Sergeant

When I set out to cover the recent departure of the Headquarters Company of the 58th Infantry Brigade for eventual deployment to Iraq, I knew what to expect from earlier assignments. There would be soldiers, proud parents, proud spouses, children too young to understand and a smattering of politicians honoring the troops. One variable photographers worry about is just how much access we'll be given to document such events. I entered the Pikesville armory wondering how warm the greeting would be. A sergeant soon set my mind at ease telling me to do what I wanted (within reason)

A Baltimore police sergeant who was fired after he was accused of committing perjury was ordered back to work yesterday by a Circuit Court judge who ruled that the department erred in determining that the officer had lied on the witness stand.City officials said they are reviewing the 25-page ruling and have not decided whether to appeal the reinstatement of Louis H. Hopson Jr., 48, who had worked for the Baltimore Police Department for 18 years.Hopson, who is black, maintained that he was fired for exposing racial disparity on the police force and said he wants to return to work.

Clyde Lee Conrad, 50, a former Army sergeant convicted of treason in 1990 for leaking NATO and American secrets to the former Soviet bloc, died in prison in Koblenz, Germany, where he was serving a life sentence. Prosecutors in Koblenz confirmed yesterday that he died Thursday, apparently of heart failure. An autopsy has been ordered. Sergeant Conrad was convicted in 1990 of masterminding an espionage ring that sold highly sensitive information to Hungarian and Czechoslovakian DTC intelligence agents from 1975 through 1985, when he retired after 20 years in the military.

As a supervisor in the Baltimore Police Department's communications division, Sgt. Charles Snitzel is the vital link between a citizen in crisis and a police officer who can race to the rescue.But driving home from work Tuesday night, it was Snitzel who needed help. Watching a man shoot at another man, Snitzel drew his weapon and faced off with the gunman 20 feet away.Snitzel was wearing his uniform but had no radio, telephone or bulletproof vest. Finally, the gunman dropped his weapon and surrendered.

A female private involved in the sexual misconduct scandal at Aberdeen Proving Ground said yesterday that Army investigators pressured her into falsely claiming she had sex with a drill sergeant -- and that she now faces a court-martial for recanting.Pvt. Toni Moreland, 21, of St. Louis says she faces prosecution for signing a false statement alleging she had consensual sex with an instructor at the Ordnance Center and School. She says officials forced her to make the statement while investigating allegations that the sergeant had raped her."

Saying Baltimore police Sgt. Stephen Pagotto must be punished for the death of a motorist to assure the public and the police "that we continue to honor life's value," a city circuit judge ordered the veteran officer yesterday to serve three years in prison.The sentence issued by Judge John Carroll Byrnes for involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment in the death of Preston E. Barnes was immediately condemned by current and retired police officers who had packed the courtroom, wearing blue ribbons in support of Pagotto, a 15-year member of the force.

A Baltimore police sergeant who worked in the department's public affairs office for more than three years resigned yesterday so he could become the chief spokesman for the 3,200-member force.Robert W. Weinhold Jr., who was promoted to sergeant on Friday, now joins the civilian ranks after spending a decade as a police officer. The position of director of public affairs is a civilian job.Weinhold's appointment has raised questions from a black officers' group whose president complained yesterday that Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier did not interview other candidates.

The sergeant acquitted Friday of having sex with a female private said investigators appeared to be targeting black sergeants even though some white noncommissioned officers also broke regulations.Staff Sgt. Nathanael C. Beach also agreed with some members of Congress and the NAACP that the overzealous investigation itself should be investigated, and he painted a portrait of a "lax" command at Aberdeen Proving Ground that probably contributed to an atmosphere where sexual misconduct could take place.

During the 1980s, Honduras received hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to serve as a staging ground against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua and against the FMLN guerrilla forces of El Salvador. Hundreds of people "disappeared" in Honduras, victims of military units such as the CIA-trained Battalion 316.A case in point is that of an American Roman Catholic priest, James Carney, who worked as a Jesuit in Honduras for 18 years, supporting peasant organizations, until he was expelled by the government in 1979.

The bodies of two shooting victims were discovered by a Harford County highway crew yesterday in a drainage ditch on a rural road near Aberdeen, the first homicides reported in the county this year.The victims -- Marlene Rosemarie Ellis, 22, of the 1300 block of Anglesea St. in Baltimore and an unidentified man in his 20s -- were face down in the snow along the 600 block of Old Robin Hood Road, between Paradise Road and the YMCA's Aberdeen Swim Center, which is closed for the winter.Their wrists were bound and both had been shot in a manner that suggested a drug connection, said Sgt. Edward Hopkins, a spokesman for the county Sheriff's Office.

A couple of weeks ago, TV news was full of accounts about the Medal of Honor awarded to Sergeant First Class Jared C. Monti. As the mother of a soldier who was deployed to Afghanistan around the same time that Sergeant Monti was killed there, it was painful to watch his parents try to help the rest of us understand who their son was and what it means to the world to have lost him. My heart was filled with: "That could have been my son. That could have...

The grandmother of Olney native Sgt. James R. McIlvaine, killed Thursday in Iraq, characterized him as a man who longed to please his father, which is exactly what he did when became a Marine in 2001. Sergeant McIlvaine joined the Marines after attending Sherwood High School and graduating from a military school in Virginia. "His father was very patriotic, loved the flag and country," said Patty DeSimone, Sergeant McIlvaine's paternal grandmother, who said her grandson died in combat in Al Anbar province.

The charter bus was parked on Barclay Street, its engine running, as members of the large Kelly-Davis family piled in for a trip like none they had ever taken together. Felicia Kelly-Crum was outside counting heads in the frigid air. "Where's Bernard?" she asked. "Where's Bernard?" A rueful smile crossed her face. This was usually the job of her brother, Anthony Davis, who was so good at rounding up the family for an adventure. But two weeks ago, Davis, father of five and master sergeant in the Army, had been killed in Iraq.

When Sgt. Ryan P. Baumann told his family five years ago that he wanted to join the Army, relatives say they knew it was coming. Sergeant Baumann spent eight years of his childhood in Germany, where he picked up a foreign language and learned the ins and outs of Army life. "Ryan grew up around the miliary," said his mother, Cindy Lohman, who worked as a civilian nurse on a base in Germany. "It didn't surprise me. His heroes were guys in the 82nd [Airborne Division]. And he was a post 9-11 child, so he felt very committed to doing something to protect this country."

LANDOVER HILLS -- Army Staff Sgt. Collin J. Bowen had a certain exuberance that once led him to participate in - and win - a Latin dance contest on a Latin American cruise ship, even though he was one of the only English-speaking passengers on board. The priest at St. Mary Roman Catholic Church invoked this image of Sergeant Bowen at a funeral Mass yesterday for the 38-year-old soldier, who died March 14 in a Texas hospital of complications from injuries suffered in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan.

Army Staff Sgt. Collin J. Bowen had finished his last mission in Afghanistan and was scheduled to come home to his wife and daughter in Perry Hall. But when asked to ride along on a final 10-day mission, Sergeant Bowen, 38, agreed. "That's the type of person he was," said his brother, Justin Bowen, 36. "My brother was a person who was very dedicated and loyal and without question one of the hardest-working people I've ever known." On Jan. 2, the final day of that last mission, Sergeant Bowen suffered major injuries from a roadside bomb, including burns over 50 percent of his body.

Harford troops in 1776 On Nov. 16, 1776, troops from Harford County participated in perhaps their most important engagement of the Revolutionary War. It took place at Fort Washington on the Hudson River in New York. Col. Moses Rawlings was sent with a regiment of Maryland riflemen to reinforce the fort. The garrison of 2,000 men engaged in bloody warfare with the British. After several hours that resulted in heavy losses on both sides, the Americans were forced to retreat. A roster of the 1st Company of Maryland riflemen includes Harford men Alexander Lawson Smith, captain; William Bradford, lieutenant; John Thompson, sergeant; Matthew Alexander, sergeant; Joshua Saunders, sergeant; Isaac Rose, corporal; John Howe, corporal; and Thomas Lively, fifer.

A 52-year-old soldier from Upper Marlboro has been killed in Iraq, the Department of Defense announced yesterday, making him the war's oldest military fatality from Maryland. Staff Sgt. Robin L. Towns Sr. died Wednesday, a week and a half after arriving in Iraq, of injuries he sustained when a roadside bomb detonated near his Humvee in Bayji during combat operations, the Department of Defense said. Sergeant Towns, a member of the District of Columbia National Guard and a correctional officer for the Prince George's County Department of Corrections, was the 11th service member 50 or older to die in hostile action, according to iCasualties.

Sergeant 1st Class Robert Dunham, who left his extended family in Baltimore nearly 19 years ago for a career in the Army, was killed in Iraq on Thursday when the Humvee in which he was riding was hit by an explosive device near Baghdad, according to his family. Sergeant Dunham, 36, a married father of five boys, was stationed at Fort Gordon, Ga., and had been serving in Iraq since January, said his brother, Charles Dunham of Parkville. "I believe he really liked what he did," Charles Dunham said.

When I set out to cover the recent departure of the Headquarters Company of the 58th Infantry Brigade for eventual deployment to Iraq, I knew what to expect from earlier assignments. There would be soldiers, proud parents, proud spouses, children too young to understand and a smattering of politicians honoring the troops. One variable photographers worry about is just how much access we'll be given to document such events. I entered the Pikesville armory wondering how warm the greeting would be. A sergeant soon set my mind at ease telling me to do what I wanted (within reason)