Visit this website to view more humorous photos taken by our brave men in uniform.

But Mohammed caught the eye of Michigan soldier David Howell. David swore that he would do what he could for the young man. He said he “felt an obligation as an American to do something for this family”.

After hard works and miles of red tape, Howell succeeded  in his efforts to have Mohammed relocated to the United States. Here he received much needed medical care and reconstructive surgery.

Mohammed is scheduled to return to Iraq in April. Understandably he has mixed feelings about the journey.

“I am excited about seeing my brothers and sisters, but I am not excited about going back to Iraq,” said Mohammed, who calls his family weekly to share his progress. “There are terrorists there. I am afraid I am going to get killed in Iraq.” (source)

One day hopefully Mohammed can feel safe at home once again.

These brave men face hardships unknown to us. They are looked on as traitors to their countrymen, even though their mission is peace. The translators perform a valuable service to the American military, and without them they wouldn’t be able to do what they do.The translators have to follow the troops into hostile territory, and often they are injured or killed.

But the Iraqi translators face real danger. Often they hide their faces, and use aliases and accents to hide their identity. If their identity is discovered, it’s not only themselves who can can to harm. The Iraqi people see them as traitors, and as such, they go after the entire family.

These men have taken up a job that is every bit as tough as being a soldier, but remain behind the scenes. I’ve read many articles that mention a lost translator, but the writers rarely mention the mens’ names. So take a moment to give a thought and a prayer to the Iraqi translators who have dedicated themselves to doing what they think is right, even if their entire country is against them.

For more about the Iraqi translators, click here.

I’ve been reading a recent internal summary of how Marine “Female Engagement Teams,” or FETs, have worked in Afghanistan. The bottom line is that done right, this approach works surprisingly well, with benefits among the population that can’t be achieved by males. The findings run directly contrary to several assertions made in the comments reacting to my previous post on this subject.

First, Afghans don’t seem to mind the female teams. Paradoxically, “Female Marines are extended the respect shown to men, but granted the access reserved for women,” the report finds. “In other words, the culture is more flexible than we’ve conditioned ourselves to think.”

Second, the teams have been successful in reaching the other half of the population, one that carries disproportionate influence with the prime Taliban recruiting pool. “Local women wield more influence than many of us imagined-influence on their husbands, brothers, and especially their adolescent sons.”

When one patrol that took a FET with it was observed, the female Marines were invited inside several compounds, while the male Marines stayed outside. “And in each case, the FET succeeded in breaking the ice and getting women to open up and discuss their daily lives and concerns.” Nor was this an isolated event. When patrols returned, “we discovered some Afghan women had been anticipating the opportunity to meet American women. In one home, the women said they had caught glimpses of the patrolling FET through a crack in the wall and that they had ‘prayed you would come to us.’” The fact that the Afghan women welcomed return visits indicated that their men hadn’t punished them for speaking to Americans.

The women interviewed also had surprisingly diverse backgrounds. Though all impoverished now, some had once been prosperous. One group of young women reported that they had been held captive by the Taliban.

The interactions also seemed to change how some local men viewed the Marine presence. “One gentleman with a gray beard who opened his home to the FET put it this way: ‘Your men come to fight, but we know the women are here to help.’” Read on…

Before the Code Talkers, the Japanese had been having an easy time intercepting and translating the American messages. They had excellent English translators.

After the Code Talkers began their operations, not one coded message was broken.

The Code Talkers had been sworn to utter secrecy regarding their actions in the field, and even after the subject was officially declassified in 1968, they kept quiet. But now not many are left, due to age and illness, and the remaining men fear that their incredible story will be lost.

Let us not forget their vital part in World War II.

For more information about the Navajo Code Talkers, click here for an article talking about them joining in for Veteran’s Day, or here for the official website.

But the benefits to the soldiers when they can get a hot meal, or even, a good hot meal, can be wonderful. It can be uplifting to know that someone, a comrade in arms, is thinking of your mealtime needs.

This cook in Afghanistan is even beginning to get quite a following just by simply feeding his fellow soldiers.
Combat Outpost Zerok, Afghanistan – The anticipation is palpable on Mexican night at this tiny US base in the mountains of Paktika Province in eastern Afghanistan. Every Thursday, soldiers start lining up an hour early as Spc. Jose Flores hand-rolls more than 200 made-to-order burritos for the base. The creative cook has earned something of a cult following in his unit for his ability to transform military rations into tasty meals.

More anomalous than the appetizing military food though, is the fact that the chef behind it is an Army cook.

Though the Army cook has long held a prominent role in military fiction and folklore, on bases in Iraq and Afghanistan they’re all but obsolete. Private contractors such as KBR now run the vast majority of downrange cafeterias, while military cooks have been pushed into odd jobs like guard duty. Only occasionally are they tasked to their actual job, usually on small outposts beyond the reach of contractors where – out of practice – they get anything but positive reviews.

Through a series of lucky breaks and hard work, though, Flores has made himself a military cook who actually cooks. Now, he’s arguably one of the best cooks in the Army, having worked on a cooking team that placed second in an Army-wide competition and trained under a cook who later won the title of best senior chef in the Army.

“Only a select few get this kind of experience,” says Flores, describing just the amount of time he’s spent in the kitchen, let alone working under high-level mentors.

During his first tour in Iraq, for example, Flores estimates that only about 20 percent of the military cooks in his unit got experience in front of the stove. With the military’s reliance on contractors already widespread by the time Flores enlisted in 2003, he says rumors have been circulating for as long as he’s been in uniform that the Army will do away with military cooks completely in favor of civilian contractors.

Among those who went through basic training with him, Flores says frequent deployments to large bases in Iraq and Afghanistan with contractor-run cafeterias limited their chances to grow as chefs. Fellow cooks would earn promotions for whatever duties they were assigned unrelated to cooking, he says, so by the time they returned to a kitchen they were managers removed from the food-preparation process. “I’ve known people who’ve climbed the rank ladder in food services and know very little to nothing about food service,” he says.

Flores avoided this problem by landing his first duty posting at Fort Bliss, Texas, which, like many installations in the US, employed Army cooks instead of contractors. The assignment allowed him to spend two years behind the grill and join a competitive cooking team. Now when he prepares meals – even at a remote outpost – he and his crew pay attention to every detail, even steaming tortillas before serving breakfast burritos.

By the time Flores transferred to a deployable unit, his experience allowed him to move into one of a handful of cooking jobs with his unit in Iraq.

Now on his second deployment, this time to Afghanistan, he is something of a minor celebrity in his unit. Most of the soldiers say his cooking tastes better than anything the contract kitchens make on big bases.

“We’ve had this chow before on training exercises, and it never tastes like Army chow [when Flores cooks it]. He makes it delicious,” says Spc. Matthew King.

Spc. Bret Tillman proudly remembers how the chef brought two large boxes of his own spices when they deployed to Afghanistan.

For his part, Flores is optimistic that soldier-operated kitchens will not become a footnote in military history. With so many small outposts spread throughout the Afghan countryside, he estimates that now about 75 percent of the cooks in his unit are getting an opportunity to actually make food.

“I’ve known some great food service minds in the military,” he says. The future of army food services is in great hands. There are a lot of guys out there who know what they’re doing.”  (CS Monitor)

Irena Sendler was born in 1910 in Otwock, a town some 15 miles southeast of Warsaw. She was greatly influenced by her father who was one of the first Polish Socialists. As a doctor his patients were mostly poor Jews. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and the brutality of the Nazis accelerated with murder, violence and terror. At the time, Irena was a Senior Administrator in the Warsaw Social Welfare Department, which operated the canteens in every district of the city. Previously, the canteens provided meals, financial aid, and other services for orphans, the elderly, the poor and the destitute. Now, through Irena, the canteens also provided clothing, medicine and money for the Jews. They were registered under fictitious Christian names, and to prevent inspections, the Jewish families were reported as being afflicted with such highly infectious diseases as typhus and tuberculosis.