A 25-year-old Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier from Illinois died Friday in Afghanistan after his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device.

Sgt. Michael E. Ristau, of Rockford, Ill., died July 13 after the attack in Zabul Province, according to an Army press release.

He was assigned to 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Stryker Brigade at JBLM.

Ristau joined the Army in July 2004 and has been at Lewis-McChord since he completed his training. The Army says he deployed to Afghanistan with his brigade in December 2011.

The Army said Ristau was married and had two sons. …

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The 7th Airlift Squadron will return to McChord Air Force Base tonight after one day delay due to a “change in charter aircraft availability.”

The 150 airmen be on hand for the 9:45 p.m. homecoming ceremony.

From the folks at McChord:

The 7th AS Airmen deployed as the 817th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron flying missions throughout the combat zone and Europe. While deployed, Airmen flew more than 3,200 sorties transporting more than 131,000 passengers and 112 million pounds of cargo to sustain U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also transported 10 critical patients from theater to

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It’s hardly been a secret, but the Department of Defense made it official this morning: I Corps, the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, and the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, are all in the next rotation for Iraq.

I don’t have anything official in terms of a timeline, but I am told the Corps headquarters will go early in the year — late winter, early spring — and that the two Stryker brigades will deploy in the summer or early fall. Not sure which one goes first.

The Corps’ deployment is historic — its first since Korea.

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I have decided to take The News Tribune’s offer of a buyout and leave the paper after 21 years here as a reporter and editor.

It’s hard to go, for sure, but the truth is I have been thinking about a change for some time now. I’m looking forward to starting something new.

I’ll wrap things up here next week. I don’t think the editors have decided who will cover the military beat, but I suspect they’ll make that assignment soon.

In the meantime, thank you, readers, for your interest and your support.

KXLY TV in Spokane interviewed the two Fort Lewis soldiers accused of deserting and then going on a petty crime spree to feed their addiction to prescription painkillers.

Below is the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office press release about the arrests.

And I’m just going to leave it at that.

Deserters Nabbed In Mini-Crime Wave

A pair of U.S. Army deserters was arrested Tuesday after Spokane Valley property crimes detectives linked them to a series of thefts and other criminal incidents committed during the past two months.

Michael W. Grenkavich, 21, and Mitchell L. Rea,

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Freelancer Kayt Sukel has a personal essay in this weekend’s Washington Post about her experiences as a Family Readiness Group leader.

I have been chided in the past for saying FRG leader is the toughest job in the Army, so I won’t repeat that. But it’s gotta be in the Top 5, no?

Author and McClatchy military columnist Joe Galloway will be at the Fort Lewis PX 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday to sign copies of his new book, “We Are Soldiers Still.” (Review here.)

It’s a followup to his “We Were Soldiers Once … And Young” with retired Lt. Gen. Hal Moore.

If you don’t have a Department of Defense sticker or ID, but you want to get a signed copy or meet the author, you can still get on Fort Lewis. Go to the visitor center at the main gate – Exit 120 off of Interstate 5

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Following up on the story Thursday about the annual naturalization ceremony at Fort Lewis: The military – and in particular, the military during wartime – has long been a path to U.S. citizenship.

The numbers tell the story, as published by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics. (Download Table 20.)

The government first started tracking naturalizations in the military in 1918 – the last year of World War I –  when 63,993 service members took the Oath of Allegiance. That was out of a total of 151,449 new citizens that year.

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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.