Fort Bragg

IN SAUDI ARABIA -- Her superiors refuse to describe her assignment, but they will confirm that Sgt. Theresa Lynn Treloar has a dangerous job and that she is the Army woman closest to the front lines in the war with Iraq."

The U.S. Army has dropped its case against the only officer to face criminal charges in connection with the beating deaths of two prisoners held by the United States in Afghanistan, a military spokesman said yesterday. The officer, Capt. Christopher M. Beiring, led a reservist military police company at the main U.S. detention center in Afghanistan when the two men were killed in December 2002. The prisoners died after guards kneed them repeatedly in the legs while each was shackled to the ceiling of his cell.

NEW YORK -- Federal prosecutors have filed secret charges against a former sergeant in the U.S. Special Forces who is suspected of switching sides in the war against terrorism and joining the global campaign to attack Americans mounted by the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden.The charges are part of federal authorities' efforts to prove that bin Laden was behind the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in August and a series of other attacks against U.S. soldiers in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. - More than two months after the first photographs of Iraqi prisoners enduring abuses under the watch of U.S. soldiers appeared, the young Army reservist who became a visible and polarizing figure in the ensuing scandal made her debut yesterday in a military courtroom. Visibly pregnant and dressed in green camouflage fatigues, Pfc. Lynndie R. England was read her rights by a military judge during a five-minute hearing and quietly answered "Yes, ma'am" and "No, ma'am" to routine questions about whether she understood the charges against her. The petite England, 21, leaned forward in her chair with her hands folded on the defense table - a far different scene from the infamous photos from Abu Ghraib prison showing England holding a leash tied to the neck of a naked Iraqi detainee and flashing a jaunty thumbs-up near a pile of naked prisoners.

Rudy, Rigger and Camper arrived at Fort Bragg last week with yellow ribbons around their necks and their tails wagging for their owner, 1st Lieutenant Kelly Kyburz, whom they had not seen since last August.The three cute and friendly mix-breeds were well, happy and had been given loving attention here in Baltimore during their owners' tour of duty in the Persian gulf.Kyburz was sent home because she is pregnant. With the 327th Signal battalion, 18th airborne corps, she was a multi-channel platoon leader in Saudi Arabia and ''responsible for radio vans all over the area some within 50 miles of Kuwait,'' she says.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. -- Bradley Stevens looks as deadly as a high school prom king. All tan, blond hair and smile.But in the classrooms of Fort Bragg's JFK Special WarfareCenter and School, Mr. Stevens, 22, has become one for the textbooks.He's the soldier who took on 150 rock-throwing youths in the Somali city of Baraawe.No gun. No knife. No threats. Just Mr. Stevens doing what the Army's little-known psychological-warfare specialists do best: persuasive communication.In this case, Mr. Stevens just started talking, and within 20 minutes, the mob was convinced a game of "Duck, Duck, Goose" was more fun than stoning a squad of American soldiers.

Van Murray Sim, 80, supervised Army LSD testsDr. Van Murray Sim, retired chief of the medical research division of the U.S. Army biomedical laboratory at Edgewood Arsenal, died of respiratory failure Thursday at his home in Bel Air. He was 80.Dr. Sim worked at the Harford County installation from 1952 until his retirement in 1980.In 1975, it was revealed that Dr. Sim had supervised an Army LSD testing program from 1956 to 1967 that administered the drug and other powerful hallucinogens to servicemen and civilians.

Carl R. Wheeler, a veteran of the 101st Airborne Division who parachuted into France on D-Day, fought in several key battles and married the widow of a fellow soldier killed in the war, died of Lewy body disease, a dementia-related condition, Sunday at his Havre de Grace home. He was 82. Mr. Wheeler was born in Marion, Va., and moved to Perry Point when his father took a job at the veterans hospital. After graduating from Perryville High School in 1939, he enlisted in the Maryland National Guard and served as a medic and ambulance driver.

When Ty Ruff, a 22-year-old Baltimorean, heard that he'd be a castmate in "The Real World: D.C.," he was disappointed. The previous season had been filmed in Cancun, Mexico, and the one before that took place in Brooklyn, N.Y. Once he settled in, though, being in Dupont Circle "was like ... the other side of the world." Ruff moved into the house at 2100 S St. on July 2 with seven strangers, but the castmates, some of whom were just 5 years old when the original "The Real World" was broadcast in 1992, can't say much about the 23rd season of the show, which is scheduled to premiere at 10 p.m. Dec. 30 on MTV. Their tight-lipped spiels sound rehearsed, as each castmate chants the "live hard, play hard" mantra they say defines D.C. culture.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - You don't need a military public affairs officer to tell you something's going on here. You can see it at the malls, where parking lots are less than a quarter full on a normally busy Saturday afternoon, and where there are few couples because one spouse is on alert; in restaurants, where lunch meetings are canceled because the military people can't get there; in churches where congregants are starting support groups for military families...