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Sunday, October 10, 11:45 p.m.
Area Soldier Dies Fighting Overseas
The Department of Defense has announced the death of a Wayne County soldier. Sergeant Andrew Brown of Pleasant Mount died
Friday in Iraq. We're told his death resulted from injuries sustained a week earlier, when his patrol vehicle was hit by a
bomb. Brown's unit was based out of Fort Polk, Louisiana. The military has notified Brown's family. |
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Three's a Charm for Guard Unit
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After 31 hours, the last of the soldiers
from the 103rd finally arrive at Baghdad airport.
The remaining soldiers from the Pennsylvania National Guard's 103rd Armor Regiment arrived at their new assignments
in and around Baghdad today after what turned out for some to be a highly unusual trip.
"You wouldn't believe it,"
said Times-Tribune staff writer Christopher J. Kelly, who is embedded with the 103rd with photo director Michael J. Mullen.
"It took us 31 hours to make a flight that would normally take an hour and a half."
The Times-Tribune| team
was traveling with the last members of the 103rd to move from Camp Virginia, Kuwait, into Baghdad. The group included 46 members
of Charlie Company and 26 members of Bravo Company.
"We flew out of Ali Al Salem, near Camp Virginia," Mr. Kelly said.
They were divided into smaller groups and took several planes.
The Times-Tribune team's equipment was loaded
on one plane. They boarded another, along with 21 others from the 103rd.
The plane, however, experienced problems
with the aileron (the two movable flaps on the wings used to control the plane's rolling and banking movements) midflight
and "we had to go back," Mr. Kelly said. A second plane began filling with smoke while it was still on the runway, Mr. Mullen
said.
"The third one was the charm," Mr. Kelly said.
They were originally scheduled to leave Kuwait at about
3 p.m. Iraq time but did not arrive at Baghdad International Airport until about 11 p.m. Authorities felt it was too dangerous
to travel at night so they spent the night at the airport.
"This morning they came and got us and we rode to the outskirts
of Baghdad," to Camp Steel Falcon, Mr. Kelly said. The camp is a forward operating base located in the Al Rashid district
of southern Baghdad.
Others from the regiment have been assigned to different camps, including Camp Slayer, which
is housed in a former presidential palace in Radwaniyah and has been converted into a logistics and operations base.
Watch
for a complete account and more photos in Friday's editions of The Tribune and The Scranton Times.
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| İScranton Times Tribune 2004 |
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Local soldiers patrol Fallujah
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| By Christopher J. Kelly TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER |
04/23/2004 |
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The bloody wave of violence rolling across
Iraq has drawn local soldiers to the epicenter of the growing insurgency, according to a report published in The New York
Times.
First Lt. Joe Cotterino, 37, of Dalton
is quoted in a Thursday report from Fallujah, scene of the fiercest fighting since "major combat operations" were declared
over in March. On the heels of a pitched battle with insurgents on Wednesday, Lt. Cotterino lamented the failure of Iraqis
to stand and fight with their U.S. liberators.
A photograph showed the squad leader from Echo Company of the 1st Battalion, 103rd Armor Regiment
of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, dealing with a crowd at a checkpoint outside the city.
Fallujah has been under
siege by U.S. forces, mainly Marines, since April 5. The assault on the city, about 30 miles west of Baghdad, came in response
to the murder and mutilation of four civilian U.S. security contractors a week earlier.
On April 5, members of Echo
Company -- formerly designated Bravo Company -- were told in a secret briefing that they would be leaving Camp Ferrin-Huggins
in Baghdad for a mission that could last up to three months. At least some of the unit was apparently sent to Fallujah, but
attempts to confirm the mission were unsuccessful Thursday.
Some 70,000 people -- more than a third of Fallujah's population
of 200,000 -- have fled the city since the fighting began, flooding Baghdad and nearby areas.
Wednesday's battle began
with an ambush by 13 insurgents on Marines, who called in Cobra gunships that killed 10 of the attackers, according to Associated
Press reports. Nearly three dozen insurgents then joined the fight with Marines in a running battle that lasted four hours.
It ended when warplanes dropped two 500-pound bombs. Ten more insurgents were killed, officials said.
The battle further
shook an already unstable truce reached last week. The cease-fire "will not go on indefinitely," Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld said.
Hospital officials in Fallujah say more than 600 Iraqis have died in fighting there and up to 2,000
have been wounded. The official Pentagon death toll shows 110 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action in Iraq since March
31 -- more than in the major combat phase of the war from March 19 to April 30, 2003, when 109 died.
In all, 509 U.S.
soldiers have been killed in action, according to the Pentagon.
A top U.S. military commander told the Associated Press
that 10 percent of Iraqi security forces "worked against" U.S. forces in the past three weeks of fighting in Fallujah and
the southern city of Najaf.
Another 40 percent of the Iraqi security forces walked off the job because they didn't
want to fight fellow Iraqis, said Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the Army's 1st Armored Division.
"The I.P.
did not want to help, the I.C.D.C. didn't want to help," Lt. Cotterino told The New York Times, using the initials for the
Iraqi Police and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.
The failure of Iraqi security forces to fight is bad news for the Bush
administration, which is standing firm in its June 30 deadline to hand over sovereignty -- and responsibility for security
-- to Iraqis.
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| İScranton Times Tribune 2004 |
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Hawley Marks
Memorial with Service
A Chance to Say Thank You
Members of Company A, Honesdale, march in the annual Memorial Day Parade, held Sunday
afternoon, May 30, in Hawley Borough. Co. A., First Battalion, 109th Infantry (Mech) Company, part of the PA National Guard,
completed a 15-month deployment to Bosnia from May 2002 to March 2003. These and other veteran marching groups and vehicles
passed by the reviewing stand set up near What Knots/The Trading Post. Citizens who came to enjoy the parade shouted Thank
You. Thank You, to the soldiers and sailors of both the present and past. (News Eagle Uzupes)
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