Specialist

WASHINGTON -- Jong Yun Baik wants to understand a war that happened two decades before he was born."All I know about the Korean War is what I learned in the history books," said Specialist Baik, a flutist in a Korean military band. "I came here to participate in the ceremony. I can feel how many U.S. soldiers died. I see soldiers without legs, I saw with my own eyes. I now understand how so many U.S. soldiers died and their dedication to Korea."The 22-year-old specialist is one of 210 servicemen from South Korea's armed forces who have come to Washington this week to help dedicate the Korean War Veterans Memorial.

DETROIT -- The letter carrier arrived yesterday morning just hours after Spc. Anthony Riggs was shot. She strode past his blood, still in a puddle in the Detroit street, and handed over the envelope stuffed with his clean, curvy writing.It was from Saudi Arabia, where Specialist Riggs wrote about survival Feb. 22."There's no way I'm going to die in this rotten country," wrote Specialist Riggs, an Army member of a Patriot crew in Riyadh. "With the Lord's grace and his guidance, I'll walk American soil once again."

A prosecutor asked for a first-degree murder verdict yesterday as the trial began for a soldier from Baltimore accused of shooting into a crowd at a birthday party May 20 in rural Howard County, killing one partygoer and wounding two others."

Earl T. Shinhoster, 49, briefly headed NAACP Earl T. Shinhoster, former acting executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, died Sunday of injuries he suffered in an automobile accident that day in Macon County, Ala. He was 49 and lived in Decatur, Ga. In November, NAACP President and Chief Executive Officer Kweisi Mfume named him director of a national voter registration and education drive. It was the latest high NAACP post held by Mr. Shinhoster, who briefly headed the civil rights organization as it tried to recover from scandal in the mid-1990s.

Several weeks ago, Army Spc. Casey W. Nash came home on leave from Iraq to visit his family in Essex and Middle River. He watched sports with his father, worked on his sister's car and drove his beloved red-and-white Chevrolet S-10 Xtreme pickup truck. A quiet man, the 22-year-old said little about his time in the combat zone, but he did make this point: Six months into his second tour of duty in Iraq, he was ready to leave the Army and return home for good. That visit was the last time his family saw him. On Friday, Specialist Nash and two other soldiers were killed in Tahir, Iraq, by an improvised explosive device.

When Ari D. Brown-Weeks learned that his wife planned to visit Washington, he asked that she go to Arlington National Cemetery, take photos and e-mail them to him in Iraq. "He especially wanted a video of the changing of the guards," said Ashley Weeks, 21, a Harford County native. "I took the pictures on a beautiful, peaceful day, and I know he saw them." Specialist Brown-Weeks, 23, an Army paratrooper who had lived in Abingdon for two years, was killed in a truck accident in Baghdad with six other soldiers Monday, military officials said.

FORT RITCHIE -- While President Bush pondered the events in the Persian Gulf at Camp David, the issue was also on the mind of U.S. Army Spc. 4 Leonard Jackson, stationed just a few miles away at Fort Ritchie in rural northern Washington County.The two men came to different conclusions.While President Bush decided that U.S. military action in the Middle East would be fair and just, Specialist Jackson, a military policeman and a Muslim, did not want to be associated with any part of the war, and he filed for discharge from the Army as a conscientious objector.

ANNAPOLIS -- Mostly, the Iraqi prisoners of war he was guarding were hungry and thirsty, recounted Spc. Ronald J. Raab, who returned home to Glen Burnie from Saudi Arabia Monday on emergency leave to be with his ailing wife."

A pair of goalkeepers were cited by their respective conferences for their efforts last week. On Tuesday, Maryland redshirt sophomore Niko Amato was named the Defensive Player of the Week by the Atlantic Coast Conference for the second time this season. He made 12 saves in the No. 10 Terps' 11-5 victory over then-No. 9 Villanova. The five goals were a season low for the Wildcats. On Monday, Navy senior RJ Wickham was recognized by the Patriot League as its Goalkeeper of the Week for the second time this season.

As Spc. Joel Maxwell of Baltimore packed his gear two weeks ago to prepare for his flight to the Persian Gulf, he reassured his family."He kept saying he would be safe because he was nothing but a mechanic," Specialist Maxwell's wife, Peggy, said yesterday. "I kept saying anything could happen."She was right.Monday evening, Specialist Maxwell, his assurance long gone, called his sister, Dorothy Jackson. Earlier that day, barely 20 minutes after he left his makeshift barracks near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the building was destroyed by Iraq's most lethal Scud missile attack in the gulf.