360,000 troops may have brain injuries

By The Associated Press Published:

March 5, 2009

The number of U.S. troops who have suffered wartime brain injuries may be as high as 360,000 and could cast more attention on such injuries among civilians, Defense Department doctors said Wednesday.

The estimate of the number injured — the vast majority of them suffering concussions — represents 20 percent of the roughly 1.8 million men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, where blast injuries are common from roadside bombs and other explosives, the doctors said.

The estimate came in a Pentagon news conference on activities planned this month to bring attention to brain injuries. The doctors said the number could be as low as 180,000, based on estimates that between 10 and 20 percent of troops might have received such injuries.

The previous high estimate offered publicly was 320,000 in a study released a year ago by the private Rand Corp.

The Army spent $242 million last year for staff, facilities and programs to serve troops with brain injuries, said Lt. Col. Lynne M. Lowe of the Army surgeon general’s office.

Taliban kill two 'US spies' in Pakistan: officials

Fri Mar 6, 2:14 am ET AFP/File – 

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) –

Taliban fighters in Pakistan's restive tribal area on Friday killed two men they accused of spying for US forces stationed across the border in Afghanistan, officials said.

The bullet-riddled bodies of Afghan refugee Sher Khan and Pakistani tribal elder Nazar Jan were found early Friday at separate places in the North Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan, officials in those areas said.

"Notes found with the bodies said the men were killed for spying for the US," tribal police official Rukh Niaz Khan told AFP.

Islamist militants frequently kidnap and kill local tribesmen or Afghan refugees on charges of spying for the Pakistani government or US forces, who are battling a Taliban-led insurgency across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's rugged tribal regions have been wracked by violence since becoming a stronghold for hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels who fled across the border to escape the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Car bomb outside main U.S. base injures 3 in Kabul, Afghanistan; Taliban claims responsibility

BY Stephanie Gaskell

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

March 4th 2009, 8:51 PM

An Afghan police officer runs past a crater caused by an explosion outside the main U.S. military base in Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wed., March 4, 2009. Three people were wounded.

Three American civilian contractors were injured Wednesday when a man tried to drive a truck carrying explosives into a checkpoint at the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan.

The brazen attack at Bagram Air Base, just 30 miles north of Kabul, was a sign that the Taliban isn't letting up their attacks despite the brutal Afghan winters that usually cause a lull in violence.

This winter has been the deadliest for U.S. and NATO forces since the war began.

From Nov. 1 to the end of February, 87 soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. During the same time the previous year, 52 soldiers died - and the winter before that, 33 were killed.

"It shows their willingness to fight - even in the winter," said Parag Khanna, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

The attack at Bagram Air Base underscores the growing violence in Afghanistan as President Obama prepares to send an additional 17,000 U.S. troops to the battlefield.

Military officials said a truck approached a checkpoint on the perimeter of the heavily guarded base.

A man who jumped out of the car and tried to run away before it blew up was killed when explosives he was carrying detonated.

It's unclear whether anyone else was in the truck.

The three Americans were being treated at the base's hospital. Officials said their injuries are minor and no one else was hurt in the attack.

"The so-called winter ease and spring offensive kind of started to fall last year as we have incrementally been putting ourselves out there more and more," Khanna said.

On Feb. 27, 2007, a suicide bomber managed to get inside one of the checkpoints at the base and blow himself up, killing 23 people and wounding 20 while then-Vice President Dick Cheney was visiting.

Tampa Contractor Killed In Afghanistan

By KATIE CORONADO | News Channel 8

Published: March 4, 2009

"I cried, when I got off the phone; I don't think I've ever sobbed like I did at that moment."

It has been less than a week since 36-year-old Heather Ashby received the news that her partner of 11 years was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

Ashby said Santos Cardona was on a patrol early Saturday morning. There had been many roadside bombs in the past few days, and "they wanted him to go out with his dog. The explosion split the Humvee he was in, and it landed on top of him. He was killed instantly."

Cardona was a contractor with American Canine, a Florida-based contracting company. The 34-year old had been working with a bomb dog since November 2008 and was under a one-year contract. Prior to that, Cardona served as a military police officer, and had been a dog handler since 1993. "He had been everywhere from Haiti to Bosnia to Iraq," Ashby said.

Cardona had been in Tampa for about a year and a half after being stationed in Fort Bragg, but was having trouble securing a good job, so he decided that working as a contractor would be a good financial opportunity. "Something to get up on our feet and get moving; he was planning on opening a security business when he got done," Ashby said.

The couple's 9-year-old daughter, Keelyn Cardona, learned that her father is not coming home. "She cried on Saturday and Sunday, and went to church. Her grandmother spoke with her about what happened, and she's writing something for his funeral," Ashby said.

The girl told her mother she's worried about how her father's dog, Duco, is going to be affected when he realizes Cardona is not coming home. Duco was Cardona's bomb dog in Iraq, and Cardona adopted Duco when the dog retired.

Ashby said Cardona was supposed to come home at the end of April, and she would have begged him not to go back. "Every person I know begged him not to go. You could almost see it in his eyes he didn't want to go. I think he was very nervous of going."

The funeral service will take place Tuesday and Wednesday in Fullerton, Calif., where Cardona's family lives.

Funeral set for soldier formerly of Owasso

By Manny Gamallo - Tulsa World Published: March 4, 2009

A funeral with full military honors will be held Saturday in Illinois for a soldier who was killed Feb. 24 in Afghanistan by a roadside bomb.

Services for Illinois Army National Guard Sgt. Schuyler Brent Patch, 25, will begin at 1 p.m. at the Wethersfield High School gymnasium in Kewanee.

Burial will follow at the Pleasant View Cemetery in Kewanee.

Patch, formerly of Owasso, was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 106th Cavalry Regiment, 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of Kewanee.

He is survived by his father and stepmother, John and Amy Patch of Neponset, Ill.; his mother and stepfather, Colleen and Rick Stevens of Owasso; a sister, Amber Patch Troxell of Kewanee; two brothers, Seth Patch of Neponset and Garrett Patch of Owasso; and two stepbrothers, Zach and Blake Stevens, both of Oklahoma.

Patch was one of four soldiers who were killed when their vehicle struck the bomb in Kandahar. An Afghan civilian also was killed.

Although Patch's home of record was listed by the military as Owasso, a spokesman with the Illinois National Guard said he was a resident of Galva, Ill.

The spokesman, Maj. Brad Leighton, said Patch graduated from Wethersfield High School in 2002.

Leighton said Patch enlisted with the Oklahoma Army National Guard in March 2005 and transferred to the Illinois National Guard in November 2007.

He said Patch first went to Afghanistan with the Oklahoma National Guard from June 2006 to May 2007.

He was deployed there again in December with the Illinois National Guard.