4.29.2005

 

Jury Returns Death Sentence In GI Killings

Jury Returns Death Sentence in GI Killings
29 Apr 05
Estes Thompson

FT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) - Hours after giving a brief, barely audible apology, a soldier was sentenced to death by a military jury for attacking comrades with a rifle and grenades early in the Iraq invasion.
Sgt. Hasan Akbar, 34, could have been sentenced Thursday to life in prison with or without parole for the March 2003 attack on members of the elite 101st Airborne Division at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait. Two officers were killed and 14 other soldiers were wounded.
"I want to apologize for the attack that occurred. I felt that my life was in jeopardy, and I had no other options. I also want to ask you for forgiveness," Akbar told the jury before it began deliberating. He spoke in such a low voice that even prosecutors sitting nearby had trouble hearing, with one lawyer even cupping his ear.
Jurors took about seven hours to reach their decision Thursday. Last week, the same 15-person military jury took just two and a half hours last week to convict Akbar of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder.

The sentence will be reviewed by a commanding officer and automatically appealed. If Akbar is executed, it would be by lethal injection.
Although the defense contends Akbar was too mentally ill to plan the attack, they have never disputed that he threw grenades into troop tents in the early morning darkness and then fired on soldiers in the ensuing chaos. Army Capt. Chris Seifert, 27, and Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, were killed.
Prosecutors say Akbar launched the attack at his camp - days before the soldiers were to move into Iraq - because he was concerned about U.S. troops killing fellow Muslims in the Iraq war.

"He is a hate-filled, ideologically driven murderer," chief prosecutor Lt. Col. Michael Mulligan said. He added that Akbar wrote in his diary in 1997, "My life will not be complete unless America is destroyed."
Akbar is the first American since the Vietnam era to be prosecuted on charges of murdering a fellow soldier during wartime.

"Hasan Akbar has robbed me of so many things," said Tammie Eslinger, Stone's fiancee, after the sentencing. "He stole my love, my family, my dreams and my future. But he could never steal my spirit."
Seifert's widow, Theresa, said she was satisfied with the military justice system. She called Akbar "a nonentity to me."
efense attorney Maj. David Coombs told jurors that a sentence of life without parole would allow Akbar to be treated for mental illness and possibly rehabilitated.
"Death is an absolute punishment, a punishment of last resort," Coombs said.
A defense psychiatrist testified that although Akbar was legally sane and understood the consequences of his attack, he suffered from forms of paranoia and schizophrenia.
Akbar's father, John Akbar, has said his son complained in vain to his superiors about religious and racial harassment before the attack. The defense never introduced any witnesses to testify about any such harassment.
John Akbar was not in the courtroom for the verdict. He emerged from a meeting with his son in tears and declined to comment.

Akbar will be the sixth person on the military's death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The last U.S. military execution was in 1961 [Army Pvt. John Bennett was hanged for the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl], although others have been sentenced to death since then.

4.22.2005

 

Last flight From Saigon Relived After 30 Years

Last flight from Saigon relived after 30 years
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Stephanie Mansfield
22 Apr 1975

The Washington Times The memories are still vivid: a steaming bus ride through the humid morning, the acrid odor of jet fuel, the clouds of smoke from distant gunfire, getting closer. Then about 450 people boarded the last commercial flight out of Saigon, headed for the United States.
That was April 24, 1975, six days before the North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon. A Pan American World Airways Boeing 747 -- crammed with Pan Am and U.S. Embassy staff, frightened refugees, crying orphans and volunteer crew members -- lifted off the potholed tarmac at Tan Son Nhut International Airport on the outskirts of the chaotic city, and took flight while distant rockets took aim.
"It was a heroic rescue mission," recalls David Lamb, who was a Los Angeles Times correspondent who joined the flight when it landed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. "That was truly a dangerous moment."
The Federal Aviation Administration had ordered all U.S. commercial flights barred from flying in or out of Vietnam, but Pan Am received permission for one final flight. Twenty days earlier, another jetliner, a C-5A Galaxy assigned to Operation Baby Lift, exploded and crashed after an explosion tore off a rear door. More than half of the 300 children and adults aboard died.
But this weekend, the crew of "Clipper Unity," Pan Am's familiar Flight 842 and their Vietnamese baby refugees -- most of whom are now in their 30s -- will reunite at the Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel in Arlington for a tearful anniversary of the celebrated evacuation, dubbed "Wings of Freedom."
"It represents the drama of the final hours of Saigon. It's the link to the past," says Mr. Lamb, who will participate in the four-day symposium that will call up reminiscences from the Operation Baby Lift survivors.
Sponsored by the Pan Am Historical Foundation, the reunion marks the kickoff of a fundraising campaign to support an orphanage in Vietnam.
Lien Ta, a Pan Am passenger agent who was on the last flight, says the group has worked on the project for more than a year. "We want to meet everyone after 30 years. It will be very emotional."
Mrs. Ta lives in the Washington area with her husband and two children and works now for Delta Air Lines. Pan Am suspended operations in 1991.
Al Topping, who was the Pan Am director of operations for Vietnam and Cambodia, orchestrated the cloak-and-dagger rescue mission. He tracked down hundreds of the airline's former employees and orphans over the years for the reunion. He, too, expects the weekend to be dramatic for many.
"It's emotional for me," Mr. Topping says. "When you think of some of these babies who were only 6 months old."
In 1975, Mr. Topping put together the list of the 350 names of employees and immediate family members and completed the paperwork enabling them to leave the country. He described it as "adopting them."
On the morning of April 24, four buses moved slowly down Tu Do Street in the heart of Saigon to the Pan Am ticket office, where the employees, sleeping on the floor, awoke to scurry aboard the buses. At the gates of Tan Son Nhut, Mr. Topping waved a signed affidavit with 350 names on it, saying he was personally responsible for the Vietnamese employees he had "adopted."
Others, desperate for freedom, milled about the tarmac. Several members of the flight crew tossed baby-blue stewardess uniforms over a fence to Vietnamese women. Three maintenance workers crawled through the electrical bay.
The flight that day was overloaded -- 463 passengers in the aircraft configured for 375 -- and the plane sat on the runway for 45 minutes after Capt. Robert Berg was told by the control tower that there was "activity" in the area. Mr. Topping, who was seated in the jump seat of the cockpit, recalled what he thought during takeoff: "I was scared to death that we would just get blown out of the sky."
Matt Steiner, who is now an emergency room physician in Indiana, was one of the children rescued that day. "It was chaotic," he says. "There were over 300 babies. Kids were screaming. It was over 100 degrees."
Dr. Steiner was the subject of the book, "Escape From Saigon: How a Vietnamese War Orphan Became an American Boy." He had been adopted by an American family before the flight, and clutched the picture of his adoptive parent during the takeoff roll.


24 Apr 75 the US turns and doesn't look back Posted by Hello

Crew members put the babies in seats and strapped them in together. Several were placed in boxes. "I was next to two children, trying to comfort them," Dr. Steiner recalls.
Another participant in the reunion is Roger Castillo, a physician's assistant in Missoula, Mont. "I just want to say thank you," Mr. Castillo says. "These people from Pan Am gave us their lives to guarantee our safety."
He was just 6 years old when the workers at the orphanage roused him out of bed, hurriedly fed him breakfast and put him on the bus to the airport.
"A lot of us were scared and anxious. I remember it was very hot, very humid," Mr. Castillo says. From the bus window, he saw the crumpled fuselage of the crashed C-5 aircraft. "I just remember how hectic it was. They loaded us on the plane. The top bubble part had been transformed into a makeshift hospital. I remember eating a lot of candy, Wrigley's gum and soda pop."
Mr. Castillo -- one of 108 Vietnamese children older than 8 -- eventually was adopted and grew up in California. He is married and has two daughters.
"I keep asking myself, 'Why me? ... Why was I chosen when thousands were left?" Mr. Castillo says. "I think I was given some wonderful chance. This weekend I hope to learn more about what happened to me."
Dr. Steiner is also reflective about that fateful day. "I believe there are no coincidences," he says. "God had a purpose for me."

4.21.2005

 

Introducing: The MATRIX

Not the Red pill or the Blue pill, but the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX).

The MATRIX program is a
pilot project [that] leverages proven technology called FACTS) to assist criminal investigations by implementing factual data analysis from existing data sources and integrating disparate data from many types of Web-enabled storage systems.
Four states are currently participating in the MATRIX pilot project. They are: Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

It's all here =>

4.16.2005

 

UPDATE: Qudrat Has Gone To Heaven

...children are not questioned about their deeds because they did not reach that stage when they could make informed choices. It is an aspect of God's mercy that He admits them to heaven... The children plead for their parents, saying that they were deprived of the care and love of their parents early in life and they do not want to be deprived of that again. God, in His mercy, tells them to go to heaven with their parents
Adil Salahi
The Indianopolis Star reports that little Qudrat Wardak, the little Afghan boy with the great big, but frail, heart, has passed away

Camp Phoenix staff learned of Qudrat's death shortly after 5:45 a.m. Friday, when Wardak's uncle, Muhammad Khan, and a neighbor appeared at the gate of Camp Phoenix, said Maj. Eric Bloom, public affairs officer.

Capt. Michael Roscoe, a physician's assistant from Pendleton, and Capt. Tim Landis, an optometrist, examined Qudrat at the refugee camp east of Camp Phoenix. Roscoe, who had been instrumental in diagnosing Qudrat last fall with a serious heart condition that couldn't be treated in Afghanistan, said there was no obvious explanation for the baby's death.

"Qudrat was a great ambassador for everything that's going on here, on the positive side,'' Roscoe said. "It's just devastating to every one of us. It really is like losing our own child.
'

4.12.2005

 

Afghan Infant Has A Lot Of Heart ... Surgery, That Is!

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A frail 16-month-old boy diagnosed with severe cardiac problems at a refugee camp near Kabul began his return trip home Monday - surgically repaired and chubby-cheeked.


Qudrat Wardak is now strong enough to
stand for his dad, Hakim
Matt Detrich / The Star
Posted by Hello

The long journey for Qudrat Wardak began in September, when an Indiana National Guard doctor examined him at the camp near the Afghan capital and found numerous heart defects - the worst being the reversal of the heart's main blood vessels that stunted the baby's growth...

Read the whole thing => {hat tip to GOP Bloggers}

4.10.2005

 

My Country 'Tis Of Thee...


Wham!


Michelle Malkin reports that Raven Furbert, a 13-year-old Mont Pleasant (near Schenectady, NY) Middle School student is suing school officials for the right to wear a handmade red, white and blue necklace to class.

She wears the necklace in honor of soldiers serving overseas, including an uncle and three other relatives, but the school administrators are saying red, white and blue are "gang-oriented colors" [which gang, I wonder... the US Army?]


Raven Furbert with her "gang -related"
bracelet
Posted by Hello

You can burn a flag, but you can't wear a red, white and blue necklace around your neck.
This just screams for a Charlie Daniels Song.

4.08.2005

 

SFC Smith Inducted Into Hall Of Heroes

From DOD News DefenseLINK
5 Apr 2005

Pentagon Ceremony to Add SFC Smith to the Hall of Heroes

Yesterday the nation watched as the president presented Birgit, Jessica and David with our country's highest award for valor: the Medal of Honor -- which was earned two years ago to the day by their soldier, Sergeant First Class Paul Smith. Today, we assemble in another special place, where we will memorialize Sergeant First Class Smith by placing him in a formation with ranks filled by our nation's most courageous here in the Hall of Heroes.

From Secretary Rumsfeld's remarks:
But this much we do know. From our earliest days, America has had the great good fortune to be blessed by volunteers, who have stepped forward to defend the American people and to defend our free way of life. They're soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines. They're paramedics and nurses, firefighters and policemen. And they're family members, who often struggle with quiet dignity while those loved ones serve so far away.

Birgit Smith, her son David and daughter Jessica attend the unveiling
of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith's headstone
at Arlington National
Cemetery, Va., April 5, 2005.
Smith received the Medal of Honor
posthumously for his
actions in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was
honored with
ceremonies at the White House, April 4 and the Pentagon,
April 5, 2005.

U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Reeba Critser
Posted by Hello

... The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

4.06.2005

 

"John Q" Is A "Man on Fire"


Denzel Washington at Brooke Army Medical Center Posted by Hello

Not all Hollywood stars are in the Michael Moore camp. Denzel Washington took time to visit some wounded troops back in the States for medical care a few months ago.

Random Probabilities has lots of pictures!

4.05.2005

 

Some Gave All...


The Congressional Medal of Honor Posted by Hello

The citation, a profile of SFC Smith, and an animated replay of the events leading up to SFC Smith's heroic actions, can be found here



His courageous actions on April 4, 2003, helped defeat the enemy attack and resulted in as many as fifty enemy soldiers killed while allowing the safe withdrawal of numerous wounded soldiers Posted by Hello


The White House Presentation ceremony is recounted here

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