Local troops in the news today:

3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division:
4th Brigade Combat Team welcomes new commander during ceremony at Fort Polk (Alexandria Town Talk)

14th Battalion, 555th Engineer Brigade:
1st Cavalry's 4th Brigade Combat team honors FALLEN at memorial (Killeen Daily Herald)

Navy:
Band to salute Navy vet (The Olympian)

62nd Security Forces Squadron
On the Way to the Market (DVIDS)

About 75 soldiers from the 42nd Military Police Brigade’s headquarters company returns to Fort Lewis tomorrow after a 15-month deployment to Iraq.

The soldiers "provided for the care, custody, and reconciliation of Iraqi detainees at the theater internment facility at Camp Bucca," according to a press release.

The unit took command of Task Force Bucca and initially had responsibility for care and custody of 22,000 detainees. That number was down to about 6,000 earlier this month, and the remaining prisoners and custody are scheduled to be transferred to the Iraqi government by the end of the year.

The brigade also ran the Theater Internment Facility Reconciliation Center, which provided detainees with vocational and agricultural training, access to religious support and access to social support programs. It also ran the Iraqi Correctional Officer Training Academy, which graduated more than 900 people, and the Detainee Family Visitation Program, which helped streamline visitations by family members of those in custody.

Fort Lewis' Lt. Gen. Charles Jacoby sat down for an interview with Stephen Colbert on last night's episode. Among the

Among the things the men discussed:

Who does more work: Jacoby or his boss, Gen. Ray Odierno?
Which of the 130,000 soldiers deployed to Iraq is Jacoby’s favorite?
Is Afghanistan near Paraguay?
Did the surge work because of its cool name?
Will the lessons in Iraq help with the coming war with Iran?

Check out the episode here.

Lt. Gen. Charles Jacoby will be on "The Colbert Report" tonight as part of the show's weeklong broadcast from Baghdad. (Colbert's stage has been erected inside the Al Faw Palace, the marble-and-glass giant inside Victory Base Complex that's home to I Corps durings its deployment as Multi-National Corps-Iraq.)

Command Sgt. Maj. Frank Grippe will be on Thursday night's show.

Colbert spent the first two shows interviewing generals and joes, cracking jokes about military life, going through basic training and playing video greetings from politicians and former presidents. He wore a camouflage suit and delivered his monologues in front of a large, standup microphone while carrying a wooden golf driver, a la Bob Hope.

He talked with Gen. Ray Odierno, the top American commander in Iraq, and broadcast a video message from President Barack Obama ordering Odierno to shave Colbert’s head.

The RSS feeder kicked this up from Gazeta de Sud, a Romanian newspaper:

În cadrul ceremonialului, locotenent-colonelul Gabriel Toma a fost decorat de generalul locotenent american Charles Jacoby, comandantul Corpului Multinaţional din Irak, cu Steaua de Bronz, iar mai mulţi ofiţeri, subofiţeri şi soldaţi gradaţi voluntari au fost decoraţi atât de partenerul american, cât şi de ministrul apărării naţionale, Mihai Stănişoară, şi de şeful statului major general, amiral dr. Gheorghe Marin.

Here's a rough translation (via Google):

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If you have Google Earth installed on your computer, make sure not to miss Map the Fallen.

It maps out details of each coalition soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here are a couple of screengrabs:

=> Read more!

The Elgin Courier News of Illinois wrote today about the effects of the death of Pfc. Leonard J. Gulczynski, a soldier with the 14th Battalion, 555th Engineer Regiment who died Sept. 17 after a Humvee accident in Iraq.

Gulzynski's little sister, Jacki, is apparently a pretty good athlete. From the article:

There's little doubt some of the lumps Jacki took while being pushed around by her older brother make her more adept at fighting for a rebound or attacking the basket for a lay-up. Aside from that physical boost, Lenny now provides a strong source of inspiration for Jacki, who never has to look farther than the black wristband inscribed with her brother's initials and his volleyball number "15" that her teammates made following his death.

"I wear the wristband for every single game and I sometimes wear it to school," Jacki said. "Every time I go to the free-throw line or go to the plate for a big hit in softball, I look at that and get a sense of inspiration.

"I'll think, 'All right Lenny, give me some strength here. I can do this.' I can definitely say I've used my wristband to help me get through to Lenny."

The Georgia Bulletin has a piece on the fine work the USO does at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. One of the soldiers quotes was Lt. Col. Gary Studniewski, the chaplain of the 555th Engineer Brigade. He's been in The News Tribune in happier times and more mournful occasions. Sounds like he's heading back to Iraq to join the Fort Lewis-based Triple Nickel.

From the story:

Lt. Col. Gary Studniewski is a Catholic priest and brigade chaplain in the Army’s 555th Engineer Brigade. His home base is Washington state, but he was returning to Iraq for several more months. He is a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., but serves in the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA. It ministers to more than 2 million Catholics in the military, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and U.S. State Department.

As he passed through Atlanta, he said he was grateful to the Atlanta Archdiocese for recently releasing two of its priests to service as military chaplains—Fathers Kevin Peek and Fred Wendel.

"It’s like coming home," he said about the USO. "The doors are always open. You always feel love and supported."

"The USO is your home to the American service members," said Father Studniewski.

Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the United States' top diplomat in Iraq since 2007, has returned to his native Spokane Valley. The Pacific Northwest Islander catches up with him.

The New York Times' Baghdad Bureau blog has a piece about a clearing barrel at FOB Prosperity in Baghdad's International Zone painted like a pig with the phrase "Shoot 'Em in the Face" painted on it.

Why, it sounds like the Gray Lady made a stop with the 81st Brigade Combat Team's own Bravo Troop, 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry Regiment. 1st Sgt. Terrence DeFever told me a couple of months ago that they grabbed one of the clearing barrels during premobilization training at Fort McCoy, Wis., painted it pink, added some flair and brought it to Iraq with them.

Bravo Troop provides security for the U.S. State Department. Like the rest of the brigade, it is expected to return home this summer. Until then, the joes will keep clearing their M-4s in the snout of a metal pig.

The Yakima Training Center is dedicating a memorial and renaming a range in honor of a hometown soldier killed in Iraq in 2004, the Yakima Herald-Republic reported.

Staff Sgt. Kyle Eggers, 27, was killed when a roadside bomb detonated near his vehicle on Dec. 5, 2004. He was serving in Iraq with the 2nd Infantry Division.

The drawdown of American troops from Iraq is no simple task. Six years of war mean countless tons of equipment remains scattered at bases throughout the country, most of which must be trucked out of the country along bomb-riddled roads.

It’s an effort Col. Cynthia Fox of the 593rd Sustainment Brigade called "possibly the largest retrograde operation the Army has seen in years" during a speech at unit’s colors-casing ceremony Wednesday on the parade grounds of North Fort Lewis. The brigade will soon deploy about 450 soldiers to Kuwait to support the logistics of fighting the war.

But that includes oversight of getting the equipment supporting about 100,000 soldiers out of Iraq, much of it on trucks that can be loaded onto container ships in Kuwait. The 593rd will serve a year overseas; the White House plans to reduce troop levels to about 50,000 by August 2010.

"There are many years of military equipment still in theater," said Brig. Gen. Jeff Mathis, the I Corps rear commander. "And once retrograde operations are in full swing, missions will drastically increase. Soldiers and leaders of the 593rd: You are the rock upon which all this rests."

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