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

Local folks might recognize that last name...

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.

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. Been busy with some longer-term stuff I'm working on.

But I do want to point you to a few stories. The Canwest News Service has a reporter in Kandahar province, where 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division is located. Here are a couple of stories to get you up to date with what's going on:

Canada, U.S. divvy up turf in Afghan war

Canada handoff of Afghan battle zones marks 'new era.'

UPDATE: The AP has a reporter with the troops too. Heidi Vogt writes about their cultural education crash-course.

Pvt. Timothy E. Bennitt, the Fort Lewis soldier whose 16-year-old girlfriend died after an overdose of prescription pills in his barracks room, will face involuntary manslaughter and drug-related charges in a general court martial, the post announced Friday.

Bennitt faces a maximum of 82 years in prison, reduction in rank, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and a dishonorable discharge from the Army if convicted. A date for his court martial has not been set.

The charges stem from the death of Leah King, a student at Lakes High School, in Bennitt’s barracks room Feb. 15 on North Fort Lewis. King and a friend, Trashauna Yoacham, overdosed on a combination of the painkiller oxymorphone and the anxiety pill Xanax.

Bennitt, a 19-year-old Indiana native, is facing two specifications of involuntary manslaughter. The government alleges Bennitt purchased oxymorphone and gave it to King, whom he knew had a history of substance abuse, and allowed her to mix the painkiller with Xanax.

Bennitt also faces charges he distributed oxymorphome, oxycodone, marijuana, Xanax. He is also charged with the use of oxycodone, oxymorphone, marijuana and cocaine.

And he faces a charge of conspiracy to use a controlled substance, in which prosecutors say he asked King to arrange a meeting with the drug dealer that sold him the lethal dose of Xanax and oxymorphone.

Bennitt, a heavy equipment operator with the 617th Engineer Company, 864th Engineer Battalion, is in confinement at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.

Government attorneys say Bennitt purchased drugs from Lakewood and sold them to fellow soldiers.

Investigators testified in May and June during Bennitt's Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand-jury proceeding, that the soldier purchased the prescription pills the night of Feb. 14 and returned to North Fort Lewis with the two teenagers. Shortly after they arrived, Bennitt crushed and snorted a prescription pill. The girls, who were in his bathroom styling their hair, crushed and snorted a pill of oxymorpohone.

He left his room at about midnight to talk to a friend. The girls were asleep when he returned, so he slept next to them when he returned, according to the investigation. He awoke at 3 a.m. and discovered King with froth around her mouth, pale skin and blue lips.

King was pronounced dead at the scene. Yoacham was rushed to Madigan Army Medical Center, where she later recovered.

Bennitt’s Article 32 hearing closed in May but was reopened almost a month later when Yoacham agreed to testify. She told the court the teens snorted the pills hours before they went to the barracks and later inhaled more without his knowledge.

"Those drugs were carried in by Leah," Yoacham’s attorney, Bradley Johnson, said at the time. "Pvt. Bennitt did not give her drugs."

Prosecutors said Yoacham’s story had holes and that she wasn’t in the right state of mind to remember everything from that night.

Maj. Rebecca Connally, the investigating officer, apparently didn’t believe all of Yoacham’s testimony, according to a redacted version of her report released by the Fort Lewis public affairs office.

"I considered Ms. (redacted)'s entire testimony and weighed it against other witnesses or evidence that contradicted her recollection and accounts," Connally wrote. "I found the weight of the evidence that contradicted her testimony to be more credible and believable."

Connally’s role as investigating officer was to review the evidence and testimony and made a recommendation on what charges Bennitt would face. Brig. Gen. Jeff Mathis, the I Corps rear detachment commander, reviewed Connally’s report and had the final say.

Officials at Madigan Army Medical Center hope to break ground soon on a center specializing in women’s and children’s medicine, the largest expansion of the Fort Lewis hospital since 1992.

The $205 million facility would be the first of its kind in the military and one of just a few such centers that would focus on care for both women and children anywhere in the United States, the chairman of Madigan's obstetrics and gynecology department said this week.

"The No. 1 business at (Department of Defense) hospitals is deliveries and all the care related to that," Col. Peter Nielsen said. "So the idea of putting in what place what women need and what children need – I thought it just made sense."

The new facility would measure about 140,000 square feet cost $205 million. It would provide an array of services, including obstetrics, women’s oncology, gynecology, breast disease, infertility, endocrinology, a neonatal intensive care unit and child psychiatry.

And by moving some services to the new building, it would create about 70,000 square feet of floor space in the main hospital, said Michael Carico, Madigan’s chief of operation and maintenance.

The new building – the largest addition to Madigan since the new hospital building opened in 1992 – is still several years away. Pentagon officials are still finalizing the 2010 fiscal year budget; included in it is a $2 million earmark U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., added to fund the planning and design.

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Alyson McWherter walked back to her barracks room and sank into her bed. She was physically, mentally and emotionally spent. Her feet throbbed. Her shoulders ached. She hadn't slept well in days.

Three days earlier, a fellow ROTC cadet died during night training; she was part of the search team sent into the forests of Fort Lewis early in the morning to search for him.

Two days of land-navigation exercises followed, one at day at one at night. She and other cadets were sent into the forest with a map and compass and told to find a series of checkpoints. The pressure was omnipresent: How a cadet performs can determine if he or she will receive the job they want, or even if a spot on active duty awaits them.

The three grueling days earlier this month had pushed the 21-year-old to her limits.

"That's when I was like, 'It's either buck up now or go home,'" said McWherter, who graduated from the Operation Warrior Forge annual ROTC assessment course Friday at Fort Lewis.

One month earlier, life was good. McWherter and her University of Washington softball teammates were partying in Oklahoma City, soaking up every ounce of glory that comes with a national title. McWherter was a junior, and her teammates were already talking about a repeat next season.

But all that mattered little when Warrior Forge began. Her instructors didn't care about her softball success and her history with Fort Lewis – she was born on post and her father later commanded an infantry battalion there. She was another cadet, running on too little sleep and learning how to administer first aid, protect herself from nerve gas or planning and executing an assault on a mock city – all part of the 29-day course that produces 70 percent of the Army's second lieutenants. (The remainder graduate from West Point or are commissioned through Officer Candidate School.)

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The man who will run daily operations of Fort Lewis is no stranger to the area: Col. Thomas Brittain’s first assignment as a second lieutenant in 1987-90 was at the Army post.

"It seems like familiar ground, but it really has changed a lot since then," Brittain said minutes after he replaced Col. Cynthia Murphy as Fort Lewis garrison commander Tuesday.

The garrison commander manages the maintenance and construction of Fort Lewis and the Yakima Training Center, overseeing an array of responsibilities like public works, maintenance of community facilities and emergency services.

It’s a busy time to take the job: Current construction projects total about $290 million, and another $1.7 billion in construction is planned. Early next year the post will merge with McChord Air Force Base, part of a military-wide joint basing effort – the topic of his thesis at his most recent assignment, as a student at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania.

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Those are some of the questions swirling around about allegations an employee of the Fort Lewis force protection division passed himself off as an anarchist and spied on an Olympia anti-war group.

Jeremy Pawloski, my colleague at the Olympian, wrote a nice follow-up today examining the legal questions the case raises.

From the article:

Eugene R. Fidell, a former judge advocate for the Coast Guard and the president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said such a practice appeared to violate the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that prohibits the use of the Army for conventional law enforcement activities against civilians.

...

Fidell said he would like to know more about what Towery’s superiors authorized him to do.

"What you’ve told me is enough to think that there’s a domestic spying program at Fort Lewis,” he said. “And if there is, that’s a big deal."

Fort Lewis will receive its new garrison commander Thursday.

Col. Thomas H. Brittain will assume the post, tasked largely with running day-to-day operation and supervising growth and construction on post. He takes over for Col. Cynthia Murphy, who has commanded since Aug. 15, 2006. She will take a staff position at I Corps.

The ceremony is 10 a.m. Thursday at Memorial Stadium.

Brittain, an infantry officer and West Point graduate, comes to Lewis after studying at the Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

Murphy won’t be at the ceremony; she relinquished command on July 17 and left early for treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Fort Lewis will break ground next year on a $110 million complex for the Warrior Transition Battalion as part of the Army’s push to better healthcare for soldiers recovering from injuries.

The facility, which includes barracks, a headquarters building and a soldier and family assistance center, should open in about three years. The building will be erected on an eight-acre site near Madigan Army Medical Center; the battalion’s executive officer said the goal of the new complex is to put everything a wounded soldier needs within walking distance.

"We want to make it a bit of a one-stop shop," Maj. Edward Ekstrom said last week. "A soldier can wake up in the barracks, go to formation nearby, head to Madigan for treatment and go to the (assistance center) to take care of whatever they need, all a few minutes from each other."

Lawmakers provided $488 million for nine warrior transition unit complexes in last month’s supplemental war funding bill. Defense officials project Fort Lewis will be home to the largest warrior transition unit in the military, Ekstrom said.

The Army-wide Warrior Transition initiative was born from the poor medical conditions revealed at Walter Reed Medical Center in early 2007. As the scandal rippled across the country, soldiers at the old "medical hold" companies at Madigan Army Medical Center complained of mistreatment, confusion and delays.

In the newly created units, soldiers moved into refurbished barracks and were assigned a primary care specialist, a nurse case-manager and a squad leader to make sure they get proper treatment. The soldier and family assistance center helps soldiers with an array of military- and civilian-related issues, ranging from veterans claims to day care to online college courses.

The construction plans call for 408 beds inside the complex barracks, about equal to the number of troops in the unit today. That number tends to fluctuate and is almost certain to rise with three Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigades deploying this year to Iraq or Afghanistan.

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About 160 Fort Lewis soldiers from the 571st Military Police Company marked their upcoming yearlong deployment to Iraq with a colors-casing ceremony Monday morning.

The company, part of a 504th Military Police Battalion, will conduct personnel security missions and escort operations throughout the country. It’s the fourth time the 571st has served in Iraq.

On its last deployment, a 15-month tour that began in October 2006, the company trained more than 6,100 Iraqi policemen, supported nine combat operations and managed more than $10.2 million in contracts to construct and improve police stations in Diyala province.

Staff Sgt. Justin Hill spent two tough tours in Iraq. The first deployment felt like a year serving in the Wild West. The insurgency was at a full boil when he returned two years later.

And as 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division prepares for its third Iraq tour, and the 26-year-old Fort Lewis soldier wants to find out if all the hard work, the time away from family and the buddies lost on the battlefield were worth it.

"Everything you do takes time, and I want to see all the hard work we put in pay off," said Hill, a platoon sergeant from Texas. "The Iraqis want to take over their own situation. That’s cool. That’s understandable. We’ve come this far, but we need to help them get all the way there."

The brigade of about 4,000 soldiers is heading back for its third Iraq tour and cased its colors during a departure ceremony Friday at Watkins Field. Hill, who has served with the same company since the first deployment, will serve as a platoon sergeant in Diyala province, an area in the country’s east where his brigade has history.

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