DoD public affairs types put up a story yesterday about the I Corps leadership's mid-April trip to check out the lay of the land in Iraq.

From the release:

Lt. Gen. Charles Jacoby, commanding general, I Corps and Fort Lewis, Wash., toured training sites, detainee facilities and talked with leadership on the ground to help shape the corps’ situational awareness. I Corps will assume authority Multi-National Corps - Iraq in Spring 2009.

... (The) battlefield circulation is one of four potential trips to the MNC-I area of operations for the I Corps command group leading up to the transition of authority with XVIII Airborne Corps next year.

The South Jersey Courier-Post, via Strykernews.com has a nice feature today on Lt. Col. Kenneth Evans, commander of 4th Brigade's 202nd Brigade Support Battalion.

Via the Fort Riley public affairs office, the family of Cpl. Durrell Bennett passes along its gratitude to all who supported them following the Spanaway soldier's death March 29 in Baghdad. More here.

Bennett, a Bethel High School graduate, was killed in an ambush while serving with the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment from Fort Riley.

In a statement, the family said it wanted "to extend special thanks to everyone for touching our hearts during the grieving process. ... Your thoughtfulness meant so much during our time of grief. We want you to know your kindness means a lot."

In particular, the family thanked By His Word Christian Center, Allen A.M.E. Methodist Church, the Department of Social and Health Services in Puyallup, the Department of Corrections in Gig Harbor, the Bethel School District, the American Red Cross, the American Legion, and other local, state and federal government agencies that helped them.

Secretary of the Army Pete Geren and a host of other high mucky-mucks will be in Lakewood Friday (that's May 2) to sign the "Army Community Covenant."

The event will be at 2 p.m. at Lakewood’s Sharon M. McGavick Student Center at Clover Park Technical College.

A City of Lakewood press release says the local signing will be "just the second community covenant event in the nation." Looks to us like they've done one in Columbus, Ga., home of Fort Benning, and New York state lawmakers in Albany did one for West Point. But we quibble; second or third or umpteenth, it's a gesture of the civilian community's connection to the military community at Fort Lewis.

The press release says:

"Puget Sound shares a common bond with other military communities nationwide as a home-away-from-home for Soldiers and their Families. Our dynamic community-military partnerships make us unique from other communities as our local military installations are surrounded by more than 10 municipal jurisdictions. The purpose of signing the U.S. Army Community Covenant is to formally recognize the strength of the relationship between our Soldiers, their families, and our extended communities."

Heads up if you were planning to sleep in over there in DuPont on Friday morning.

The 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division Strykers will be having a brigade run – builds fitness, esprit de corps, etc., etc., etc.

Beginning at about 6:50 a.m., a salute battery of 75mm pack howitzers will fire a round as each of the brigade's battalions jogs past the I Corps headquarters building. They'll fire eight times – once for each of the seven battalions, and once for the brigade colors.

Per a Fort Lewis press release:

Queries or comments about noise may be directed to the I Corps Public Affairs Office’s External Communication Division hot line at 253-967-0852, daily.

That said, a post spokesman says the 75mm guns don't make that much noise.

"They fire it once every morning for reveille" – that's 0630 – "and nobody ever complains," he said.

Dana Millbank of the Washington Post on the Arlington National Cemetery funeral of Marine Corps Lt. Col. William Hall of Seattle.

If the family gave its permission to allow reporters and photographers to cover their farewell to their loved one, why interfere? It is a story that needs to be told.

Brig. Gen. John D. Johnson has been assigned to become the deputy commanding general at I Corps and Fort Lewis, according to a General Officer Management Office list released earlier this week. The assignment hasn't yet been made public by the Department of Defense, so we're waiting on that.

Johnson is currently assigned as deputy commanding general at the Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command in Alexandria, Va.

He commanded a brigade in the 1st Armor Division in Iraq and was assistant division commander for maneuver in the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea until last summer.

More TK.

The post office in Cleveland, Ga., will be named after Army Sgt. Jason Harkins, who was killed in Iraq last March, the Gainesville (Ga.) Times reports.

The paper said the Senate passed a name-change bill Wednesday and now it's on its way to President Bush for his signature.

Harkins, 25, was one of six soldiers killed May 6 in Baqoubah when a deep-buried bomb exploded beneath their Stryker. They were with the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment from Fort Lewis' 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

I would imagine by now there are probably several other examples of streets, buildings and other places that have been named after Fort Lewis soldiers to be killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would be good to compile a list; your help is welcome here.

UPDATE: Gale Poindexter of Tulsa, Okla., reports her son Joel Lewis's hometown of Barrie, Ontario, has named a one-kilometer stretch of the Trans Canada Trail in his memory. Lewis, 28, died May 6, 2007, in Baqouba.

They're having a tournament and resource fair May 9 at the American Lake Veterans Golf Course for Fort Lewis' Warrior Transition Battalion.

The course on the grounds of the American Lake Veterans Hospital has been redone to accommodate people with disabilities. It's a volunteer operation and a labor of love for some great people in the local veterans and golf communities.

The resource fair will feature information about employment opportunities and other services for returning veterans and their families.

The events run 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

We've told you before about Brian Turner and his collection of poems, "Here, Bullet," which describe his experiences in Iraq with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division in 2003-04.

He answered Washington Post readers' questions in an online forum today on the paper's web site.

Army Capt. Joe Kobes of Sumner came up short of the $1 million prize on NBC's "Deal or No Deal" tonight.

With a good spin of the "deal wheel" he tripled the $26,000 he won in the regular game to walk out with $78,000. Not too far off a year's pay, including housing allowance, and nothing to sneeze at.

But clearly Kobes used up a lot of his really, really good luck where maybe he needed it more – making it through three trips to Iraq.

None, maybe, to a letter carrier.

From Wikipedia:

Sleet may refer to:
* A mixture of snow and rain (particularly in countries where British English is spoken)
* Ice pellets (mainly within the United States and Canada)

And then:

Hail is a form of precipitation which consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice (hailstones). Hailstones on Earth usually consist mostly of water ice and measure between 5 and 50 millimeters in diameter, with the larger stones coming from severe thunderstorms.[1] Hail is only produced by cumulonimbi (thunderclouds), usually at the front of the storm system, and is composed of transparent ice or alternating layers of transparent and translucent ice at least 1 mm thick. Small hailstones are less than 5 mm in diameter, and are reported as SHGS. Unlike ice pellets, they are layered and can be irregular and clumped together.

Either way, it's the 21st of flippin' April, and I'm sick of this $*^#!

Soldier-turned-businessman Logan D. Coffey was killed in a crash Sunday in Lakewood when his Ferrari collided with a transit shuttle bus.

Coffey's Tactical Tailor shop has been the first choice for Fort Lewis soldiers looking for specialized gear for use in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I think that's because he really took their interests to heart," said Gary Brackett, manager of business and trade development at the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce. "He wasn't just trying to sell his products to them, but he was trying to make a product that they wanted, that met their needs."

"It's a sad loss for our community," Brackett said.

Command Sgt. Maj. Frank Grippe, the senior enlisted soldier at Fort Lewis and I Corps, said he stopped by Coffey's shop on Pacific Highway South before a recent trip to visit Fort Lewis units in Iraq.

He said Coffey and his team are well known and appreciated "by everybody here. They're part of the landscape. What a tragedy.

"It's just a tragedy for the whole Fort Lewis community," Grippe said.

About 100 military police soldiers from the 66th MP Company are due home to Fort Lewis tomorrow afternoon after 15 months in Afghanistan. Fifty more will come later in the month, Fort Lewis said in a press release.

Welcome home ceremony is set for 4:30 p.m. at Soldiers Field House. The company trained Afghan police officers "while providing security and law enforcement support to U.S. and allied forces in the region," according to the release.

The company was featured in a Department of Defense public relations story for its work on the Pakistan border.

The McClatchy mothership's intrepid Leila Fadel had this good take from Sadr City that moved Friday. It features Stryker soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 25 Infantry Division out of Hawaii.

I don't know of any Fort Lewis soldiers working in Sadr City at the moment – and with nearly everybody due home in the next couple months the post probably won't have units in that fight. But Fadel's is a good soldier's eye view of the situation on the ground there.

She also posted some video of soldiers engaged in a firefight.

We'll be tuning in to KING 5 at 8 p.m. Monday to see how Army Capt. Joe Kobes of Sumner fares in his bid for the big pile on "Deal or No Deal."

In case you're not a regular viewer, this is what the fuss is about:

That said, when I asked his dad, Ken, why he thinks Joe went through the considerable effort of trying out for the show, he did not hesitate: "The money."

Duh.

Former McChord Air Force Base wing king Paul Selva continues to rocket up the charts.

The Pentagon announced Friday that he's been nominated for a third star and assignment as assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He is currently working as "director, Air Force Strategic Planning, deputy chief of staff for Strategic Plans and Programs, Headquarters U.S. Air Force."

Shorter job title, more juice.

Selva commanded the 62nd Airlift Wing at McChord in 2000-02.

The Pacific Northwest National Security Forum will hold its third annual local symposium June 3 at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center.

This year's panel of military and security experts will focus on the new United States Africa Commmand and the challenges of cyber warfare, the forum announced Thursday.

The forum is the work of a committee of local retired military people who set out to give Northwest audiences a chance to hear first-hand from U.S. national security leaders.

This year's forum will be held alongside two security-related expos: one focusing on threats to the U.S. highway and rail networks, and the other – SpecOpsWest – a trade show of military and security hardware and systems.

Registration information can be found on the web sites.

The Rand Corporation "Invisible Wounds of War" study released Thursday has some troubling but not surprising findings:

• large numbers of troops returning with PTSD, TBI and depression.
• too many still choosing not to seek treatment because they fear it will harm their careers.
• not enough treatment providers.

Read the full study here. I've posted the Rand press release below.

FOR RELEASE
April 17, 2008

RAND STUDY FINDS ONE IN FIVE IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN VETERANS
SUFFER FROM PTSD OR MAJOR DEPRESSION

Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan -- 300,000 in all -- report symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slight more than half have sought treatment, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

In addition, researchers found about 19 percent of returning service members report that they experienced a possible traumatic brain injury while deployed, with 7 percent reporting both a probable brain injury and current PTSD or major depression.

Many service members said they do not seek treatment for psychological illnesses because they fear it will harm their careers. But even among those who do seek help for PTSD or major depression, only about half receive treatment that researchers consider “minimally adequate” for their illnesses.

=> Read more!

A pair of joint terminal attack controllers from Fort Lewis were lucky to escape with only minor injuries after an F-16 pilot lit up their rental SUV with 20mm cannon fire at the Utah Test and Training Range. Details here.

Follow up story here reports that the pilot, out of Hill Air Force Base, is restricted to non-flying duties while the Air Force investigates.

Story contains this gem: officials "aren't sure whether the soldiers had purchased the extra insurance on the SUV."

UPDATE: The Lewis guys were not JTACs per se, but members of the fire support team from the 8th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment (part of the 5th Brigade Strykers). A Fort Lewis spokesman said they suffered cuts and scrapes from bailing out of the SUV, and one banged up his shoulder.

While I was gone the paper published a quick profile I did about Steilacoom artist Patrick Haskett.

That's his piece, "Combat Engineers in Action," on this earlier post about the pending deployment of the 14th Engineer Battalion.

The profile story ran on the You & Me page a week ago last Sunday, so I wasn't sure how many folks might have seen it.

Fort Lewis says it's going to be making more noise, day and night, today through Thursday. This time they'll be training with explosives.

The post says:

Increased levels of activity will be noticed during the evening hours, and firing will be conducted from numerous firing points on the installation.

This is normally scheduled and required training, which allows Soldiers to practice and improve skills required during combat. As often as possible, Fort Lewis conducts larger scale demolition training and artillery firing at the Yakima Training Center in an effort to minimize inconvenience for the surrounding communities. However, some training must take place on the Fort Lewis military reservation.

Queries or comments about noise may be directed to the I Corps Public Affairs Office’s External Communication Division hot line at 253-967-0852, daily.

Figure there will be more in the news the next couple days on the issue of care for soldiers, Marines and others hurt in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Wednesday, senior Army, Navy and Air Force health care officers go before the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense appropriations subcommittee.

And on Thursday, the Rand Corp. will roll out the findings of what it says is "the first large-scale, nongovernmental assessment" of the psychological needs of those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. From the news release:

The study also includes new estimates of the number of service members who experienced a possible traumatic brain injury while deployed. Study results include: findings from a national survey of service members to assess their current mental health status and deployment experiences, including exposure to traumatic events; economic modeling that provides the first-ever estimate of the societal costs of the illnesses and injuries; and, an assessment of treatment services that are available to service members, as well as barriers to treatment.

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America has full-page ads in today's Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer calling on U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks to support HR 5740, which would expand GI Bill education benefits for veterans.

An IAVA press release says:

“The original GI Bill made education affordable for 8 million World War II veterans, but today’s troops receive just a fraction of that benefit. Sending our veterans to college expresses the nation’s gratitude for their service and makes economic sense,” said Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “Congressman Dicks’ support is critical to getting a new GI Bill passed in Congress this year. We hope he’ll stand with us to honor America’s newest generation of heroes. The countless veterans in his district deserve a bright future.”

Not sure why IAVA is zeroing in on Dicks. (I'm waiting to hear back from the group's press people.) The Belfair Democrat supports the bill as well as others to improve benefits for the new veterans, a spokesman said Monday.

"We certainly would be delighted to cosponsor this bill," said Dicks' aide George Behan. "I don't know why this is the substance of an advertisement. But I believe you will see Norm on it, as you will seem him on a lot of veterans benefits bills."

UPDATE: Behan said Dicks is a co-sponsor of 5740, and that his name was added to the list of co-sponsors on Friday after IAVA asked his staff to consider it.

Out for the week. Normal service will resume when I return.

Photo: U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds

Our friends at McChord Air Force Base put out a press release this morning offering at least one local media type the chance to fly with the Thunderbirds when they're in town July 19-20 for Air Expo 2008.

The release said the T-birds are offering two flights, one reserved "for a member of our esteemed media." We have no idea who they could be talking about.

"Interested parties need to submit a letter of justification to the McChord public affairs office not later than April 8. The letter of justification should include a statement of why the individual should receive the flight and the amount of media coverage that will be offered before, during and after the flight."

“'This opportunity for the local media will aid us in our goal of making the 2008 McChord Air Expo the greatest air event in the nation,' said Maj. Doug Edwards, the Air Expo director. 'Not only does the community need this Air Expo, but we have been going hard with our various missions across seas for a long time and we need it.'”

Here at FOB Tacoma, we are proud of our record of puke-free flight.

Across northern Iraq with conspiratorial, sadistic Black Hawk pilots? Check.

Dipping and bobbing and weaving 300 feet above Eastern Washington farmland on a nap-of-the-earth C-17 training flight? Check (although that was a close one).

Part of being a grown up is knowing your limits.

Our McClatchy comrade Steve Lannen had a long story up Thursday on the 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment's efforts in KBS in Diyala. Lots of soldiers' names, and a slide show to boot.