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The Washington Post this weekend published an obituary on retired Army Col. John J. Madigan III.

Local folks might recognize that last name...

The temporary closure of a runway in Moses Lake will mean more Air Force jets flying the night skies of Pierce County.

Contractors working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will begin working Monday on Grant County International Airport’s "assault strip" – called such because it is reinforced to handle C-17 Globemaster III cargo jets landing at a steep angle.

Crews from McChord Air Force Base and other installations use the runway for nighttime landings. But with the runway’s monthlong closure, some of those training flights will land at McChord. Other Air Force bases across the Western United States will accept some of the flights as well.

The actual number of extra flights coming into the base hasn’t yet been determined, a spokesman for the 62nd Airlift Wing said Wednesday.

"We’re looking at other options," Tech. Sgt. Oshawn Jefferson said. "We’re looking at sending some of these flights as far away as Wyoming. So we don’t have a number right now."

=> Read more!

UPDATE: The newest version of the story from the Associated Press confirms the two were embedded with 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division:

Bad news from the Associated Press:

KABUL – A bombing has wounded two Associated Press journalists embedded with the U.S. military in southern Afghanistan.

Photographer Emilio Morenatti and AP Television News videographer Andi Jatmiko were traveling with a unit of the 5th Stryker Brigade of Fort Lewis, Wash., when their vehicle ran over a bomb planted in the open desert terrain, the military said.

Both men were immediately taken to a military hospital in Kandahar. Jatmiko suffered leg injuries and two broken ribs. Morenatti, badly wounded in the leg, underwent an operation that resulted in the loss of his foot.

The attack took place in open country 15 miles north of the town of Spin Boldak near the Pakistani border, and 120 miles southeast of Dahaneh, a Taliban-held town where helicopter-borne U.S. Marines launched an operation before dawn Wednesday to uproot the militants.