Navy SEAL Chief (SOC) Adam Brown was killed in action in Komar Province, Afghanistan on March 16, 2010.  In true “Adam Brown Style” he died a true hero, placing himself in the line of fire to protect other members of his unit.  Adam’s Special Ops Assault Team was assaulting an enemy compound, an operation Adam had performed many times.  The U.S. Forces were engaging the enemy in a fire fight, when a portion of the U.S. soldiers were pinned down by very heavy fire from the enemy compound.   In an effort to protect his men, Adam charged the enemy and was firing on the enemy from a better vantage point, drawing fire away from his pinned down comrades.  His selfless action relieved the fire on his men, but it unfortunately resulted in Adam being struck by enemy fire.  One other member of the American Team was wounded, but Adam’s heroic action saved the other men.  The enemy compound was captured and all enemy combatants were killed in the action.

Adam was a 12 year veteran of the United States Navy, with several tours of duty overseas.  He is survived by his wife and two children.

Source

The retired Lieutenant General is credited with helping to organize and supply the breakout that inspired ‘The Great Escape.’

LA Times

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. A.P. Clark, a World War II veteran who played a key role in the elaborate breakout from a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp that inspired the movie “The Great Escape,” has died. He was 96.

Clark, a former superintendent of the Air Force Academy, died March 8 in Colorado Springs, Colo., the military academy announced. The cause was not given.

Albert Patton Clark was born in 1913 at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, where his father was an officer in the Army Medical Corps.

He became a pilot after graduating from the Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 1936. During World War II he flew with the 31st Fighter Group, the first American fighter unit in the European Theater, according to an Air Force Academy biography.

Then a lieutenant colonel, Clark was shot down by German fighter planes over Abbeville, France, in July 1942, and spent nearly three years as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft III in what is now Poland. He is credited with managing the production and hiding supplies in support of the escape of 76 POWs from the camp in 1944.

After the war, Clark served key assignments at Tactical Air Command, Continental Air Command and Air Defense Command before completing a tour of duty at the Air Force headquarters, the academy said. He commanded the 48th Fighter Bomber Wing at Chaumont Air Base in France from 1955 to 1956 and then served as chief of staff of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe.

Clark served as the academy’s top general from Aug. 1, 1970, to July 31, 1974.

His military decorations and awards include the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster, the Air Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal and the Purple Heart.

As head of the Friends of the Air Force Academy Library, Clark was instrumental in creating an extensive collection of materials and histories from his prisoner-of-war days. Memoirs, including his “33 Months as a POW in Stalag Luft III,” and histories from an escape at the prison camp inspired the 1963 film “The Great Escape,” starring Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough.

Clark is survived by two daughters, eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. His wife of 65 years, Carolyn, died in 2002, and a son died in 2005.

BAGHDAD—The U.S. military says two American soldiers have died in a vehicle accident in Iraq.

A statement says the soldiers died Monday. It says two other soldiers were injured in the same accident, which is under investigation.

The names of the soldiers are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

The deaths raise to at least 4,381 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. That’s according to an Associated Press count.

Source

A motorcyclist rides past protesters outside the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder in Westminster, Md., in March 2006. (Carroll County Times/Dylan Slagle)

LA Times

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide on the outer limits of free-speech protection for public protests and to rule on whether a dead soldier’s family can sue fringe religious protesters who picketed near their son’s funeral with signs that said, “Thank God for dead soldiers.”

A Maryland jury awarded $10 million in damages to Albert Snyder, whose son Matthew was killed in Iraq in March 2006. He had sued Fred Phelps, the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., who has traveled the country for 20 years leading controversial protests at funerals for American soldiers.

He claims that God hates America because of its tolerance of homosexuality. He and his small group of followers carried protest signs at the funeral in Westminster, Md., that said, “Fag troops,” “God hates the USA” and “God hates fags.”

But a lawyer for Phelps said his protests were not targeted at Lance Corp. Matthew Snyder, the soldier, but more generally at America and the U.S. military. The protesters were kept at a distance from the church and the burial service. Nonetheless, the jury awarded damages to the Snyder family on the grounds that the funeral protests invaded their privacy and intentionally inflicted emotional distress.

In September, however, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the entire award on free-speech grounds. “Notwithstanding the distasteful and repugnant nature of the words being challenged in these proceedings, we are constrained to concluded that the defendants’ signs are constitutionally protected,” the appeals court said.

Snyder’s family appealed to the Supreme Court, saying the protests had “tarnished” their son’s funeral. “Matthew deserved better. A civilized society deserved better,” they said.

The court announced it had voted to hear the appeal in Snyder vs. Phelps and to rule on whether the right to free speech extended to the right to intrude on a solemn ceremony. The justices will hear arguments in the case in the fall.

Breitbart

IWO JIMA, Japan (AP) – Dozens of U.S. veterans, now in their 80s and 90s, returned to the remote volcanic island of Iwo Jima on Wednesday to mark the 65th anniversary of one of World War II’s fiercest battles.

The veterans, some in wheelchairs, flew to the island on a chartered airliner and fanned out across its famous black-sand beaches, where the U.S. invasion began on Feb. 19, 1945, and lasted 36 days. All told, nearly 28,000 troops were killed.

They were also taken to the top of Mount Suribachi, where the famous image of the American flag being raised was taken, before joining a joint memorial with U.S. and Japanese dignitaries.

“I was here for the entire mission, start to finish,” said Richard Rothwell, 97, of Catonsville, Maryland. “I had people killed next to me and around me and I was just very fortunate I made it out alive.”

Rothwell, who toured the island with Marine escorts pushing his wheelchair, was commander of a 4th Marines Division battalion when the invasion began. He retired as a colonel, with a silver star for his service on Iwo Jima.

Only five of the 18 U.S. Marine battalion commanders on Iwo Jima left the island still in command. The rest either died or were injured and relieved of duty.

Rothwell said the island today—inhabited only by about 300 Japanese troops because it is still deemed too dangerous for development because of remaining unexploded ordnance—is nothing like it was during the battle.

“It’s a paradise,” he said. “I see no resemblance at all. Even the beach seems different.”

The island, the size of Manhattan, is a maze of tunnels, caves and dense, scraggly underbrush.

Attesting to how deeply dug in its Japanese defenders were, the island is also still giving up the dead, with dozens of remains recovered every year.

The battle claimed 6,821 American and 21,570 Japanese lives. Of that, about 12,000 Japanese are still classified as missing in action and presumed dead, along with 218 Americans.

“Only 40 percent of the remains of the Japanese troops have been recovered,” said Yasutaka Shindo, a member of parliament who is the grandson of the Japanese general tasked with fighting the Americans on Iwo Jima. “We will not rest until all of the remains have been recovered.”

In sharp contrast with the American veterans, who snapped photos and collected bags of sand after being honored by a Marine drill team, the several hundred Japanese who attended the anniversary quickly split off and held a somber memorial of their own, with prayers and offerings of flowers to the dead.

Iwo Jima was declared secured on March 26, 1945, but it was a hard-won fight.

Fewer than 1,000 of the Japanese who tried to defend Iwo Jima—seen as key to the U.S. because it had three airfields that could be used to launch raids on Japan’s main islands—survived the battle.

Japan surrendered in August of that year.

“Iwo Jima is a unique place in the history of the United States,” said Marine Corps commandant Gen. James Conway. “It was not the bloodiest fight in the Pacific campaign, it was not the most operationally sound, not the longest and arguably not the most important. But Iwo is burned into our national psyche in a way that no other battle in the U.S. is.”

Retired Lt. Gen. Lawrence Snowden said it is getting harder each year to hold the Iwo Jima reunions because the veterans are dwindling in number and those who are still alive are getting too old to make the trip.

“I cannot predict how much longer these trips will be feasible for our survivors,” he said. “But whether we are on island or not, our memories of Iwo Jima, and those who died here, will remain permanent in our hearts.”

Marines and Navy medics were out in force to make sure the veterans were safe under the hot afternoon sun during their visit, which lasted only several hours. Some had to be helped into trucks for a rest, but there were no significant problems.

Iwo Jima was returned to Japanese jurisdiction in 1968, well after the occupation of Japan ended in 1952. In an effort to disassociate the island with World War II and the awful suffering the Japanese went through there, the island was formally renamed “Iwo To” in 2006, the name it was known by before the war.

But some of the Japanese on the island Wednesday said they felt their country was forgetting its own history.

“We must not allow this tragedy to be forgotten,” said Hiroya Sugano, a 76-year-old doctor who was still a student during the war but came to the anniversary in memory of an old friend who was a kamikaze pilot.

“It’s a very emotional moment,” he said. “We must not forget that this is where peace was born.”

The American veterans said they had, for the most part, come to respect the sacrifice of their former enemy.

“Iwo Jima is a symbol of courage, on both sides,” said Richard Lowe, 84, of Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Lowe, who walks with a cane, was a private first class when he took part in the first wave on invasion day.

He said he remembers being on Invasion Beach after several days of intense fighting and seeing the U.S. flag raised on Mount Suribachi. A photograph of the flag-raising on Feb. 23, 1945, by AP cameraman Joe Rosenthal became one of the most iconic images of the war.

“Everybody cheered and was very encouraged,” he said. “A lot of my friends were killed here. But time moves on.”

SOS

IWO TO, Japan — Hundreds of U.S. Marines landed on the remote island of Iwo Jima on Tuesday to prepare for the 65th anniversary of one of World War II’s bloodiest and most iconic battles.

The Marines flew in trucks, water and food from Washington to support Wednesday’s commemorations of the 1945 battle that was a turning point in the Pacific theater. It claimed 6,821 American and 21,570 Japanese lives in 36 days of intense fighting. A drill team also arrived on the island.

The commemoration was to be attended by about 1,000 people, including Marine Corps commandant Gen. James Conway, members of Japan’s parliament and representatives of the Iwo Jima survivors’ association.

Only about two dozen American veterans of the battle are expected to attend the “reunion of honor” ceremony because few of the survivors – now in their 80s and 90s – are able to make the trip.

It was not known if any of the fewer than 1,000 Japanese who survived the battle would be able to attend.

Inhabited only by about 300 Japanese troops, Iwo Jima, a tiny island the size of Manhattan, is a maze of tunnels, caves and dense, scraggly underbrush. It is believed to be covered with too much unexploded ordnance left over from the battle to be developed, and has been largely untouched since the war.

It is, instead, an open tomb.

Though dozens of remains are recovered every year, about 12,000 Japanese are still classified as missing in action and presumed killed on the island, along with 218 Americans.

The island formally reverted to its old name of “Iwo To” in 2006. Both “to” and “jima” mean island, but the name of “Iwo Jima” carries the stigma of the treacherous battle and subsequent two decades of occupation.

The Marines who arrived Tuesday from the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force on the island of Okinawa, many of whom have been to battle either in Iraq or Afghanistan, said they were visiting hallowed ground.

“I can’t imagine fighting in this kind of terrain,” said Cpl. Daniel Flynn, 24, of Mount Airy, North Carolina. “I fought in Afghanistan, but that was in open desert. I probably would not have had the same experience here had I not been to Afghanistan.”

Joined by Japanese troops and U.S. Navy sailors, many of the Marines trekked down to the beach where the invasion of the island began on Feb. 19, 1945, and filled bottles with its famous black volcanic sand. Others jogged to the top of Mount Suribachi, where the U.S. flag was raised on Feb. 23 – an image captured by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal that became one of the most enduring ever taken of war.

Iwo Jima was declared secured on March 26, 1945. Japan surrendered in August of that year.

“It’s like going back in time,” said Staff Sgt. Daneil Dumas, 28, of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

USASOC News Service

A memorial service is scheduled for Retired Army Col. Robert L. Howard, a Medal of Honor recipient, U.S. Army Ranger and Special Forces veteran Feb. 17, 11 a.m., at the Ranger Memorial.

Howard, born July 11, 1939, in Opelika, Ala., was known throughout the Army and the military’s Special Operations community for his courage and leadership in combat. He entered the service July 20, 1956 and was medically retired Sept. 30, 1992. He died of natural causes Dec. 23 at his residence in San Antonio, Texas.

Howard received the Medal of Honor for actions in Vietnam Dec. 30, 1968. He was nominated three times for the award in thirteen months; the first was downgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross and the last was downgraded to a Silver Star. All three came while he served as a non-commissioned officer in the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam—Studies and Observations Group.

He received a direct commission from master sergeant to first lieutenant in December 1969 and went on to command several units throughout his career.

His military assignments include service with the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions; 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment; 3rd, 5th, and 6th Special Forces Groups, 5th Infantry Division; 7th Corps and XVIII Airborne Corps.

———————————————-

FYI: Col. Howard performed all his battlefield heroism as an enlisted Green Beret.

Look up the definition of “Bad Mother Fucker” and there will be a picture of Bob Howard.

ABC15

SUPERIOR, AZ — A Gilbert police officer was shot and killed late Thursday night during a traffic stop, officials said. 

Around 10:45 p.m., Lt. Eric Shuhandler approached the suspect’s vehicle near Val Vista Drive and Baseline Road when the suspect suddenly opened fire, Gilbert police Sgt. Mark Marino said.

Marino said his understanding was that Shuhandler was hit by one bullet.

Officer Shuhandler was then taken by ambulance to Maricopa County Medical Center in Phoenix where he died.

After the shooting, officials said the suspects led police on a 50-mile chase on US 60.

According to Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, the two suspects were taken into custody near US 60 and Apple Valley Road, east of Superior and are now in the hospital. 

Several residents told ABC15 they saw at least 60 police units speeding after the suspects.

And officers on the ground told ABC15 that two police cars also collided during the pursuit. Information about that crash wasn’t immediately available.

According to ADOT, US 60 is closed in both directions from milepost 212 at SR 79 to milepost 252 at Globe.

It is unclear when the roadway will be reopened.

The Two Malcontents Salute MSG. Kelly Hornbeck. Gone, but never forgotten.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Military officials today reported the year’s first U.S. combat casualties in Afghanistan — four troops killed a day earlier in the country’s violent south.

In addition to the Americans killed in Sunday’s blast, a British soldier died in a separate explosion, also in the south.

Roadside bombs are the No. 1 killer of Western forces in Afghanistan, and have become the signature weapon of the Taliban and other insurgents.

American troop deaths in Afghanistan surged during 2009, doubling from their levels in the previous year. Commanders have warned that the Obama administration’s coming troop buildup will likely bring with it an increase in casualties, in part because the new forces will be pushing into areas of the country where the insurgents have until now held sway.

An additional 30,000 U.S. troops are to be deployed in Afghanistan this year, adding to approximately 68,000 Americans already on the ground. Separately, NATO allies are to add 7,000 troops.

The location of the latest deaths was not specified, but most Western troops in the south are based in the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, where the Taliban movement is the strongest. Those two provinces are also a center of Afghanistan’s drug trade, which has close links to the insurgency.

Most of the arriving reinforcements are to be deployed in the south, where thousands of U.S. Marines have been trying to secure a key swath of Helmand province. Other U.S. troops are working to quell a rising insurgent presence in and around Kandahar city, the Taliban’s spiritual center.

Source