DoD public affairs types put up a story yesterday about the I Corps leadership’s mid-April trip to check out the lay of the land in Iraq.

From the release:

Lt. Gen. Charles Jacoby, commanding general, I Corps and Fort Lewis, Wash., toured training sites, detainee facilities and talked with leadership on the ground to help shape the corps’ situational awareness. I Corps will assume authority Multi-National Corps – Iraq in Spring 2009.

… (The) battlefield circulation is one of four potential trips to the MNC-I area of operations for the I Corps command group leading up

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The South Jersey Courier-Post, via Strykernews.com has a nice feature today on Lt. Col. Kenneth Evans, commander of 4th Brigade’s 202nd Brigade Support Battalion.

Via the Fort Riley public affairs office, the family of Cpl. Durrell Bennett passes along its gratitude to all who supported them following the Spanaway soldier’s death March 29 in Baghdad. More here.

Bennett, a Bethel High School graduate, was killed in an ambush while serving with the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment from Fort Riley.

In a statement, the family said it wanted “to extend special thanks to everyone for touching our hearts during the grieving process. … Your thoughtfulness meant so much during our time of grief. We want you to know your kindness

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Secretary of the Army Pete Geren and a host of other high mucky-mucks will be in Lakewood Friday (that’s May 2) to sign the “Army Community Covenant.”



The event will be at 2 p.m. at Lakewood’s Sharon M. McGavick Student Center at Clover Park Technical College.

A City of Lakewood press release says the local signing will be “just the second community covenant event in the nation.” Looks to us like they’ve done one in Columbus, Ga., home of Fort Benning, and New York state lawmakers in Albany did one for West Point.

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Heads up if you were planning to sleep in over there in DuPont on Friday morning.

The 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division Strykers will be having a brigade run – builds fitness, esprit de corps, etc., etc., etc.

Beginning at about 6:50 a.m., a salute battery of 75mm pack howitzers will fire a round as each of the brigade’s battalions jogs past the I Corps headquarters building. They’ll fire eight times – once for each of the seven battalions, and once for the brigade colors.

Per a Fort Lewis press release:

Queries or comments about noise

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Dana Millbank of the Washington Post on the Arlington National Cemetery funeral of Marine Corps Lt. Col. William Hall of Seattle.

If the family gave its permission to allow reporters and photographers to cover their farewell to their loved one, why interfere? It is a story that needs to be told.

Brig. Gen. John D. Johnson has been assigned to become the deputy commanding general at I Corps and Fort Lewis, according to a General Officer Management Office list released earlier this week. The assignment hasn’t yet been made public by the Department of Defense, so we’re waiting on that.

Johnson is currently assigned as deputy commanding general at the Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command in Alexandria, Va.

He commanded a brigade in the 1st Armor Division in Iraq and was assistant division commander for maneuver in the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea until last

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The post office in Cleveland, Ga., will be named after Army Sgt. Jason Harkins, who was killed in Iraq last March, the Gainesville (Ga.) Times reports.

The paper said the Senate passed a name-change bill Wednesday and now it’s on its way to President Bush for his signature.

Harkins, 25, was one of six soldiers killed May 6 in Baqoubah when a deep-buried bomb exploded beneath their Stryker. They were with the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment from Fort Lewis’ 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

I would imagine by now there are probably several other examples

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