Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Earthquake!!!!!!
Ok, Like I am not already thinking this is the most wonderful place on earth.... and then blamo add earthquakes to terrorist with explosives, scorpions, cobras, sand flees and goat head for breakfast!!!!! Last night a little after 11pm my CHU (my little piece of comabt housing home) starts shaking. At first I think my soldiers are playing with me, until I go out side and everyone is looking around in amazment. It was a 5.1 on the richter scale. You really know that mankind messed up when God turned this place from the Garden of Eden into.... well this. I would now like to officially make Tal Afar Iraq one of the top tourist spots of the season!!!! My CHU is now a time share... You can have it for two weeks vacation every year for only $10,ooo thats right. A one time payment and you can vacation here for the rest of your lives!!!! Included in the price is a natural sauna! Temps reach to 140 degrees...... Get your reservation in now. My CHU will go fast and there are only 26 time share slots available. (**Note everything included in this story is true... wish it wasn't :-) Even the thermometer is an actual photo from right here at the timeshare capital of the world!!!!)
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Dad
Today marks the one year mark of the passing of my father. With this day comes a lot of emotions, both happy and sad. It's been one full year but it really doesn't seem much easier.I just wanted to share a memorial of him for everyone that knew him and for everyone that never had that wonderful opportunity......
My dad was born with a heart condition. When he was born the doctor said that he would not make it to 8. At the age of eight they said he would not make it to 12. I think because of those dire predictions my dad lived his life to the fullest!! He was probably the most alive person I have ever known. He owned and ran an ambulance service by the time he was 16. When he decided to go into TV, he did that with zest. He was one of the youngest TV directors to every come through Columbus, GA before heading to the big Market in Atlanta. Once TV started boring him, he started one of the most successful ambulance services in Atlanta. My dad was not one to stay any place to long, so after working with Garth Brooks he decided it was off to Nashville. Dad started Encore Management company before tackling the Record Business completely. Like I said there was nothing he could not do. Dad fell in love with kayaking. So, he left Nashville and started RiverRight outfitters on the Cartecay River in North Georgia. Most people would never dream to even try something new, for dad he was always out to prove he could do anything. When dad passed away he was working in the motion picture business with his wonderful wife Lisa.
My favorite memories of dad, are how he used to support me when I was mountain bike racing. It was always so awesome to finish a lap and see my dad running beside me with a water bottle in hand. We also carried the olympic torch on bike in 1996, the only father son team to do that besides Lance Armstrong and his dad. I can still see my dad before the Gulf War wearing sunglasses so I could see the tears in his eyes as I boarded the plane. He was so mad at me last year when he learned that I was being deployed again. He used to joke that I never turned down a uniform, from boy scouts on. It has been so hard being here without his support and his humor to get me through.
Dad, I miss you and I want the whole world to know how much I love you. You are missed by so many people. I am so thankful for the time we had together. You were my shooting star.
Robert Bennett April 12, 1945 - July 16, 2008 ATLANTA, GA — Robert Bennett, 63, of Atlanta, died July 16, 2008 at Emory Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta. Graveside services will be held 4:00 p.m. Saturday, July 19, 2008 in Parkhill Cemetery according to Striffler-Hamby Mortuary, Columbus. The family will receive friends at 3:30 p.m. at the graveside. Mr. Bennett was born April 12, 1945 to the late William Osborne, Jr. and Jessie Mae Bennett in Columbus, GA. He attended Columbus High School and was a 32nd degree mason. Mr. Bennett is survived by wife, Lisa, of Atlanta; a son, Todd Bennett of Indianapolis, IN; an aunt, Peggy Bennett of Collegedale, TN. Visit www.mem.com to sign the online guest registry.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Twin Explosions here in Tal Afar! Please Pray For these families.
(CNN) At least 35 (Now estimated at 40 and growing) people were killed and 65 wounded in a double suicide bombing in northern Iraq on Thursday morning, according to the Nineveh Military Operations Command.
The bombers struck the city of Tal Afar in Nineveh province, where political tensions have recently increased between Arabs and Kurds. Violence erupted in Nineveh on Wednesday as well.
The first bomb struck the house of a security official working in counterterrorism operations, the official said. The second bomb detonated just minutes later, after people had gathered at the scene in a predominantly Shiite Turkmen area of the city.
The Tal Afar bombings occurred a day after attacks on mainly Shiite targets in Nineveh province -- including a car bomb in a Turkmen area of the provincial capital, Mosul, -- left at least 19 people dead and dozens wounded.
Despite a drop in violence in Nineveh's provincial capital, Mosul, the city remains a challenge. There are daily reports of attacks.
*The 130,000 U.S. troops who remain are now tasked with supporting Iraqi troops and police, and will require Iraqi permission to launch operations in the cities. Most are American Police Transition Teams that work in the cities with the Iraqi Police.
(More from the news reel) The bombers in Tal Afar targeted two brothers working for Iraqi security forces in Tal Afar in an attack against a building used as a court annexe to interrogate suspects in "terrorist attacks," police colonel Khaled Omar told AFP.
They blew themselves up minutes apart around 7.30am (0430 GMT), with the second explosion engulfing civilians who had gathered to help victims of the first blast, a security official said.
The violence was the worst to strike the conflict-hit country since US forces pulled out of towns and cities on June 30 under a landmark accord between Baghdad and Washington.
Dr Fathi Yassin at Tal Afar hospital said 34 people were killed and 61 wounded in the attack, which came a day after two car bombs exploded in the main northern city of Mosul, killing 12 people and wounding dozens more.
Neither of the two brothers targeted by the Tal Afar bombers were killed, the security official said, but police and hospital sources said the casualties included women and children.
Another six people were killed and 24 hurt when two bombs went off in a market in the mainly Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad, police and hospital sources said.
A roadside bomb targeting the convoy of the Iraqi Central Bank's governor, meanwhile, resulted in a civilian being killed and five people, including two members of the security forces, wounded in the capital's Karrada business district.
Tal Afar is a mostly Turkmen town between Mosul and the Syrian border and has often been the target of violence.
In March 2007, it was hit by one of the deadliest single attacks in Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003 when a suicide truck bomb killed more than 150 people.
The spate of bombings comes just over a week after US troops pulled back from urban centres under an agreement that paves the way for a complete American military withdrawal by the end of 2011.
The four weeks leading up to the US withdrawal witnessed the highest death toll in the country in 11 months, according to official figures.
A total of 437 people, including 372 civilians, were killed in June, according to figures compiled by government ministries -- the highest toll since since July 2008.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had warned last month that insurgents and militias were likely to step up attacks in a bid to undermine confidence in Iraqi security forces.
US Vice President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly voiced concern about lingering feuds between Iraq's various sects being a roadblock to political progress, was last week rebuffed on the issue when he visited Iraq.
"We don't want other parties to interfere in this matter because it will cause complications," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on state television, referring to the country's national reconciliation process.
"(Joe Biden) has to convey to President (Barack) Obama the common desire of Iraqis to solve their problems together," he said.
Baghdad's comments came a day after Biden warned of a "hard road ahead if Iraq is going to find lasting peace and stability," alluding to the need to bolster trust between different ethnic and religious groups.
Maliki, who will visit Washington on July 21, said that the US troop pullback signalled that the two countries had "entered a new phase."
ISI Statement
"Even if the Americans remain nowhere but a small spot in the Iraqi desert ... so every Muslim should battle them until they are expelled," the voice, reported to be Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, head of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq, said in the recording posted on a website used by jihadists.
The Iraqi government heralded the capture this spring of a man they identified as Baghdadi, just as an uptick in major attacks raised troubling questions about whether Iraq would be able to maintain a sharp decline in the violence unleashed by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
It was not the first time Iraqi officials had announced the capture of someone identified as Baghdadi, and the Sunni Arab insurgent group has since denied his arrest.
The Islamic State of Iraq is believed to be affiliated with al Qaeda's main organisation in Iraq, led by Abu Ayyub al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.
The tape comes a week after the United States pulled combat troops from bases within Iraqi cities and towns, part of a plan to halt combat operations in August 2010 and withdraw all American forces by the end of 2011.
But militant attacks continue, especially in Baghdad and parts of northern Iraq, underscoring doubts about whether local forces will be able to impose order on their own.
The speaker called on Sunni Arab militiamen, who helped drive al Qaeda out of most of Iraq after they began collaborating with American forces in 2006, to rejoin the insurgency and battle Iraq's Shi'ite-led government.
"We tell them 'Come back to your senses ... Nothing better than repent and return to the ranks of jihadists and to leave the infidels," the tape said. (Writing by Aseel Kami; editing by Missy Ryan and Elizabeth Fullerton)