Casualty

An email was forwarded to me announcing Wednesday night's reopening of Kaufman's Tavern in Gambrills. I gave Kaufmann's a call, and manager Daniel Carr confirmed that the sprawling restaurant would be open on Wednesday, Aug. 31, the first night since Hurricane Irene came through town and knocked Kaufmann's for a loop. Irene did a number on Kaufmann's, smashing a tree down on a car its lot and generally playing havoc with the expansive deck area that had been remodeled only this past spring.

Does the U.S. (and the West) possess the internal fortitude to pay the required price to defeat contemporary enemies such asal-Qaidaand its progeny? This question crosses my mind whenever I'm exposed to the "peace groups" that occasionally pop up on television news or appear at a local Fourth of July parade. Their signs and banners reflect emotional demands for peace on behalf of a war-weary country fighting a loose confederation of radical extremists spread around the world. My immediate thought: How do these well-meaning folks process reports such as al-Qaida's recent poster campaign promise to make a return (mass casualty)

A fight broke ou between center James Donaldson and guard Rolando Blackman during a Dallas Mavericks' scrimmage yesterday, but the chief casualty was guard Derek Harper.Harper left practice with two fresh scratches under his eye. He received the wounds trying to break up the skirmish.Donaldson said the scrap boiled out of the frustration of the Mavericks' losing 13 of their last 14 games.

A special session of the legislature is definitely needed to prevent the disastrous "doomsday budget" from taking effect - but it is also needed to enact the life-saving tobacco tax increase, which like the proposed income tax increase failed to gain final General Assembly approval by midnight on April 9. The House and Senate revenue conferees had agreed that the tax on little cigars should be increased from its very low present rate of 15 percent...

WASHINGTON - We used to know them by name. Maybe you remember. American soldiers were fighting in Afghanistan and every time one died, we learned his name. Not only that, reporters told us about his life, introduced us to his newly bereft widow and suddenly fatherless children. Made us feel the weight of that death. You had to know it couldn't last. Had to know that, as the casualty count mounted, it would become impossible to know the dead as individual men and women. At some point, they would become "casualties" in much the same way raindrops become a thunderstorm.

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush passed within 100 feet today of the roadside encampment where the mother of an Iraq war casualty was inviting him to stop and talk, but his motorcade passed by the protest site without making contact. The fleeting encounter between the president's entourage and the anti-war assembly organized by Cindy Sheehan occurred near Bush's Prairie Chapel Ranch, where he and first lady Laura Bush are spending a five-week summer vacation. On their way to a Republican fundraising event at a neighbor's ranch about three miles away, the Bushes passed directly by Camp Casey - the tent camp named after Sheehan's son, a 24-year-old Army mechanic who was killed in action in Iraq.

THE JOINT Korean-U.S. investigation into the 1950 No Gun Ri incident at least concluded that it happened. That vindicates the Korean survivors who always said that civilian refugees fleeing toward U.S. lines had been shot and strafed under a bridge by U.S. troops. It reverses years of U.S. denials that such an atrocity had occurred and validates the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1999 Associated Press report supporting survivor accounts. The joint statement said the U.S. troops were undertrained and new to combat, commanded by leaders with limited experience, unprepared for North Korean weapons and tactics, and "legitimately fearful of the possible infiltration of North Korean soldiers who routinely entered American lines in groups disguised as civilians in refugee columns."

Beyond the issue of whether or when they achieve their goals in this war, U.S. commanders in Iraq will also be measured by a very human, and constantly changing, scorecard - the number of dead and wounded. Defense Department statistics show that casualty rates were remarkably steady for much of the 20th century but dropped sharply in the nation's most recent conflicts. In World War I about one in 15 U.S. troops was killed or wounded; in World War II it was one in 14. The rate climbed to one in 12 in Korea and fell back to one in 16 during Vietnam.

BAGHDAD -- Six American soldiers and their interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad on Saturday, the military said yesterday, in one of the deadliest single attacks against American troops in the capital in recent months. The soldiers, whose names were not released, had been searching for insurgent arms caches, the military said in a statement. A soldier assigned to the Army's 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), a supply unit, was killed Saturday when a bomb struck his armored vehicle near Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, the military said.

Ever since the last American soldier departed from the rooftops of Saigon more than 26 years ago, politicians and generals have doubted the nation's willingness to stomach military casualties. Call it post-Vietnam syndrome, or "casualty aversion" -- it has contributed to hastened withdrawals in operations ranging from the victory in the Persian Gulf war to the aborted relief mission to Somalia. For the moment, such timidity lies buried in the ruins of lower Manhattan and the Pentagon.

In late July, the Ravens released four veterans who had played critical roles for the team in years past. To clear salary cap space, the Ravens said sayonara to Todd Heap, Derrick Mason, Kelly Gregg and Willis McGahee. Heap returns to Baltimore on Sunday as a member of the Arizona Cardinals, but he might be sporting street clothes at M&T Bank Stadium. After catches 13 passes in the team's first four games, he has been sidelined with a hamstring injury. Meanwhile, Heap's primary heir apparent, Ed Dickson, has 22 receptions in six games.

It took a lot of courage for Dan Rodricks to write his recent column regarding the civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan on the 10 t h anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks ("In anger and pain, little sympathy for the 'deaths of others.'") His views are shared by many returning veterans from those campaigns who saw first hand the horrible state of so many innocent people. As a veteran of World War II and father of veterans and relative of others who have served in Iraq, I will forever support our troops but have been opposed to the Middle East military policy going back before Desert Storm.

One of the first questions Americans asked each other after Sept. 11 was, "Why do they hate us so much?" For many, it was just a rhetorical question in the wrenching aftermath of our nightmare. Others took a real, if fleeting, interest in understanding the beliefs and attitudes that fueled the attacks. But I think most of us resented that question and had no interest in the answer, convinced there could be no rational explanation for the indiscriminate killing of any civilian population, particularly ours.

An email was forwarded to me announcing Wednesday night's reopening of Kaufman's Tavern in Gambrills. I gave Kaufmann's a call, and manager Daniel Carr confirmed that the sprawling restaurant would be open on Wednesday, Aug. 31, the first night since Hurricane Irene came through town and knocked Kaufmann's for a loop. Irene did a number on Kaufmann's, smashing a tree down on a car its lot and generally playing havoc with the expansive deck area that had been remodeled only this past spring.

Since Randy Edsall took over for Ralph Friedgen in January, there has been a revolving door of coaches and players shuffling in and out of the Maryland football program. And it still hasn't stopped spinning. In recent weeks, linebacker Ryan Donohue, running back Gary Douglas and quarterback Tyler Smith announced plans to transfer, while fullbacks Haroon Brown and Taylor Watson — both of whom are graduating — decided they wouldn't return for their final season of eligibility. It's the type of attrition one might expect from a coaching change.

The medical questions about the Army's use of Factor VII, its one-time wonder drug, have largely been resolved by the scientific evidence: Yes, it is potentially dangerous. No, it doesn't seem to work. But to critics of the drug's use, some practical questions remained. Such as: Why was an obscure and extremely expensive hemophilia drug embraced by Army leaders as a treatment for combat injuries? And why was it injected into thousands of wounded troops and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan despite a near-complete lack of evidence that it was safe or saved lives?

Bravo's Top Chef, whose third season premiered last week, is back with a vengeance. The first casualty was Clay, a self-taught Mississippi chef. His first mistake was misunderstanding the "Quickfire Challenge," in which he was supposed to create an amuse bouche, or a bite-size culinary creation that teases the taste buds. The concept was beyond him, which is strange since the amuse bouche has appeared in the previous two seasons' challenges. The moral of the story is, if you are going to go on a reality show, watch it first.

James Hill, 75, a British film director whose movies included "Born Free" and a remake of "Black Beauty," died yesterday. The cause was not immediately known. Mr. Hill's best-known film was "Born Free," the story of a game warden in Kenya, George Adamson, and his wife, Joy, who reared three lion cubs. Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers starred in the 1966 release. Other films included "A Study in Terror" in 1965 and the 1971 version of "Black Beauty."William Renwick Smedberg III, 92, a retired vice admiral and former Naval Academy superintendent, died of congestive heart failure Wednesday in Falls Church, Va. Admiral Smedberg, who retired in 1964, was academy superintendent from 1956 to 1958.

As the most highly visible and destructive terrorist organization of our time, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida has done more to shape concerns and fears about terrorism than any other terrorist organization in at least the last 50 years. What impact will bin Laden's death have on terrorism in the future? Is his brand of indiscriminate and brutal violence at an end? Of course, al-Qaida was never the only terrorist threat out there. More than 600 other groups have been engaged in terrorism worldwide since al-Qaida claimed its first attack in 1998.

When 6-year-old Connor Johns visits Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens on Monday, he will be wearing the combat fatigues that his half-brother, Jordan, picked out for him before he was deployed in Afghanistan. "He wears that outfit constantly," said Kandy Poole Johns, the boys' mother. "Connor loved Jordan, looked up to him as his hero and will always remember him as a Marine." Twenty-four-year-old Lance Cpl. Jordan Chrobot of Frederick, who died last Sept. 26 during a firefight in Helmand province, was one of 10 Marylanders killed in Afghanistan since last Memorial Day. The state's 12-month toll is the highest since the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom in response to the attacks of Sept.