone, but they're missing a few others.

At any rate, a good look at the "Old Baqouba" area. Note the bullet holes in some of the buildings, especially in picture no. 6.

Posting my story for Monday here about the change of command Sunday afternoon at Camp Murray.

As a kid, Ron Kapral was a big fan of the 1960s TV series “12 O’Clock High,” and dreamed of one day being like Brig. Gen. Frank Savage, coolly piloting his battered B-17 past the White Cliffs of Dover after a daring mission deep over enemy territory.

His eyesight ruled out flying, so he’s had to pursue his successful military career on the ground.

And on Sunday, the Washington National Guard installed Col. Ronald M. Kapral – bio here – as the man who will lead 3,400 state troops back to Iraq this fall.

The 54-year-old Graham resident told well-wishers at a ceremony Sunday at Camp Murray about his reaction upon learning that he’d been selected to command the 81st Brigade Combat Team.

“It was a great honor,” Kapral said, “but then I’m thinking, ‘God, what am I going to tell my wife?’”

=> Read more!

There's an excellent study of the military's death penalty law and procedure in the fall 2006 of Military Law Review – "Killing Time: Two Decades of Military Capital Litigation" by Marine Corps Reserve Col. Dwight H. Sullivan.

(We looked into this back when Lt. Gen. Jim Dubik was considering whether to pursue the death penalty for Spc. Jamaal Lewis, accused in the Labor Day 2005 shootings deaths of a man and woman in the Schooner Pub parking lot in Lakewood. Dubik originally opted to go for capital punishment, then changed his mind. Lewis was ultimately convicted of killing Pfc. Jason Jowers and Crystal Hurley-McDowell and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.)

Anyway, some telling findings in Sullivan's analysis.

There have been 47 capital cases in the military court system since 1984, when the military death penalty was reinstated by executive order by President Reagan.

Of those, 15 of the accused were convicted and sentenced to death.

In two of those 15 cases, the convening authority commuted the sentence to life in prison.

Of the remaining 13, seven have been reversed on appeal by the relevant service's appelate court or the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. (That includes the case of Sgt. William Kreutzer, who in October 1995 opened fire from the woodline at Fort Bragg, N.C., as 1,300 soldiers assembled for a division run. He killed one and wounded 17.)

That leaves six. Four are pending on appeal.

And two of the death sentences have made it all the way through the U.S. Supreme Court – one in 1996, the other in 2001 – and have since been sent to the president, who works sort of like a governor in the military death penalty system.

The White House has not moved on either case. Should the president decide to proceed with either execution, the soldier (they're both soldiers) would have one more run at habeas corpus petitions in the federal appellate system.

In other words, says Sullivan, neither man faces execution any time soon.

So to sum up: In 24 years, 47 death-penalty courts-martial in the military. Fifteen death sentences. Zero executions.

The USS Abraham Lincoln and two other Everett-based Navy ships are on their way to the box March 13 for a global war on terrorism rotation, the Navy said this afternoon.

They could be in for a little extra action if their path takes them anywhere near the Russian air force.

Anyway, the Lincoln, the USS Momsen and the USS Shoup pull out next week and will head to San Diego to link up with the other ships of the Lincoln Strike Group, the Navy said in a press release.

Other Puget Sound Naval units with the task force include Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 131 from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

Click here to read a redacted version of the charges the Army filed today against Spc. Ivette Davila.

In a nutshell: two counts premeditated murder, one count burglary, one count kidnapping, one count attempting to impede an investigation by destroying evidence. Innocent until proven guilty. Max punishment: life in prison. Death penalty a possibility, but no decision on that yet.

The memorial ceremony for Spc. Kevin Mowl will be held March 14 at the new chapel at North Fort Lewis. Time to be announced.

Note: That is a Friday. Fort Lewis typically holds its memorial ceremonies on Wednesdays but in this case the change is to accommodate senior post officers who are returning next week from an exercise in South Korea.

Anybody who has surfed their MySpace pages can see that The People v. Spc. Ivette Davila has all the makings of a media circus. And just because the case will now proceed in the military's court system doesn't mean a full-on three-ringer is any less likely to occur.

But press – and public – access to the case will be somewhat diminished as it proceeds at Fort Lewis from what it would have been had it gone ahead in Pierce County Superior Court.

These are only observations from someone who has covered a few high-profile cases in civilian and military courts. Make of them what you will.

• In the military system, there are generally fewer sessions in open court. As a civilian you have to get permission to get onto the military installation and to be present in the court.

• In the military system, the prosecutors and the cops pretty much don't talk to the press. You may get a prosecutor to say hello to you in the hallway during a break, say, as your Army escort accompanies you to the latrine.

But for anything else you have to go through the installation's public affairs office.

• In the military system, reporters and the public have virtually no access to the paper records that accumulate over the course of a case.

In the civilian side you can often read returns from search warrants, or the defense and prosecution arguments over the pre-trial motions, and other important documents.

Not so in the military system. You can sit in open court and if, say, they project a particular document up on a screen in the courtroom, you can scribble furiously to get as much of it as you can. But that's it. You can't have a copy afterward, even though the document is entered as evidence in a public trial.

Actually, I've overstated it a little bit: You can read the case file – years after the fact. The file is open for public inspection only after final action in a case, according to Army lawyers at Fort Lewis. That means once all the appeals have been exhausted and the whole matter is put to bed.

And you have to go to the Army's Legal Services Agency in Virginia to do the reading.

"Our mission is to seek justice for the victims but it is also to protect the rights of the accused to a fair trial," said Fort Lewis spokeswoman Catherine Caruso. "We are as transparent as we can be in making information available to the public and the press while also protecting the rights of the accused."

I will leave it to people smarter than me to argue whether these practical restrictions on public access to courts-martial affect the quality of the end product – justice for the victims and fairness for the accused. But they do make it a lot harder to report accurately and in depth on these activities of government.

Brig. Gen. Tony Thomas, No. 2 in charge of coalition forces in northern Iraq, briefed Pentagon reporters Monday. Transcript here.

An excerpt:

Q General, Jeff Schogol with Stars and Stripes. Can you talk about how much of Mosul is under coalition control and how much remains to be cleared?

GEN. THOMAS: That's really hard to quantify. For instance, we can go anywhere we want to in Mosul. Some areas are more hostile than others. What we're doing now -- and it's the huge difference -- is, during my first month or two there, we did not have sufficient forces to hold the city and even -- other than various outposts that the Iraqi police and army were stationed in. We've been much more aggressive over the last couple months in establishing both joint security sites and combat outposts, literally in the heart of the enemy sanctuary, denying them the opportunity to seed it with IEDs overnight and take up firing positions, and literally taking the fight to the enemy.

So again, we can go anywhere we want to in Mosul, some areas, and we're now forcing the enemy, boxing them in, if you will, into areas, that they otherwise had free play in the city. So we've seized the initiative, and we're slowly but surely eliminating their toehold in the city.

So I don't know if that answers your question, but the bottom line is I'm very comfortable that we have the upper hand and the initiative in the city right now, and it continues to get better every day, in conjunction with the Iraqi security forces.

There was a little more, but quite a bit of breakup due to sandstorm interfering with the sat feed.

When last we heard from Maj. Gen. Bob Allardice, the former McChord Air Force Base wing king, he was home on leave from Iraq, where he was leading the effort to rebuild the Iraqi air force.

The Air Force announced Monday that he's moving on to a new gig, this time as director of strategy, plans and policy – the J-5 – at U.S. Central Command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.