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WHEN: Today (8 a.m. to 8 p.m.)

WHERE: Salvation Army Community Center, 222 E. Indiana Avenue, Spokane.

Nearly 7,000 families will receive a Thanksgiving dinner Today from the Spokane Salvation Army. The meals include a turkey, green beans, stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes and gravy.

Picture ID, proof of children and proof of residence is required in order to receive a meal.           Contact the Family Services office at 509-325-6821 if you have any questions.

Click here for more details: http://www.kxly.com/global/story.asp?s=9411871

The roles women play in society have changed dramatically in the last century, but nowhere has the glass ceiling continued to be broken again and again as in the US military. Since I first enlisted in the military 21 years ago I have seen women begin flying combat missions, serving on ships of the line and not just support vessels and have seen them lead combat missions on the ground in Iraq.

On Friday Lieutenant General Ann Dunwoody accomplished something no other woman has ever done: She earned her fourth star.

Ann Dunwoody was promoted to four-star general in front of a standing room only crowd at the Pentagon Friday morning that erupted in cheers after the Army Chief of Staff, General George Casey, and Dunwoody’s husband, retired Air Force Colonel Craig Brotchie, pinned her stars on her uniform.

“Thirty-three years after I took the oath as a second lieutenant, I have to tell you this is not exactly how I envisioned my life unfolding,” she told a standing-room-only auditorium. “Even as a young kid, all I ever wanted to do was teach physical education and raise a family.”

“It was clear to me that my Army experience was just going to be a two-year detour en route to my fitness profession,” she added. “So when asked, `Ann, did you ever think you were going to be a general officer, to say nothing about a four-star?’ I say, `Not in my wildest dreams.’

“There is no one more surprised than I — except, of course, my husband. You know what they say, `Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man.’”

Congratulations ma’am. Another pane in the glass ceiling shattered.

This is a pic of me and my former commanding officer Colonel Willy Buhl a few years back. It was August of 2004 and we hadn’t seen each other in a few years. I was serving as an infantry squad leader with the Army Guard in Baghdad; he was the CO of the Thundering Third Herd in Fallujah.

The Marine Corps is a small, tight-knit brother / sisterhood of warriors. I hadn’t seen Col. Buhl in years - we’d served together back in the early 90s - but here we were at a chance meeting in an Army Forward Operating Base in a combat zone talking like the old friends we are.

That brotherhood, that cameraderie, is one of the defining elements that sets the Marine apart from his peers and today, as is the case every November 10th for the last 233 years, that cameraderie shines the brightest as today is our birthday.

So before I publish the order of the day, I want to extend a hearty happy birthday to every Teufelhund out there in the community. Thank you for your service and Semper Fi.

MARINE CORPS ORDERS
No. 47 (Series 1921)
HEADQUARTERS U.S. MARINE CORPS
Washington, November 1, 1921

759. The following will be read to the command on the 10th of November, 1921, and hereafter on the 10th of November of every year. Should the order not be received by the 10th of November, 1921, it will be read upon receipt.

(1) On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of Continental Congress. Since that date many thousand men have borne the name “Marine”. In memory of them it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the birthday of our corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.

(2) The record of our corps is one which will bear comparison with that of the most famous military organizations in the world’s history. During 90 of the 146 years of its existence the Marine Corps has been in action against the Nation’s foes. From the Battle of Trenton to the Argonne, Marines have won foremost honors in war, and in the long eras of tranquility at home, generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas, that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security.

(3) In every battle and skirmish since the birth of our corps, Marines have acquitted themselves with the greatest distinction, winning new honors on each occasion until the term “Marine” has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue.

(4) This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the corps. With it we have also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our Nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as “Soldiers of the Sea” since the founding of the Corps.

JOHN A. LEJEUNE,
Major General Commandant
75705–21

Election Day this year may unleash a chaos the likes of which you have never seen in U.S. politics. If you thought the fiasco in Florida in 2000 was tedious and insulting just wait until November 4th. We may look back on the 2002 election longingly.

An army of trial lawyers, some 7,000 representing the Republicans and their candidates, and nearly 11,000 representing Democrats, as well as the justice Department and the Attorneys General of the several states, and the American Civil Liberties Union are already lined up to start litigation, or defend against actions in the event that they don’t like the looks of things in any precinct in America.

Given the unprecedented fraud activity already uncovered or suspected in many states, odds are they will be busy lawyers in a couple of weeks.

Voter fraud knows no political persuasion. It would be a mistake to suggest that only Democrats engage in voter fraud. Disenfranchising voters has been elevated to a high art by criminals favoring all political ideologies. It isn’t just ACORN that threatens our elections. There are many organizations and individuals seeking to sabotage our election process.

Some of them are ordinary people you might know. Experience has shown that many times a surviving spouse thinks there’s nothing is with casting a ballot on behalf of a deceased spouse, if one comes in the mail. This is the same thing as ACORN signing up some unscrupulous person to cast a vote using the name of somebody whose remains currently reside in a county cemetery.

It undermines the integrity of elections, and its a crime.

What baffles me is that while four in ten Americans have serious reservations about voter fraud, where is the outrage? Where is the pressure on Congress and on state legislators to pass air-tight election security laws? Where is the pressure on secretaries of state in the several states to vigorously and tirelessly investigate and eliminate fraud?

How is it that for the most part, perpetrators of voter fraud are never prosecuted? We will never eradicate voter fraud until we demand that it be stopped. Right now, who’s demanding, and how loudly?

Today’s the last hurrah for the men and women of the 81st Heavy Brigade Combat Team, who wrapped up their pre-deployment training today at Ft. McCoy with a send-off ceremony. After that they’ll be packing up their gear and getting on planes and headed east to the sandbox for another 12 months.

The brigade’s clenched fist is the Spokane-based 1st Battalion, 161st Infantry, which has armories all across Eastern Washington including Pullman, Moses Lake, Pasco, Wenatchee and right here in town.

Now for the unitiated, the infantryman is the guy that holds the key ground on the battlefield. In combat you’re either Infantry or you’re Infantry support.

Now if you’re a tanker, cannon cocker, bulk fuel specialist or supply clerk, before you get your dander up, for those of you that haven’t read this blog before (that means all of you except for my bosses, my wife and a handful of friends of mine) I make that claim because for most of my adult life I was an infantryman. I was an infantryman in the Marine Corps. I was a Mechanized Infantryman in the Army Guard.

There’s a special, albeit dark and cold, place in my heart for 1-161. It was my battalion and Moses Lake was my armory. Many of the guys over at Ft. McCoy right now spending their last days and hours in the United States before going to Iraq are my friends who I pushed hot steel downrange with last go-around.

At first when I heard they were heading back I had survivor’s guilt. I was neck deep in the you-can’t-say-that-in-your-blog with the battalion last time around. I spent a year camped out in the Green Zone running combat patrols outside the wire with them. I was there for the IED strikes, rocket and mortar attacks, firefights and for the memorial services.

I did my time. I did my part. I pushed my fair share of bullets downrange.

I shot this video below the last time we were in-country. Many of the guys in this video are out of the Guard now. Many of them are going back to Iraq within a matter of days. While I’m glad I’m not going (My wife is glad, too) with them deep down inside I feel guilty because I’m not.

Good luck Highlanders. Unleash hell and return home with honor. We’ll have plenty of beer chillin’ and BBQ grillin’ for you guys when you get home.

Spokane Serial Killer Robert Yates has been transferred from death row in Walla Walla to Pierce County where he will be in court Friday as Judge John McCarthy signs his death warrant.

Yates was tranferred from Walla Walla State Penitentiary to the Pierce County Jail early Thursday morning. During the Friday morning hearing Yates will face Judge McCarthy, who will sign the warrant and select a day for his execution.

State law requires his execution to follow within the next 90 days.

Yates has already unsuccessfully appealed his 2002 conviction in Pierce County for the murders of Melinda Mercer and Connie LaFontaine Ellis. Mercer was killed in 1997 while Ellis was killed in 1998 and in both cases their bodies were found near Camp Murray where Yates participated in training while serving as a helicopter pilot in the Washington Army National Guard.

In between the murders of Melinda Mercer and Connie LaFontaine Ellis Yates also killed six women in Spokane County.

Before being tried and convicted in Pierce County Yates agreed to a plea deal with Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker that spared him the death penalty for the murders of more than a dozen people over a span of more than two decades.

In exchange for his plea deal – which included confirming to authorities the whereabouts of victim Melody Murfin - Yates was given 408 years in prison without possibility of parole for the murders of 13 women in Spokane County, two people in Walla Walla County and one person in Skagit County between 1975 and 1998.

After his sentencing in Spokane Yates was transferred to Pierce County where prosecutors there used details of his plea agreement to show the court his violent criminal history in order to secure his conviction and a death penalty verdict against him.

Once the death warrant is signed Friday it will be sent to the superintendent of the Walla Walla State Penitentiary for execution of the sentence. Yates’ attorneys are expected to ask for a stay of execution from the Washington State Supreme Court.

If granted, Yates will be temporarily spared from the death penalty while he continues to appeal his death sentence.

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Carlo E. Alfonso, 23, of Spokane, Wash., died on Aug. 26 of injuries sustained when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device in Sadr City, Iraq. He was assigned to the 40th Engineer Battalion, 2d Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Baumholder, Germany.

NOTE: Alfonso’s wife, Rosemarie, contacted us last week with the news of her husband’s death. Alfonso -pictured on the left above - is scheduled to return home later this week for his funeral and memorial service. Full story on SPC. Alfonso’s death here.

Last night we ran a story about local Guardsmen getting ready to head off to Iraq. The 81st Brigade of the Washington Army National Guard is heading to Camp Anaconda north of Baghdad for their second combat tour in four years.

The story focused on one man, Captain Clayton Colliton, who will be returning along with the brigade as a company commander in the 81st Brigade. The story was one of pride of a son - Clayton - in service to his country and pride of a father - former Spokane City Councilman Jeff Colliton - who served in the military himself and has watched his sons all participate in a family business that goes back to the time of his great-grandfather’s service.

Here’s the rest of his story because you see in some ways Clayton Colliton saved my life one day back in October of 2004.

It was early October and my platoon - 1st Platoon Charlie Company 1st of the 161st Infantry - was heading out on a combat patrol down to Jisr Diyala, a backwater suburb a dozen klicks south of Baghdad, Iraq. I can’t use the words I’d like to describe Jisr Diyala because this is, after all, a family-friendly blog.

I was in an armored personnel carrier - an M113 - at the tail end of the platoon column. SPC Erik Bombard was the driver, SGT James Roush was the track commander. Also in the track were SPC Noel Marshall, our platoon medic, SSG Kurt Hosman and SPC Jesse Fierro among others.

We were driving out of the Green Zone and had just left the 14 July Bridge checkpoint at the southern end of our little slice of heaven in downtown Baghdad and were heading down a street that paralleled that Karrada Street shopping district when a drain plug popped out the bottom of the track. Unfortunately that drain plug was the only thing holding in all the hydraulic fluid for our track and, unfortunately, we needed hydraulic fluid to control two things: Our Steering and Our Brakes.

Imagine Erik Bombard’s surprise when our track started drifting into oncoming traffic and he found out the hard way he had neither. He had the steering controls cranked all the way to the right and still the track was slewing to the left.

Suddenly the controls responded to Bombard’s commands and the track veered right. Hard Right.

I was sitting in the back with the rest of the guys in Kurt Hosman’s squad, oblivious to what was going on when suddenly the track crashed, nearly toppling over on its side, with chunks of bricks and mortar raining in from the open top troop hatch. As you can see from the picture at the top of the post, we had crashed into a brick wall.

SGT Roush was ejected from his position - where that open hatch is atop the track - and thrown about a dozen feet into the middle of the street. We later joked that we should file charges against him for abandoning his post but he suffered a tour-ending skull fracture; his injuries were no laughing matter.

Here’s the scary thing. Our track’s crash knocked all power to the vehicle including our radios. We were at the tail end of the platoon column and the rest of the platoon didn’t notice we had crashed and kept driving down the road out of sight. We were a handful of guys, one critically injured and needing to go to the hospital, stuck with an immobilized armored personnel carrier and out of communications with everyone else.

We were in the middle of Baghdad and on our own.

Doc Marshall started treating Roush while the rest of us started getting ourselves organized around our dead track. There wasn’t much more we could do except hope an American unit would come by and give us a hand.

Within a few minutes a column of gun trucks came up the road headed toward the Green Zone. It was Lieutenant Clayton Colliton and “Stetson” - our battalion’s Scout Platoon. Lt. Colliton got out of his Humvee, we gave him a quick rundown on what was going on. While his Scouts got out and helped provide local security and assisted Doc Marshall with treating Roush, Colliton got on the battalion net to let our platoon know where we were and what happened.

Now if you ask him today Captain Colliton probably won’t recall this seemingly insignificant event. All he did, he might say, was use his radio to help out a squad of grunts that had broken contact with the rest of its platoon.

But being out there on our own with a damaged track and a wounded soldier and no radio to this day I’m not sure what would have happened if Colliton and his Scouts hadn’t been driving by.

So thank you for your help Captain Collliton. You guys stay safe up there at Anaconda.

Scouts Out.

When the Russian Army began its invasion of neighboring Georgia over the weekend, the Georgian government claimed that its official websites were being shut down by a systematic denial-of-service attack allegedly perpetrated by the Russian government.

In geek-speak it’s called Cyber War … the direct attack of an enemy’s Internet-based information networks to shut down their ability to communicate in cyberspace. The timing of the denial-of-service shutdown of their websites wasn’t lost on the Georgian government.

Cyber Warfare Attacks by Russia Disable Georgian Websites; Government of Georgia Established Alternative Websites

A cyber warfare campaign by Russia is seriously disrupting many Georgian websites, including that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If you cannnot access official Georgian government websites, please go to the following sites for the latest official Government of Georgia news.

Here’s the twist: That statement didn’t come from their official website. It came from their blog.

With their official government websites seemingly intentionally shut down by these denial-of-service attacks, the Georgian government started blogging about the invasion.

The Ministry of Affairs of Georgia set up a Blogger account where they are posting regular updates and a timeline as the Russian invasion progresses.

August 11th

14:30 Senaki base is bombed by Russian aviation.

13:30 President Saakashvili signs a ceasefire agreement, prepared by the foreign ministers of France, Finland, and Georgia. The foreign ministers of France and Finland are taking the agreement to Moscow in order to persuade President Medvedev to sign it.
http://www.gpb.ge/moambe_news.php?lang=eng&tm_id=0&news_id=16190

12:05 Russian aviation is bombing Georgian servicemen in Upper Abkhazia.

10:00 Village of Eredvi came under the fire of Russian artillery.

07:15 Senaki airport is bombed by Russian airplanes.

06:10 Gori tank battalion is bombed. A civilian apartment building nearby has been hit.

05:00 Shiraki airfield in Dedoplistskaro District on the east of the country is bombed by Russian jets.

04:37 Civilian radar station in the village of Leninisi in 5 kilometers from downtown Tbilisi.

03:05 Villages of Sharabidzeebi, Kapandichi, Makho near Batumi are bombed by Russian planes. Graveyard and villagers’ backyard have been hit. No casualties reported.

00:30 Civilian radar station in the village of Shavshvebi west of Gori is bombed by Russian planes.

00:00 Five wounded policemen transported to Zugdidi hospital from Upper Abkhazia.

Scary as it may seem … but as evidenced with the crackdown in Burma several months ago and now the Russian invasion of Georgia people turn to blogs to get the word out in near real-time about what’s going on in the world around us.

       Michael Foley is our new Good Morning Northwest contributor. Each Wednesday he teaches our viewers a new self defense move. To call him a self defense expert though is an understatement. He’s highly trained in martial arts. During his time in the military, the U.S. army sent Foley around the world on top secret missions… exactly where he went and why is “classified”. Weird huh? I’ve never known anyone to really answer a question with that response.

“Where’d you go? What’d you do?”

“That’s classified information”. It’s like a line out of an action movie, not one I’ve ever heard from a real person before. Unless, of course, they were joking.   I’ll tell you what though, his resume makes him look like a real action hero.