Afghanistan

For the last several months members of the Silver Sage 4-H Community Club and the Bouncing Bunnies 4-H Club collected, organized and delivered food and cleaning items to the Veterans Guest House in Reno.

In honor of Armed Forces Day, the Capital City Arts Initiative invites you to attend a reading by Iraq veteran and writer Caleb Cage at the BRIC, 108 E Proctor Street, Carson City.

The reading will take place Saturday, May 17 at 5pm. The free event is part of CCAI’s Books & Writers series co-sponsored with the Carson City Library. CCAI and the Library enthusiastically invite everyone to attend the reading.

A double amputee Marine veteran, Rob Jones, will be in Carson City today and Wednesday as part of his efforts to cycle across America, raise awareness and to "pay it forward" to veteran organizations that helped him in his recovery.

The public is invited to meet Jones at a reception at the Hampton Inn, 10 Hospitality Way Tuesday beginning at 4 p.m. He will have arrived after cycling from Fallon to Silver Springs on Highway 50. Jones cycles approximately 35 miles every day as part of the campaign. He lost his legs when he stepped on an IED in Afghanistan in 2010.

“Four thousand faces of American military who had perished in Iraq stared at me,” said former Western Nevada College professor Don Carlson. “I realized that this war has been perhaps one of the most impersonal wars the U.S. ever fought.”

In 2008, the army veteran saw a Roster of the Dead, then totaling 4,000. He explains that with the all-volunteer military, more than in any previous war, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been remote to the vast majority of Americans. Impersonal.

Alyssa Harrison spent 10 months waiting for the day her husband would return to Nevada from Afghanistan.

That day arrived Sunday when Harrison among hundreds to greet the 13 Nevada Army National Guard members who returned to Reno-Tahoe International Airport from Afghanistan.

With the assistance of the U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit and a determined committee, an unnamed peak on the North Shore of the Lake Tahoe Basin has been renamed “Gold Star Peak” in honor of soldiers from the area that paid the ultimate price in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, and the War on Terrorism.

A ceremony to dedicate Gold Star Peak will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 6, at Lakeview Commons in South Lake Tahoe.

The Carson City Library will present Explore New Zealand at Your Library on Thursday, May 9th, at 6:00 p.m. in the library auditorium.

Library staff member Una Gauper recently visited the island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Her journey spanned months of travel and adventure. Her large network of extended family provided expert travel guidance as she experienced the culture and explored the landscape.

It's wall that will stop you in your tracks. The Fallen heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan have been immortalized in a traveling exhibit that started in Carson City. It's called 'Always Lost: A Meditation on War,' and the goal is to bring an impersonal war back home. Western Nevada College is making a national effort to help us remember those heroes.

U.S. Senators Harry Reid and Dean Heller joined representatives of Nevada's delegation of U.S. House of Representatives — Joe Heck (NV-03), Dina Titus (NV-01), and Steven Horsford (NV-04) — in sending a letter to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Under Secretary for Benefits Allison Hickey and Reno VA Regional Office Director Edward Russell, offering help in addressing Nevada’s backlog of VA claims.

“Always Lost: A Meditation on War” has returned home to Carson City and was given full honors Wednesday at the Nevada Legislature.

Western Nevada College’s acclaimed creative writing/photographic exhibition about the costs of war will be on display in the Nevada Legislative Building’s second-floor atrium weekdays through May 3.

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid said Wednesday on the floor of the U.S. Senate that he supports an assault weapons ban, limits on high-capacity ammunition clips and polices to improve access to mental health services. He spoke of mass shootings that have happened across the country and close to home in Carson City.

"As the case of the Carson City, Nevada IHOP tragedy reveals, the deficiencies in this nation’s mental health treatment system are another important part of the discussion about how to prevent gun violence," Reid said on the Senate floor. "We have simply not done a good job of providing funding for and access to mental health services. We have also done a poor job of removing the stigma that keeps many Americas from seeking the treatment they need."

“Always Lost: A Meditation on War” is returning to its roots. Western Nevada College’s acclaimed creative writing/photographic exhibition about the costs of war will be on display in the Nevada Legislative Building’s second-floor atrium on weekdays, April 17 to May 3.

Orwellian NEW-Speak: Budget Cut Language Engineering

Does anyone out there actually believe that Congressional sequestration results in budget cuts? The federal spending under sequestration goes up every year without congress even passing a budget. If the automatic baseline budget grows less than is required by law then Washington, our media, and the New-speak columnists misinform the people of our nation that there has been a cut when in fact spending is increasing. There are no cuts which is why spending goes up each year.

Carson City Library will present Explore Chile at Your Library on Thursday, March 7 at 6 p.m. in the library auditorium. Danilo A. Muñoz Ormeño was born in the city of Los Angeles in the beautiful country of Chile.

In Chile, he studied theater at Viña del Mar. He came to the USA in 2010 and lives in Carson City, Nevada. Danilo is working in the culinary arts.

Nevada Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Anderson Muñoz of Dayton, who was injured by a rocket attack in Afghanistan, received a Purple Heart on Saturday in Reno.
Muñoz, 35, is one of about 50 Nevada Guardsmen to receive a Purple Heart since Sept. 11, 2001. He suffered a ruptured ear drum and concussion during enemy rocket fire on Nov. 18, 2011.

Members of the 1-189th Nevada National Guard unit have returned, arriving at Reno-Tahoe International Airport Wednesday to cheers from family and friends. They were deployed as aviation support for air assault missions throughout Afghanistan.

Carson City Library will present Dr. Gino Giudice Thursday, January 24th, at 6:00 p.m. in the library auditorium.
Explore the World at Your Library is a bimonthly program and hosts a series of presentations by people from other countries or by those who have traveled to far-away places.

As Prepared for Delivery Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013:

Madam Speaker, Mr. President, Distinguished Members of the Legislature, Honorable Justices of the Supreme Court, Constitutional Officers, Senator Heller, honored guests…...

The Western Nevada College exhibit "Always Lost: A Meditation on War" continues to travel the country, now with a stop at Wisconsin's Mount Mary College.
Marilee Swirczek, Emeritus Professor of English at Western Nevada College notes the exhibit at the college and an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

In his classic essay, entitled The Paranoid Style in American Politics, Richard Hofstadler, succinctly stated the following:“We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.”

About 400 Nevada guardsmen have begun training at various locations on and off the Las Vegas Strip on New Year's Eve this year for the 12th annual Vigilant Sentinel training exercise. The training is also being done in conjunction with the Las Vegas Metro Police. More than half of the guardsmen participating are from Northern Nevada. About 300,000 people are expected to party on the Las Vegas Strip on Monday, according to Las Vegas Metro Police.

I wanted nothing to do with Western Nevada College’s Always Lost: A Meditation on War project when English professor Marilee Swirczek presented the idea in 2009 of personalizing the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars through literary work, combat photos, and a wall displaying the faces of U.S. military war dead since Sept. 11, 2001.

The California Army National Guard's 2668th Transportation Company was in Afghanistan for more than nine months.
The soldiers were hoping to make it back for the holidays. And now that they're finally home — they say it's time to catch up with family and friends.

Veterans' Day is reserved for those who have served this country, there are still a couple hundred Nevada men and women who are currently on active duty in places like Afghanistan and Kuwait. Many will not be home for Christmas, that's where our “Be A Santa To A Soldier” comes in.

My grandfather lived through the Great War - the War to end all wars. And I think of him on this eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month honoring the Armistice. I remember my grandfather on this day along with my father who fought in WWII in Africa and Italy. Today especially, I think of my nephew who has fallen on the battlefield in Afghanistan engaged in combat with the ancient cult of murder and slavery called Islam.

Carson City Library will present Explore Mexico at Your Library on Thursday, November 15, at 6 p.m. in the library auditorium. Ria White will present this program as part of a bimonthly series of presentations by people from other countries or by those who have traveled to far-away places.

Ria, a Mexican-American and former Chicagoan, enjoys reading and world cultures. She will graciously present a brief history of Mexico and its cultural heritage.

The Carson Valley Inn is serving a Free Spaghetti Lunch for all Veterans and Active Military – plus one guest – on Veteran's Day, Sunday, November 11. The event will be held in the Valley Ballroom from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Veterans and active military personnel simply present your military ID for entrance, and lunch for you and your guest is on the Carson Valley Inn! There will be a Veteran's Day colors presentation, the National Anthem and an invocation at 11 a.m.

CARSON CITY – A national organization is reporting an alarmingly low number of absentee ballots being requested by members of the military in battleground states around the country – including a 55 percent decline in Nevada – ahead of the Nov. 6 general election.

RENO – GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney told about 3,700 members of the National Guard Association of the United States here today that now is not the time to weaken the nation’s military.

On the 11^th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Romney said the return of the country’s troops from Iraq and the impending return of troops from Afghanistan in 2014 cannot be used as an excuse to impose devastating cuts on the Defense Department.