Passengers saved, pets lost on Navy plane from Guantanamo Bay

Pets presumed dead from Boeing 737 plane that crash landed in Jacksonville, Florida

USA Today
Joey Garrison
May 4, 2019

"Unfortunately, they have not been retrieved yet due to safety issues with the aircraft, the Naval Air Station Jacksonville, where the crash landing occurred, tweeted early Saturday morning. "Our hearts and prayers go out to those pet owners during this terrible incident."

A charter plane carrying 143 people and traveling from Cuba to north Florida sits in a river at the end of a runway, on May 4 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo: AP)

All 143 people aboard a military-chartered plane survived after the aircraft skidded off a runway into a river in Jacksonville, Florida, on Friday night, but their pets weren't as fortunate.

At least four pets were checked in the luggage department located in the bottom of the plane that left Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to northern Florida.

Each is still on the aircraft and presumed dead, Kaylee LaRocque, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy in Jacksonville, confirmed to USA TODAY on Saturday.

Although the Boeing 737 plane is not completely submerged in the St. Johns River, the bottom portion, where the pets were positioned, is under water.

“There’s water in the cargo hold," LaRocque said. “We are so sad about this situation, that there are animals that unfortunately passed away."
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Command Sergeant Major's Body Found

Missing Army Veteran Found Dead From Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound
CBS News Detroit 
July 20, 2017

WATERFORD TWP (WWJ) – Authorities say a body discovered in Waterford Township is that of a missing Army Veteran.

Police say David Folsom’s body was discovered Wednesday night by two citizens in a wooded area near Cooley Lake Road and Cooley Village Lane. He appeared to have suffered from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police. An autopsy is set for Thursday.

Folsom, a Command Sergeant Major with the Army National Guard, disappeared early in the morning of Wednesday, July 12, when he walked away from his home in the area of Elizabeth Lake and Cooley Lake roads.

The 54-year-old served in the National Guard for 20 years — with deployment to Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan — and suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, according to his family.
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Nebraska National Guard Soldiers Deploy Again

Nebraska National Guard soldier prepares to leave wife and kids as he deploys
KETV 7 ABC News
James Wilcox
April 16, 2017

OMAHA, Neb.
Amid the crowd at Alfonzo W. Davis Middle School, there are soldiers ready to serve their country. There's also a father preparing to leave his family.

"I've been to Iraq twice, and that's actually where Sherri and I met," said Staff Sergeant Gale Maberry, with the Nebraska National Guard.

He met his wife while deployed overseas. Both were serving with the Nebraska National Guard.

Sherri Maberry said, "We were friends throughout the deployment. We started dating when we got back. Over ten years and two little ones later now."

Their kids are three-year-old Brianna and 10-month-old Matthew.

"The first steps, the first teeth. All these things I'm going to miss with these kids," said Staff Sgt. Maberry.

He'll miss both their birthdays while he's deployed to Cuba. It's his third deployment, but his first since they've been born.

"I worry about my wife. She's going to be home with these two little ones by herself, trying to take care of them," he said.

He's one of 50 Nebraska National Guard soldier's with the Omaha-based 402nd Military Police Battalion that'll spend nearly a year at Guantanamo Bay.
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Utah Judge Awards $134.2M in Afghanistan Grenade Attack

Soldiers' families awarded $134.2M in Afghanistan grenade attack
By The Associated Press
July 2, 2015

Khadr pleaded guilty to throwing a grenade that killed Christopher Speer and wounded Layne Morris in 2002. He spent 10 years at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. naval base in Cuba, and was transferred to Canada in 2012.

SALT LAKE CITY — A federal judge in Utah has awarded $134.2 million to an American soldier wounded in Afghanistan and the widow of another soldier killed there in a lawsuit filed against a Canadian man who pleaded guilty in a grenade attack involving the two soldiers when he was 15.

The plaintiffs acknowledge there is little chance they will collect any of the money. “It's really more of a statement case, I think, than a desire to collect this,” lawyer Laura Tanner, who represents the plaintiffs, said Thursday She said the judgment sends a message that the United States has a civil system in place to hold terrorists responsible.

Still, lawyers are seeking a Canadian law firm to help collect the money from 28-year-old Omar Khadr, who was released from a Canadian prison last month, Tanner said.
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Yes Virginia There Is Still A War Going On

Stealing from Yes Virgina There is a Santa Claus there seems to be a lot of people in America thinking troops are our of Afghanistan. Well here's a reminder while the rest of the country got too busy to notice, they are still leaving home serving them.

Connecticut National Guardsmen receive ceremonial sendoff
By WTNH.com
Staff
Published: March 5, 2015

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — Ninety Connecticut soldiers are headed for Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

The National Guardsmen and their families gathered Thursday night in Hartford for a ceremonial sendoff. About 35 members of the 143rd regional support group will head to a military post in Afghanistan.

Fifty-five soldiers with the 192nd military police battalion are bound for Cuba.

Their family members watched as Governor Malloy thanked them for their service.
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Guantánamo guard got medal for saving detainee then kicked out

Disgraced Guantánamo guard got medal for saving detainee from suicide
Miami Herald
Carol Rosenberg
April 1, 2014

A former Guantánamo guard being discharged instead of facing a sexual-assault trial did avert a detainee’s suicide around the time of last year’s prison camp raid that put hunger strikers under lockdown, the military confirmed.

Army Col. Greg Julian, a spokesman for Southern Command, could not identify the detainee who tried to kill himself. Nor could he pinpoint the exact date of the deed in April 2013 that won Sgt. Stevontae Lacefield, 24, his Joint Service Commendation Medal.

Separately, Julian said that Lacefield was leaving the Army with an “other than honorable” discharge and demotion to the lowest enlisted grade, rather than a general discharge, as a U.S. Army spokesman had earlier reported.
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Gitmo guards accused of sexually assaulting subordinate soldiers

2 Gitmo guards accused of sexually assaulting subordinate soldiers
Miami Herald
By Carol Rosenberg
Published: March 24, 2014

The military is putting two Guantánamo guards on trial in Texas next month on charges alleging they sexually assaulted junior soldiers at the remote outpost at a time when commanders were grappling with the prison hunger strike, the military said Monday.

The separate courts martial will take place next month by order of Army Maj. Gen. Joseph P. DiSalvo, the commanding officer of Army South, the headquarters unit for personnel activities of soldiers at the U.S. detention center in southeast Cuba.

In one case, 1st Sgt. Richard A. Smith, no age provided, is accused of raping a sergeant in January 2013 as well as sexually assaulting two other women at the base several months later. Smith, described as a reservist from Orlando, Fla., was activated to service about 10 weeks before the alleged rape.
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Military retracts Guantánamo PTSD claim

Military retracts Guantánamo PTSD claim
Miami Herald
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
December 8, 2013

The U.S. military is retracting a claim made to “60 Minutes” that Guantánamo guards suffer nearly twice as much Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as combat troops.

“There are no statistics that support the claim of twice the number of troops diagnosed with PTSD,” said Army Col. Greg Julian of the U. S. Southern Command in response to a query from the Miami Herald.

Southcom has oversight of the 12-year-old detention center, including the consequences of duty there on the thousands of troops that have guarded the Guantánamo prisoners. At its height, the prison held about 660 men at the sprawling detention center complex. Now, a staff of about 2,100 troops and contractors holds 162 captives, 82 of them cleared for release.

Army Col. John V. Bogdan, the current commander of the guard force, offered up the surprising Cuba-to-battlefield ratio of PTSD in a September interview with CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl. It aired Nov. 17, without verification, and was echoed in a BBC broadcast Nov. 20 by the female Army captain in charge of Guantanamo’s maximum-security prison, Camp 5, where, she said, a captive on most days hurls at a guard a home-made brew that can include excrement, blood, semen and urine.

She told the BBC her guards suffer PTSD as a consequence of “that constant threat of being in enemy contact for up to 12 hours at a time,” and said the prison’s Public Affairs Officer or guard’s mental-health unit could provide precise statistics.

But, after weeks of research from the island prison to the Pentagon, Julian, Southcom’s Public Affairs Officer said late Friday: “Col. Bogdan was mistaken about twice the level of PTSD.”
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Army Reservist-cab driver assaulted for being "Muslim" is Iraq veteran

Muslim cabdriver alleges assault by passenger who cited Boston Marathon bombing

Fairfax prosecutors said they will review the video to determine whether to prosecute the case as a hate crime, which would elevate the charge to a felony. Prosecutors would have to show that Dahlberg attacked Salim because of his religion, race or national origin.

CAIR said it has documented two suspected hate crimes elsewhere since the Boston bombing. Hours after the April 15 explosions, a Bangladeshi man reportedly suffered a dislocated shoulder when beaten at a New York City restaurant. In Malden, Mass., a woman wearing an Islamic head scarf allegedly was assaulted April 17 by a man shouting anti-Muslim slurs.

Salim, a married father of four who emigrated from Somalia 15 years ago, said the incident was particularly painful because he is a naturalized U.S. citizen and an Army Reserve sergeant who served in Baghdad and the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has worked in intelligence and as a linguist, he said.

Exclusive cellphone video of alleged cab assault

Apr 30 2013

Taxi driver Mohamed Salim says he was attacked by a passenger who called him a terrorist. A recording of their contentious ride was captured on Salim’s cellphone.

The Fold/ The Washington Post

Iraq Veteran locked up for "not being a citizen"

Veteran of Iraq War Now Fights His Own Deportation
By SUSANNAH NESMITH
Published: June 23, 2011

“We don’t often incarcerate war-hero-type people for making a false statement on a passport application,” Mr. Mervis said. “It’s a case that should never have been prosecuted criminally. This is just wrong.”

MIAMI — A veteran of both the Army and the Navy who served with distinction in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay has spent the last month in federal lockup here because the government wants to deport him.

Not only did he lie on a passport application, prosecutors say, but he was never even a citizen.

But a lawyer for the man, Elisha L. Dawkins, 26, has a different story, one that begins with Mr. Dawkins’s arrival here from the Bahamas as an infant. He was raised to believe he was a citizen, his lawyer contends, something the state and federal authorities did not challenge during his seven years in the military.

It is unclear why Mr. Dawkins was indicted in March, five years after receiving his passport and when he was still in the Navy.

“The military believes he’s an American citizen,” the lawyer, Clark Mervis, told Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of Federal District Court here last week, noting that Mr. Dawkins had “secret” security clearance when he served in Guantánamo.
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Veteran of Iraq War Now Fights His Own Deportation

Marine Corporal Paul Fagundes died trying to save others

Marine put others first, widow says

Cynthia Marie Fagundes held her son, Cazzian, as a Marine escorted her into a Fall River church for her husband’s funeral. Corporal Paul Fagundes died July 4 in Guantanamo Bay. She is pregnant with the couple’s second child. (Kayana Szymczak for The Boston Globe)

By Alex Katz
Globe Correspondent

FALL RIVER — Cynthia Marie Fagundes mostly kept her head down yesterday — before her was the casket holding her 29-year-old husband.

Sitting beneath a tent at Notre Dame Cemetery, she suddenly lifted her gaze as a voice pierced the silence. “Mommy!’’ her 2-year-old son, Cazzian, belted out. She smiled at the little boy, scooping him up onto her lap.

Together they said farewell to Corporal Paul Fagundes, who drowned July Fourth while trying to save two fellow Marines caught up in an undertow while swimming at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He enlisted in the Marine Corps about a year ago, serving a 60-day tour on an antiterrorism team that was training in Guantanamo Bay.

Mourners gathered to pay their respects to a man who always put others before himself, his widow said.

“He was an angel on earth, and now he is an angel in heaven,’’ she said during a funeral Mass at St. Anne Parish, wearing a black dress and her husband’s dog tag as she delivered the eulogy.
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Marine put others first, widow says

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U.S. Marine from Camden dies in swimming accident in Cuba
Published: Tuesday, July 13, 2010,
Military officials say a U.S. Marine from Camden has died in a swimming accident at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The military says 22-year-old Lance Cpl. Giovani "Gio" Cruz drowned while swimming off a recreational beach at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay on July 4.
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US Marine from Camden dies in swimming accident in Cuba

Troops give new meaning to distance learning with UCF

Troops give new meaning to distance learning
Darryl E. Owens Sentinel Staff Writer
March 31, 2009
The day starts before 8a.m. for Jonathan Richman, a religious-program specialist 2nd class with the U.S. Navy, based at Joint Task Force-Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

After a day spent boosting troop morale and interacting with detainees, the petty officer 2nd class typically clocks out at 5p.m. He plays some racquetball, tends to his room and laundry, then pulls up a seat and dives into deep discussions with his legal-studies classmates at the University of Central Florida.

The Orlando campus might be miles from the military base, but online-degree programs are growing in appeal for veterans who've suffered grievous injuries and service members such as Richman whose worldwide deployments underscore the term "distance" learning.

"The biggest advantage of online education is the ability to 'attend' class when it is convenient for me," said the 25-year-old from Orlando. "If I feel like it, I can sign on in the middle of the night and do some homework, take a quiz or ask a question via e-mail or the bulletin board."
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Troops give new meaning to distance learning

President Obama meets with families of 9/11, Cole victims

Obama meets with families of 9/11, Cole victims
By Lara Jakes - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Feb 6, 2009 15:06:45 EST

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama was spending time with families of 9/11 victims and the 17 sailors killed in the bombing of the Cole after a senior Pentagon judge dropped charges against an al-Qaida suspect in the Cole attack being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The legal move Thursday by Susan J. Crawford, the top legal authority for military trials at Guantanamo, upholds Obama’s Jan. 22 executive order to halt terrorist court proceedings at the Navy base in Cuba. The charges against suspected al-Qaida bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri marked the last active Guantanamo war crimes case.

Groups representing victims’ families were angered by Obama’s order, charging they had waited too long already to see the alleged attackers brought to court.

Retired Navy Cmdr. Kirk S. Lippold, the commanding officer of the Cole when it was bombed in Yemen in 2000, said he would be among family members of Cole and 9/11 victims who are meeting with Obama at the White House on Friday afternoon.
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Policy of torture killed US Forces in Iraq

I've heard all the arguments in support of torture. The one that beats them all is "well they do it" but this one makes no sense at all. They play by their own rules and we used to do the same. That's what made us different. We were also smart enough to know that you cannot convert people into thinking your way by showing them why they should not. That's what torture does.

During the Salem Witchcraft Trials, we saw what this practice does. It gets innocent people to say they are guilty and that's just about it. When you torture someone, you get them to say anything you want them to say because they want you to stop. Innocent people were tortured and killed. No one got the truth out of them. Isn't getting the truth the point of interrogation?

What we managed to do is support all the claims the Al-Qaeda thugs made against the US. Outside people wanted revenge and they got it but they got it by killing our troops. How many would have lived if the administration did not decide that they had the right to do this? Read this and then try to answer that question.

I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq - washingtonpost.com
Until we renounce the sorts of abuses that have stained our national honor, al- Qaeda will be winning.

By Matthew Alexander
Sunday, November 30, 2008; Page B01

I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I'm still alarmed about that today.

I'm not some ivory-tower type; I served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, began my career as a Special Operations pilot flying helicopters, saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, became an Air Force counterintelligence agent, then volunteered to go to Iraq to work as a senior interrogator. What I saw in Iraq still rattles me -- both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn't work.

Violence was at its peak during my five-month tour in Iraq. In February 2006, the month before I arrived, Zarqawi's forces (members of Iraq's Sunni minority) blew up the golden-domed Askariya mosque in Samarra, a shrine revered by Iraq's majority Shiites, and unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodshed. Reprisal killings became a daily occurrence, and suicide bombings were as common as car accidents. It felt as if the whole country was being blown to bits.

I know the counter-argument well -- that we need the rough stuff for the truly hard cases, such as battle-hardened core leaders of al-Qaeda, not just run-of-the-mill Iraqi insurgents. But that's not always true: We turned several hard cases, including some foreign fighters, by using our new techniques. A few of them never abandoned the jihadist cause but still gave up critical information. One actually told me, "I thought you would torture me, and when you didn't, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That's why I decided to cooperate."

Torture and abuse are against my moral fabric. The cliche still bears repeating: Such outrages are inconsistent with American principles. And then there's the pragmatic side: Torture and abuse cost American lives.

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans. click link above for more