Deployment

The folks over at Real Warriors posted an interesting list earlier this week, of " 8 Battlefield Skills That Make Reintegration Challenging ," for service members recently returning from deployments. (Real Warriors is an initiative from the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury.) In our house, I'd say reintegration is going pretty well. (My husband came home from Afghanistan in March.) But still, this would have been a good list to see before the end of the deployment.

Visitors to Baltimore's downtown on summer weekends will see up to 50 additional police officers, a show of force aimed at preventing a repeat of St. Patrick's Day, when hundreds of youths battled and a tourist was beaten — scenes the mayor described as "a black eye for the city. " Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake toured the streets around the Inner Harbor and downtown for two hours Friday, the first night of increased police presence. During the late-night walk, she made her first public comments since reports that the disturbances on March 17 were far more extensive and more violent than police had initially described.

WASHINGTON -- Looking at the quickie polls taken after President Clinton's speech on sending American troops to Bosnia, the equally quickie reading is that he is only inviting big political trouble on the eve of his campaign for re-election.Telephone surveys of 500-plus voters by two of the major networks found they clearly opposed the deployment -- by 58 percent to 33 (CBS News) and by 57-39 (ABC News). A third poll of 632 voters, by the Gallup organization for CNN and USA Today, turned up 46 percent approval to 40 against, but 52 percent said they didn't think American interests were at stake in Bosnia and that the United States doesn't need to send troops there to maintain leadership in world affairs.

The folks over at Real Warriors posted an interesting list earlier this week, of " 8 Battlefield Skills That Make Reintegration Challenging ," for service members recently returning from deployments. (Real Warriors is an initiative from the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury.) In our house, I'd say reintegration is going pretty well. (My husband came home from Afghanistan in March.) But still, this would have been a good list to see before the end of the deployment.

MERJ 'UYUN, Lebanon --Lebanese army soldiers, with the nation's red, white and cedar tree flag waving from trucks and vintage armored personnel carriers, began crossing the Litani River at dawn yesterday in a deployment that was more about symbolism than security. The Lebanese army's move into the southern fiefdom that Hezbollah controlled for nearly two decades marked the potential beginning of a diplomatic way out of the bitter monthlong conflict with Israel, whose vaunted army bogged down against a smaller force of skilled and entrenched guerrillas.

A soldier off to war, saying goodbye to a sweetheart, is a picture as old as time, a familiar tableau of sorrow and longing, with the worst of possibilities unspoken. At Fort Meade yesterday, the scene played out dozens of times, as 157 soldiers from the Army's 400th Military Police Battalion prepared for their deployment to an internment facility in what Army brass would describe only as "Southwest Asia" - a euphemism for Iraq or Afghanistan. For Jamie Potchak, the 21-year-old girlfriend of Pfc. Matthew Montag, who is also 21 and enlisted two years ago, the parting was wrenching, although she managed a bright smile.

A detachment of U.S. Army reservists gathered to say goodbye to their families at an Owings Mills reserve center yesterday, many hoping that an 11th-hour diplomatic solution will cut short their likely deployment to the Middle East. Dressed in camouflage uniforms and black berets, the 46 soldiers with the 326th Maintenance Battalion ranged from people like Master Sgt. Joe Schall, a reservist for 28 years who had never before seen deployment, to Sgt. Shavonta Gaynor, a commander's driver called up four times since he joined the reserves in 1996.

In the past week, the Eutsler family has celebrated a year's worth of holidays. They decorated a Christmas tree, nestled Easter eggs in their garden and cooked a full Thanksgiving feast. They hung decorations for Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day alongside birthday banners. And the boys - ages 3 and 5 - gave their dad a present for each occasion they were celebrating. "I wanted Jeff to have every holiday he'll miss," Lori Eutsler said tearfully. "We crammed a lot into one week." Her husband, Jeff Eutsler, is a captain in the Army Reserve's 1398th Deployment Support Brigade - a transportation unit that left yesterday for a month of training in Indiana before beginning a yearlong deployment to Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- United Nations officials said yesterday that they reached a "momentous" agreement with a key Somali warlord allowing the deployment of up to 500 armed foreign troops to protect relief shipments coming into the port of Mogadishu.Plagued by violence and looting, the port is a troublesome bottleneck for emergency food and medical supplies for Somalia's more than 6 million people, as many as 4.5 million of whom face famine after years of civil war and drought.The agreement with Gen. Mohamed Farah Aideed, a rebel commander who exerts control over the portion of Mogadishu that includes the port, the international airport and many storage depots, was announced here by Mohammed Sahnoun, special representative for Somalia of U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

For some members of the Maryland National Guard, Christmas came early this year. That is, they celebrated it early because they are scheduled to leave tomorrow morning for a yearlong deployment. On Dec. 25, they could be in Kentucky, Afghanistan or the Middle East. Regardless of where the Army sends them, they won't be able to tell their families where they are because of security considerations. The Maryland National Guard's Special Operations Detachment - Joint Forces, a unit of nearly 30 members, oversees secretive missions.

Overnight Tuesday, a wormlike apparatus with green plastic tentacles sending out electromagnetic waves was to wind its way through nearly six miles of a Baltimore water main, detecting potential trouble areas along the pipe. "This is better for pipes that can't be taken out of service" for manual checks, said Travis Wagner, a civil engineer with Pure Technologies, a company with offices in Columbia that owns the tool, called the PipeDiver. The device is being used to inspect the Southwest Transmission Main, a stretch of pipe that is more than four feet in diameter and runs from the Ashburton Water Filtration Plant in Northwest Baltimore into Baltimore, Howard and Anne Arundel counties.

Earl Johnson's boots crunch broken glass from liquor bottles as he walks down an alley in East Baltimore's Oliver neighborhood. He is just blocks from the site of the firebombing of a family who called the police on area drug dealers and were killed for it and just yards from some of the most memorable scenes of urban decay in "The Wire. " At his side are Rich Blake, 32, a Marine Corps veteran, and Jeremy Johnson, 34 , a Navy veteran, who like Earl — who is no relation — are on a different kind of mission.

The buzz of propellers drifted down over the airfield at Aberdeen Proving Ground as the stubby gray plane came into view. The loadmaster from the Maryland Air National Guard crew dropped the rear hatch open. One by one, six soldiers filed out of the airplane and into the sky. Special Forces soldiers with the Maryland National Guard spent the day Friday jumping out of the new C-27J Spartan, one of four the Guard will begin deploying to Afghanistan next year. The twin-engine turboprops, which may be used to transport cargo or troops, replace the Guard's eight C-130J Hercules.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, our country has engaged in two wars, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. As a result, tens of thousands of soldiers, marines, airmen and other troops have been deployed to battle, in greater numbers since Many have done tours of duty for a year or longer, and many more than once. Those men and women are heroes. But there's another group of heroes that too often gets overlooked - the spouses of those troops - and deserves a lot of credit for keeping things together at home.

Seventy-eight members of the Maryland Army National Guard's 1297th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion based in Havre de Grace said farewell to friends and family at a deployment ceremony Sunday at Aberdeen Proving Ground. The soldiers are shipping out to Fort Hood, Texas, for training and then to Afghanistan where they will support Operation Enduring Freedom for approximately a year, according to the MNG. Joining the unit and family members and other well-wishers at Sunday's ceremony were Gov. Martin O'Malley and Maj. Gen. James A. Adkins, adjutant general of Maryland, who both spoke.

Iris Straitt had some sage parting words for her son. "Enjoy those cookies, darling," she said with a wave, as Richard Straitt, a National Guardsman based in Dundalk, walked to a bus Thursday morning, the first steps of his yearlong deployment to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. "I love ya," she added softly, the words almost lost in the bustle outside the Jerome M. Grollman Armory, where 85 members of the Maryland Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 175th Infantry Regiment, had just been given a send-off by Gov. Martin O'Malley and a group of Army brass.

TAKING FULL ADVANTAGE of favorable developments in Bosnia, the administration is dribbling out acknowledgment that the U.S. troop presence there will extend well beyond the Dec. LTC 20 withdrawal deadline promised by President Clinton.This can hardly come as a surprise to anyone paying close attention to the situation. It has long been apparent that the Clinton timetable was too optimistic, that Bosnia could plunge back into war and our NATO allies would pull out entirely if the United States ended its military commitment.

Iris Straitt had some sage parting words for her son. "Enjoy those cookies, darling," she said with a wave, as Richard Straitt, a National Guardsman based in Dundalk, walked to a bus Thursday morning, the first steps of his yearlong deployment to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. "I love ya," she added softly, the words almost lost in the bustle outside the Jerome M. Grollman Armory, where 85 members of the Maryland Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 175th Infantry Regiment, had just been given a send-off by Gov. Martin O'Malley and a group of Army brass.

An Army doctor convicted of disobeying orders to deploy to Afghanistan because he questioned whether Barack Obama is eligible to be president was sentenced Thursday to six months in a military prison followed by dismissal from the Army. Lt. Col. Terrence L. Lakin stood stoically in his dress uniform as an eight-person military jury handed down the punishment, which also includes forfeiting pay and allowances. He was given a few minutes with his parents and brothers before being taken into custody.

An Army physician who was convicted of refusing to go to Afghanistan because he questioned whether Barack Obama was eligible to be president said Wednesday that he was wrong to disobey orders and would be willing to deploy to a war zone "tomorrow. " Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, of Greeley, Colo., who has become a hero of the "birther" movement, now faces the possibility of up to 3 1/2 years in a military jail and dismissal from the Army after being found guilty Wednesday. If dismissed, he would forfeit his annual salary of nearly $90,000 and a pension.