Kentucky National Guard returns home

Troops return home after being deployed in Afghanistan for nearly a year

By Marisela Burgos

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - More than 60 troops who were deployed for nearly a year in Afghanistan returned home.

The Kentucky National Guard's Agribusiness Development Team 2 had been in Afghanistan since July 2010. A welcome home ceremony was held, Sunday, at the Kentucky Air National Guard Base on Grade Lane in Louisville.

Major General Edward Tonini said the team taught the people of Afghanistan farming, while they were deployed. He said they taught basic techniques. He said it was an important mission.

"It's a country that has known nothing but war for literally hundreds of years and what we're doing is providing them with the elements of being able to sustain themselves," Tonini said.
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Troops return home after being deployed in Afghanistan

Osama bin Laid by Seals and CIA!

Inside the raid that killed bin Laden

SEALs, working with CIA , stormed fortified compound deep inside Pakistan
By Matt Apuzzo - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday May 1, 2011 23:37:59 EDT
WASHINGTON — Helicopters descended out of darkness on the most important counterterrorism mission in U.S. history. It was an operation so secret, only a select few U.S. officials knew what was about to happen.

The location was a fortified compound in an affluent Pakistani town two hours outside Islamabad. The target was Osama bin Laden.

Intelligence officials discovered the compound in August while monitoring an al-Qaida courier.

The CIA had been hunting that courier for years, ever since detainees told interrogators that the courier was so trusted by bin Laden that he might very well be living with the al-Qaida leader.

Nestled in an affluent neighborhood, the compound was surrounded by walls as high as 18 feet, topped with barbed wire. Two security gates guarded the only way in. A third-floor terrace was shielded by a seven-foot privacy wall. No phone lines or Internet cables ran to the property. The residents burned their garbage rather than put it out for collection. Intelligence officials believed the million-dollar compound was built five years ago to protect a major terrorist figure. The question was, who?

The CIA asked itself again and again who might be living behind those walls. Each time, they concluded it was almost certainly bin Laden.
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Jubilation across the U.S.
Soldiers from Lewis-McChord celebrate the news
Troops react to bin Laden’s death
By Colin Kelly - Staff writer
Posted : Monday May 2, 2011 0:48:33 EDT
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — The mood on a U.S. base in the war zone was celebratory early Monday.

For one soldier, in his first day in the theater, it was a historic day.

Army Maj. Erik S. Archer said he heard the news from the soldier who he’s replacing.

“My guy that I’m RIPing in with knocked on my door said, ‘Hey, you gotta come see this, the president is announcing that they got bin Laden,’ and I didn’t believe him at first,” Archer said.

“This is my fourth time overseas, and I went and saw the president and … it was just goose bumps to see all the people outside the White House clapping and cheering. It’s a national moment, I think.”

Troops watching the announcement were mesmerized, Archer said.
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New Yorkers React To Osama Bin Laden Death (PHOTOS, VIDEO)
New Yorkers are responding to the news that Osama bin Laden is dead.

Shortly after the announcement from President Obama, New Yorkers in Times Square and Ground Zero flooded the streets to celebrate the news that the man behind the attacks of September 11th was killed by American forces.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg released a statement on the news, saying that “New Yorkers have waited nearly ten years for this news. It is my hope that it will bring some closure and comfort to all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.”

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly greeted the news as a "welcome milestone" for the victims of those horrific attacks, and for those "who remain tenaciously engaged in protecting New York from another attack."

Senator Charles Schumer said that the death of bin Laden is a "thunderous strike for justice for the thousands of my fellow New Yorkers -- and citizens from all over the world -- who were murdered on 9/11."

HuffPost's Rob Fishman was downtown near ground zero Sunday, and filed this report:
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New Yorkers React To Osama Bin Laden Death

Buried at sea

Clinton: Bin Laden death shows 'You cannot defeat us'
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 2, 2011 10:20 a.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Terrorists will almost certainly attempt to avenge the death, Panetta says
DNA matching is under way, a U.S. official says
Intelligence work on a courier for bin Laden led to a key break
Hundreds celebrate in front of the White House and in New York

(CNN) -- The successful U.S. operation that killed Osama bin Laden sends a message to the Taliban in Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday.

"You cannot wait us out. You cannot defeat us. But you can make the choice to abandon al Qaeda" and participate in a peaceful political process, Clinton said.

"There is no better rebuke to al Qaeda and its heinous ideology," she said. "The fight continues and we will never waver."

Some doubted that the terrorist leader would ever be caught, she said, but "this is America... We persevere, and we get the job done."

Clinton also noted that bin Laden's death comes at a time of "great movements toward freedom and democracy."

The operation that killed the founder and leader of al Qaeda was designed to do just that, not to take him alive, a U.S. government official told CNN Monday.

DNA matching is under way on samples from his body, the official said. There are photographs of the body with a gunshot wound to the side of the head that shows an individual who is not unrecognizable as bin Laden, the official said.

No decision has yet been made on whether to release the photographs and if so, when and how.
The mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- the worst terrorist attacks on American soil -- was killed by U.S. forces Monday in a mansion in Abbottabad, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, U.S. officials said.

Four others in the compound also were killed. One of them was bin Laden's adult son, and another was a woman being used as a shield by a male combatant, the officials said.

Bin Laden's body was later buried at sea, an official said. Many Muslims adhere to the belief that bodies should be buried within one day.
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Bin Laden death shows 'You cannot defeat us'

Body of Alabama major killed in airport attack returned from Afghanistan

Body of Alabama major killed in airport attack returned from Afghanistan
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: May 01, 2011
GADSDEN, Ala. — A 41-year-old Gadsden native training pilots in Afghanistan was among nine people who died after an Afghan military pilot opened fire during a meeting at the Kabul airport.

The flag-draped coffin of Air Force Maj. Jeffrey Ausborn was flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Saturday. Plans for a memorial service have not yet been announced.

His wife, Suzanna, said he volunteered to go to Afghanistan last year to teach new Afghan pilots how to fly the C-27 aircraft. He was a 19-year veteran of the Air Force.

"He was the most compassionate, kind, patient and understanding husband, father, pilot and supervisor," she told The Gadsden Times.

She said the two talked nearly every day. "That's how is knew something was wrong. I didn't hear from him. I miss him so much," she said.
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Alabama major killed in airport attack


DOD identifies 8 killed in Kabul

Ross Perot to be guest speaker at Veterans Reunion

Saturday May 7, 2011 at 10:30am,
Prior to the massing of the colors, Ross Perot will be the guest speaker.

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Florida Veterans Reunion

Reserve deputy chief talks up new Florida center

Reserve deputy chief talks up new Fla. center
By Don Ruane - The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press
Posted : Sunday May 1, 2011

CAPE CORAL, Fla. — An Army Reserve training center to be built in north Cape Coral is a $14.5 million investment that will create 20 to 30 jobs and help local businesses, the deputy chief of the national Army Reserve said Saturday after a tour of the city.

Maj. Gen. Keith L. Thurgood toured the 15-acre training center site on Corbett Road at Diplomat Parkway while in town to address the gathering of the Florida Reserve Officers Association at The Resort at Marina Village.

The construction contract for the center is going out for bids in September. Completion is expected in 2013. The site is on Corbett Road at Diplomat Parkway. A $132-million, four-story Veterans Affairs Clinic is going up just across Corbett Road and is expected to open in 2012. The Reserve wants to look for ways to collaborate with the clinic, Thurgood said.

He said he also is impressed with the city’s efforts to spur more development in the area, which is called the Veterans Investment Zone. The zone is a one-mile circle around the clinic where special incentives are available from the city to entice developers.

Some 300 reservists will pass through the center each year, but they will stay in local hotels at the end of each day, dine at local restaurants and visit local attractions, Thurgood said. The training center also will need the services of local landscapers, plumbers, electricians and others.

“Our soldiers are involved in communities all the time,” Thurgood said at a news conference after inspecting the rehabilitation work on the Iwo Jima flag-raising statue at Four Mile Cove Eco Preserve.

There are 11,000 Army reservists in Florida and they have an annual economic impact of $200 million, Thurgood said.
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Reserve deputy chief talks up new Fla. center