A Fort Lewis soldier was injured early Friday at the Yakima Training Center, where his unit, the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, is conducting a major exercise.

The unidentified soldier was trapped between two vehicles, The Associated Press and the Yakima Herald-Republic reported. The solder was reported in serious condition at Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital, the wire service reported.

Checking with Fort Lewis for more information.

Update: Fort Lewis says the 21-year-old soldier was injured about 2:30 a.m. during maneuvers on the north end of the 300,000+ acre post.

He was airlifted to Yakima

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His hometown paper, The Daily Herald in suburban Chicago, has a story about the young Fort Lewis engineer who died Wednesday in a vehicle accident in Baghdad. There’s a memorial planned for today at the high school where he graduated last year.

The Chicago Tribune also had a story about Gulczynski and another area soldier, 24-year-old Sgt. Jason Antonio Vazquez, who was killed Wednesday by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

Now that it’s legal to register voters in U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs facilities, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and Secretary of State Sam Reed want to get the word out about how nonpartisan groups can go about doing so. My McClatchy colleague Chris Mulick at the Tri-City Herald has the goods.

The hitch is that voters have to be registered by Oct. 4, so the deadline’s coming up fast.

The retired Army general from Fox Island who shouted “dump Rumsfeld!” from the pages of the New York Times in 2006 these days is leading a committee of Washington military veterans for Barack Obama.

Paul Eaton, who was at the center of the so-called “Revolt of the Generals,” initially supported Hillary Clinton but switched to Obama after she withdrew from the race. Since then he’s been traveling the country speaking and writing about defense issues as a surrogate for the Democratic nominee – notably at the two political conventions and (sometimes painfully) on TV.

He headlined a Washington Veterans for Obama press conference today in Seattle.

“Basically the last eight years of military incompetence and government incompetence on the part of the Republican Party has completely soured me, and I do not want another day of a Republican administration,” Eaton said in an interview en route to the event.

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There are personnel moves this week at two organizations that provide important support to the military community.

&bull James Shepherd, 60, of Puyallup is the new state chairman of the Washington Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve. Shepherd is a retired Army Reserve colonel. He succeeds Gordon Jacobson as state chair.

&bull Don Leingang, 46, of Kent is the USO Puget Sound Area’s new executive director. He recently retired as a Navy commander and executive officer at Naval Station Everett. The area’s USO group provides a variety of services for military members and

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The 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division headquarters and much of one of its infantry battalions are in Germany for a month-long joint exercise with forces from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Stars & Stripes notes that the five nations all have forces working together in Afghanistan, and that the training scenario is drawn from Afghanistan. A Germany-based U.S. infantry battalion is playing the role of the Taliban.

All of which raises the question: Is the 3rd Brigade, home now for about a year from its last trip to Iraq, preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan?

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Lakewood spokesman Jeff Brewster sent this e-mail regarding an event Thursday in honor of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division:

At 7 a.m., Thursday, September 11 at Burs Restaurant, representatives from the 4-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Lakewood’s ‘Community Connection’ to Fort Lewis, will provide an overview of their 15-month deployment to Iraq. Lakewood residents are encouraged to commemorate Patriot Day by attending in this presentation and learning more about the 4-2 SBCT’s historic deployment.

The 4-2 began returning to Fort Lewis in late May after a grueling extended tour of nearly 15 months in Iraq.

For

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The Army Times’ Kelly Kennedy has a good piece this week about the use of hard labor in sentencing in UCMJ cases.

Her lead example is a former Fort Lewis private who was made to dig a trench in full battle rattle after he was sentenced to 45 days hard labor for peeing hot for cocaine.