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Victory over Nazi Germany

It is an important day today... 63 years ago Nazi Germany was defeated, and with this defeat the current state of word affairs was born. I am not going to write about politics on Math Pages, but I will note two facts about this date.
First of all, the victory over Nazi Germany is celebrated on the 9/5 in Russia and some other countries. In the west 8/5 is the official date of the war end. This is simply because different time zones. The end of war was announced at 8/5 11:30 PM at Germany - for Moscow that was 9/5 2:30 AM.
Secondly, this day is not celebrated or mentioned in Israel. It is a sad fact, but because of political issues with Russia this date is totally forgotten. People who were born in Israel don't know a thing about this date and don't celebrate it in anyway.

The following videos are here to remind us about what happened 63 years ago. Go here to watch videos. 

NOTE: Millions dead, entire countries devastated, cities leveled – all due to the fact that western societies would not lay down their liberties, freedoms, sovereignty or economies to a foreign power and the tyrant who controlled that power: Hitler and Germany. If the world had continued in the fantasies of Neville Chamberlain, with his appeasement of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany and his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, then it's very likely that German would be the principle language spoken in over half the world today. The world stood up though, and the blood flowed freely. Freedom is paid for and maintained with blood, make no mistake. The timid and cowardly aren't the ones who either attain unto or win their freedom. Why? The nature of man does not change, there is always someone who thinks they deserve ALL the power – from the days of Nimrod until the present. It's not the theorists and deep-thinkers who confront and win violent struggles, it's those who are willing to risk life and limb to offer their children the promise of freedom tomorrow with todays sacrifice. No sacrifice, no freedom. Those who love comfort over sacrifice will never be free.

Today, in our world of 2008, a theocratic belief system is raising itself up with the same violent and murderous intent of the 1930's German Reich. It appears that European countries have decided to surrender their individual sovereignties with the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon – not even caring enough to allow their citizens to vote. Illegal immigration sponsored by the emasculated politicians of the EU and UN are in the process of appeasing the Islamic hoards, and the question arises: Who will stand up? Chamberlain proposed appeasement for his fantasy, will the West yield to his timid example or stand up? Tyrants respect only power or death .

World War II Memorial, Washington D.C.

By Leila Fadel, McClatchy Newspapers
Fri May 9, 5:24 PM ET
BAGHDAD — Staff Sgt. Luis Falcon , 38, was patrolling the streets of Baqouba , north of Baghdad , when he saw Shahad Abbas . The 11-year-old girl was in a large decrepit wheelchair, and the stumps of her legs where her calves should have been were crusted with dried blood.

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Falcon couldn't just walk on, so he stopped to talk. He came back the next day and the day after that, then every day for six months, bringing her toys, gauze for her legs, a new wheelchair. Anything she asked for he would bring.

In a war that Falcon no longer really understood, Shahad became his mission. So when she asked for legs, that became his mission, too.

On Friday his dream and hers came true, just three weeks before he's scheduled to leave Iraq . Shahad was fitted with prosthetic limbs in a U.S. military-funded clinic in Baghdad that normally provides artificial limbs for wounded members of the Iraqi security forces.

"We created a bond, and I didn't need a translator to interpret the bond we had," Falcon said.

With no little girls of his own, he thought of Shahad as his daughter and carried a picture of her smiling in the shoulder pocket of his uniform.

Iraq has one of the largest populations of amputees in the world, though a precise count isn't available. There are the tens of thousands of people who lost their limbs in the 1980s, during the eight-year war with Iran . Thousands more were injured in the first Gulf War. And then there's the current conflict, which has cost many people their legs and arms in bomb blasts.

Shahad lost her legs as she was walking to school when a roadside bomb exploded nearby. Two pieces of shrapnel are still lodged in her back to remind her of that day. Her little brother, Ali, was killed.

One day, Falcon, a New Yorker from 1st battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, asked her what she wanted. He expected her to ask for a toy. "I'll get you anything you want," he recalled saying.

"I want legs so I can walk to school," she told him. One day she planned to be a doctor. School was important to her.

It was a daunting request. The family was too poor to pay for expensive prostheses. The travel alone to an equipped clinic would be too expensive. Her father is unemployed and ill.

So Falcon, who admits he wasn't sure about the Iraq war, wasn't sure he was making a difference, decided he'd get Shahad her legs.

He went to his commander, to his chaplain, to anyone who would listen. The quest was frustrating and took months of pleas. He threatened to walk away from the Army if he couldn't give Shahad legs.

"Sometimes I couldn't figure out what made sense about being here. ... Are we making a difference are we not?" he said. "But I looked at her, right there, and it all made sense."

In one plea for Shahad's legs, he wrote: "Since I have been in Iraq , seeing her has given me every reason I need to justify our presence here. If nothing made sense, Shahad did."

Jeffrey Gardner , the public health officer in the American Provincial Reconstruction Team in Diyala, the province where Baqouba is the capital, saw the plea and knew he could help. He made calls to the Iraqi army's surgeon general, Army Brig. Gen. Samir Abdullah Hassan .

Eventually, he was able to win permission for Shahad to be treated at the clinic, which was founded in 2005 by Chris Cummings , a prosthetist from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Cummings said the clinic has fitted 500 people with artificial limbs since its founding.

Some, he said, were civilians, like Shahad. He recalled a pair of sisters in their 20s who worried that without limbs they'd never marry.

On Friday, Shahad arrived at the clinic to get her legs. She wore a pretty blue denim dress and dangling earrings, and her mother and uncle wheeled her into the clinic.

Iraqi technicians used a special machine to create a 3-D image of the top half of her leg. They measured where the calf and foot would have been had they not been blown off. Falcon mussed her hair, and her mother, Wahida Jabbar Mohammed , stood nearby.

"Don't be scared," her mother said.

"I'm not scared," Shahad answered. "I want to walk."

By Friday afternoon she was taking her first steps. At first she was tentative and a little scared.

Falcon called out, " Sasha , come give me a hug." With a sloppy grin on her face, she took several shaky steps into his arms.

"She was looking at my legs, and I was looking at her legs," he said. "Thank God."

Falcon doesn't see his mission as completed. He pulled the picture of him and Shahad from his pocket and looked at it with concern. In three weeks, he'll be gone. Who will check on her? Who will bring her medical supplies and call in favors to help her?

"I don't care how long it takes," he said. "I'll come back and find her."

Sgt_luis_falcon

 AL-LATIF, BASRA, Iraq (May 3, 2008) – Citizens in the Latif district of Basra, Iraq, greeted Iraqi soldiers from 3rd Bn, Quick Reaction Force 1, 1^st Iraqi Army Quick Reaction Force and military transition team Marines with smiles and waves May 3.

The people of al-Latif lined the streets and opened their doors to the IA, who searched homes and the many date orchards in the area for illegal weapons.

The Iraqi Army also came to provide security for the local people and handed out bottled water and pre-packaged halal meals in an operation planned and executed with minimal support from their Marine counterparts.

Though MiTT Marines advised the Iraqis in the planning process and participated in the mission, along with Marines from 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, the IA has taken the lead in planning and carrying out operations.

“[QRF 1] doesn’t need our help anymore,” said Michael. “We go along and give the Iraqis advice when we have some, but they don’t really need us.”

Many of the IA soldiers pay close attention to the Marines while out on missions.

“We like working with Marines,” said a sniper from 3^rd Battalion who joined the IA six months after Saddam fell. “They go out on missions with us and help us. We watch how they do things and we learn from it.”

QRF 1 is probably one of the best IA units, said Michael. Although they don’t operate at the level of the Marine Corps, they are perfectly capable of completing their mission here without a Marine presence.

MiTT and ANGLICO Marines made up only a fraction of the total forces in the operation, contributing roughly a platoon-size element to their IA battalion.

One local man said he didn’t even notice the Marines were in the city until several hours into the operation as he offered chai tea to the soldiers standing outside his home.

“It’s ok that they search our homes,” said the shopkeeper. “Most of the people here have nothing to hide. We do not fear the government.”

Many local citizens were optimistic their neighborhood would be rid of the violence the criminal gangs brought with them.

“We were excited to see the Army come here,” said a local shop owner. “When the Army comes, it scares away the criminals who hurt our people. God willing, those people will never come back”

  BASRA, Iraq (May 3, 2008) – Marines with 1^st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, fire control team 6, bring a lot to the fight here.

    Among other things, they provide air-strike and fire-support capabilities to their Iraqi Army counterparts supporting 3^rd Battalion, Quick Reaction Force 1,1st Iraqi Army Quick Reaction Force.

     “We’re there mainly to provide air support if needed, but we also provide medevacs, we can use the aircraft for route reconnaissance if needed,” said Sgt. Robert Lower, FCT 6 team chief . “We are basically the liaison between the air and ground.”

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      FCT-6 began its tour in Hawas, in northeastern al-Anbar province, but came to Basra in support of QRF-1, along with military transition team Marines, when fighting erupted in the city in late March.

      The drive down with QRF 1 from Hawas to Basra was slow due to the large number of vehicles, the frequent stops and the slow speeds convoys travel, taking three days of 15-17 hours of travel per day.

      One of Lower’s most memorable days in the Marine Corps was April 1, the day after they arrived in Basra during a mission with the Iraqi Police and IA.

      “We were driving through the city to go set up IP checkpoints,” he said. “We started receiving small arms fire and had two [rocket propelled grenades] shot at us.”

      They spent the night sleeping in the team’s mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle in the city and received mortar fire throughout the night, said Lower.

      Lower’s team hasn’t had to call in air support in Basra, but other ANGLICO units called in air strikes in early April against criminal elements of the Jaysh ar-Mahdi militia and other outlaws.

     “I spotted a mortar emplacement and our other FCT spotted another,” said Lower.

     After the other unit called for fire on the emplacement, Coalition forces destroyed the house.

     “All his neighbors knew he had mortars and explosives in his house and they thought he had blown himself up, they didn’t know it was us,” said Lower.

     The LaPorte, Ind., native joined the Marine Corps in August 2000 shortly after graduating high school as an avionics technician. After a year-long military occupational specialty school in Pensacola, Fla., he was stationed at Camp Pendleton with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron-169 working on Huey and Cobra helicopters, where he deployed twice in Operations Iraqi Freedom I and II.

     In 2005, Lower went to Quantico, Va., where he was stationed with HMX-1, the president’s helicopter squadron.

     “Working with HMX-1 was awesome,” said Lower. “We stayed in nice hotels and had nice rental cars when we traveled with the president. But we traveled a lot, sometimes for a week at a time.”

     Two years later, he changed his MOS to be a forward observer and was stationed with 1^st ANGLICO in Camp Pendleton, Calif.

     “It was a little bit of a culture shock when I first came to ANGLICO because I came from the wing side,” said Lower. “There’s a lot more camaraderie on the ground side.”

     “We formed shortly before pre-deployment training with the Army and have become pretty close. We live together and work together. When we came down here [to Basra], we were pretty much living together out of the MRAP.”

     This deployment, which began in March, is Lower’s third to Iraq, and has been very different from his previous tours.

     “The biggest difference between my first deployment in OIF I and this deployment is that now we are working with some of the Iraqi Army soldiers that we were fighting in OIF I,” said Lower.

     Along with the MiTTs, the FCT helps the Iraqi soldiers build on their operational capabilities, said Lower. Having ANGLICO alongside them helps provide the confidence to conduct operations on their own.

     “Now, we are focused on making them do the job instead of us doing it for them,” he said. “If an area needs to be cleared, we’re going to let them do it. We go along with them to help in case things go bad.”

     When his ANGLICO team came to Iraq, the Iraqis kept to themselves and the Marines kept to themselves without much social interaction, said Lower. But things have started to change.

     “At first, we kept our space with the Iraqis and they kept theirs,” he said. “Iraqis are more focused on personal  relationships. They’re starting to open their arms to us more. The IAs have been teaching us the language and culture.”

     “My favorite part of being in ANGLICO is working in small teams and working with different units,” said Lower. “It makes me feel like I’m contributing more to the war … working with units like the MiTTs and the IA.”

by Cpl Daniel Angel

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SHAIBA AIRBASE, Basra, Iraq (May 11, 2008) – When the 1^st Iraqi Army Quick Reaction Force arrived in Basra April 1, they fought their way into the city.

     Criminal elements of the Jaysh al-Mahdi had taken over parts of the city from local Iraqi security forces and imposed their own rule on a city that had once been a cultural and commercial beacon for all of Iraq.

     Music and western influence were prohibited, women faced death threats if they ventured outside their homes dressed in anything other than a full burkah and intersections were used as mortar positions.

     In less than a month, life in Basra couldn’t be different. The 1^st IA (QRF) continues to pursue criminals and outlaws through Basra’s neighborhoods, but as Quick Reaction Force 1, formerly 1^st Brigade, moved through the neighborhood of al-Jumhuriya April 28 the sound of gunfire was almost non-existent.

     “The people are happier now,” said Maj. Robert S. Washington, 2^nd Battalion, QRF 1 military transition team senior adviser. “They can go out, they can go to the markets.”

     Stores opened early in the morning as the soldiers cleared houses next door, looking for weapons, improvised explosive devices and wanted criminals. Kids walked to school past Iraqi Army humvees and posed for pictures with the soldiers.

     During operations in al-Jumhuriya alone, local citizens volunteered information that led to the arrest of nearly ten suspected local gang members and the discovery of illegal weapons and improvised explosive devices.

     “[The Iraqi soldiers] are getting a lot of their information by going out and talking to the local civilians,” said 2^ndLt Matthew S. Weant, 2^nd Battalion, QRF 1 staff intelligence adviser. “We’ve had people lead us directly to weapons caches and IEDs; even bringing them to us.”

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 There is surely more to be done in Basra. With the criminals gone, the Government of Iraq and Coalition Forces are working together with local leaders to address issues with sanitation, infrastructure and economy that will provide long-lasting improvements to the quality of life for local residents.

     Recently, local officials opened an open-air market in the neighborhood of al-Jameat in an effort to boost the local economy.

     “This city was being held hostage by a small group of criminal militias,” said Col. Robert F. Castellvi, 1^st IA (QRF) MiTT senior adviser. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have greeted us with open arms, like they have.”

     Local Iraqi security forces continue to hold the ground taken by the 1^st IA (QRF) to guard against a possible resurgence of the criminals. But, boosted by the confidence of success, they are ready for whatever may happen.