By DANIEL E. SLOTNIK

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/05/30/us/wiedorfer-obit/wiedorfer-obit-articleInline.jpg

“Paul J. Wiedorfer, who earned the Medal of Honor for charging across an icy field in Belgium in 1944 and eliminating two German machine-gun nests that had pinned down his platoon, died on Wednesday in Baltimore. He was 90.

During the Battle of the Bulge, Mr. Wiedorfer’s platoon was crossing a clearing around noon on Christmas Day when camouflaged machine gunners supported by riflemen opened fire.

The Americans dove behind a small ridge about 40 yards from the German emplacements. Mr. Wiedorfer, a private, ran at the first machine gun, sliding on three inches of fresh snow and ice. He made it to within 10 yards of the fortification and hurled a grenade. After it exploded, he shot the remaining soldiers, then turned and attacked the second emplacement. He wounded one German, and the other six surrendered.

“Suddenly something popped into my mind,” Mr. Wiedorfer told The Baltimore Sun in 2008. “Something had to be done and someone had to do it. And I just did it. I can’t tell you why.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/us/30wiedorfer.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

“It was a family mystery. Everyone knew that Milton Rein had served in the United States Army during World War II. Everyone suspected that he had seen combat.

But Mr. Rein, a former auto shop owner who grew up in the New York area and who now lives in South Florida, was loath to share the details of that experience — not even with his brother, a business partner for more than 30 years, or his wife, whom he married in 1958.

… As it turned out, Mr. Rein, 85, had fought on the front lines of the Battle of the Bulge, one of the bloodiest, most pivotal battles of the war.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/nyregion/war-veteran-is-honored-for-service-67-years-later.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

“… Already more than 255,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and nearly 150 have been killed in those wars.

And while women may not be SEALs, or members of the Army’s prestigious Delta Force, they are increasingly serving with special operations teams in supporting jobs such as intelligence analysts, legal specialists, builders and administrative assistants.

So, while the SEALs who stormed Osama bin Laden’s compound early this month were all men, women have been deploying to the warfront with Naval Special Warfare Command squadrons for several years. Since 2007, 10 to 15 women have deployed with each NSW squadron, and more than 400 female sailors serve with the Navy’s special operations forces in supporting jobs.”

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/05/30/6748070-women-breaking-barriers-in-navy-not-seals-yet

“… Everybody in the car was killed except Sgt. Bobby Henline, who stumbled out of the wreck, a human torch. “The man I had replaced in the Humvee came running with a fire extinguisher and put out the flames,” he says. “But my skull was burned to the bone.”

Bobby began turning horror into humor at tiny comedy clubs near Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, speaking for all those disfigured veterans who endure whispers and stares.

“You know about skin grafts? I’m a patchwork quilt. Doctors took good skin from my stomach to replace the burnt skin on my head. Now I have to pick lint out of my ear.”

… Bobby dreaded what they would think … But daughter Brittany, just 15 at the time, saw past the scars. “You can look in his eyes and tell — that’s your dad,” she says. “He might look a little different, but he jokes about it, so we’re OK with it. It means so much to me that my dad can still laugh.”

“I went into a drugstore and filled a basket full of scar remover,” Bobby tells them. “The checker says, ‘Think you’ve got enough?’ ”

They roar. They stomp. They love him. On a neon-lit evening in Las Vegas, Bobby’s great tragedy becomes a triumph.”

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/05/30/6748412-wounded-warrior-comic-mines-hilarity-from-horror

by Gloria Hillard

Courtesy of Darrell Griffin Sr. Army Staff Sgt. Darrell Griffin Jr. was killed in March 2007 in Iraq by a sniper.

“It’s been more than four years since Army Staff Sgt. Darrell Griffin Jr. was killed while serving in Iraq. When he died, he had been collaborating with his father on a book about the war.

The book is titled Last Journey, A Father and Son in Wartime. It is a compilation of hundreds of emails, letters — and his son’s journal.

“This is where he started his journal: ‘I am attempting to create an account of two tours of combat in Iraq as an infantryman. I’m trying to make sense of a world that I’d never known until the first time I had to kill a man.'”

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/28/136690878/a-last-gift-father-finishes-book-after-sons-death

“The Navy SEALs who took out Osama bin Laden benefited from vital lessons learned the hard way during the bloody Battle of Mogadishu, a former SEAL sniper says.

“Howard Wasdin, who was wounded severely in the 1993 battle, told Newsmax.TV that the involvement of the United Nations badly hampered that mission.

“In Black Hawk Down, when we went into Mogadishu, we had no operational security because we were working with the United Nations, and that was the kiss of death,” he said.

“I am a die-hard Republican, but President Obama got it right on one large thing — not letting them know that they were coming in,” he said during the exclusive Newsmax interview.

Wasdin has written a new book, “SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper,” about his experiences in the Persian Gulf War and Somalia.”

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/seal-team-six-memorial/2011/05/29/id/398173

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozpdBvB0hek&feature=share

http://www.173rdairborne.com/menu.htm

By Brad Knickerbocker

The commanding officer of the Blue Angels – the US Navy’s flight demonstration team – has been relieved of command for performing dangerously low maneuvers.

In a highly unusual step, Navy Cmdr. Dave Koss announced Friday that “with deep personal regret … I will be voluntarily leaving the greatest flight demonstration team.”

“I performed a maneuver that had an unacceptably low minimum altitude,” Cmdr. Koss said in a statement. “This maneuver, combined with other instances of not meeting the airborne standard that makes the Blue Angels the exceptional organization that it is, led to my decision to step down.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0528/Blue-Angels-flight-leader-relieved-of-command-for-flying-too-low