Iraq

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.

“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.

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.

Sierra Nevada College professors and editors evaluated over 500 submissions to choose the top winners for the 2012 High School Writing Contest, a national competition that produced exceptional stories, poems and creative nonfiction from high school juniors and seniors.
“The level of talent was extraordinary, making it tough for the judges,” said June Saraceno, English Department chair at Sierra Nevada College, a four-year private college in Incline Village, Nev.

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.”

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.

In a Skype call with Carson High School students on Wednesday, Cody Fisher told them how he ended up in Iraq after graduating from college in 2006.

RENO – Proof of Nevada’s importance in the outcome of the horse race that is the presidential election continued to be on display today, with President Obama visiting Las Vegas and GOP Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan making stops here and in Southern Nevada.

Ryan, appearing in front of a crowd estimated by local law enforcement at about 600, continued to push the Romney-Ryan ticket message calling for change, pointing to Obama’s failed efforts at job creation.

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.

RENO – First Lady Michelle Obama sought to make the case for another term for her husband at a rally at the University of Nevada, Reno today, ahead of a much anticipated first debate in Denver tonight between President Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney.

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.

RENO – President Obama told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars today that he has fulfilled the promises he made four years ago to make America safer, strengthen jobs programs for returning military personnel and fight homelessness, suicide and posttraumatic stress disorder among the nation’s veterans.

The transformative effects of fishing a good trout stream are well documented. Trout Unlimited is one of many organizations participating in Project Healing Waters (http://www.projecthealingwaters.org/), which uses the medium of fly fishing to help military service veterans reconnect with the outdoors.

At the urging of Congressman Tom McClintock, R-Calif., a committee has been formed to find an unnamed mountain peak seen from South Lake Tahoe that will be dedicated to fallen U.S. soldiers from the area.
Congressman McClintock's office approached the U.S. Forest Service about opportunities for a memorial. Forest Supervisor Nancy Gibson came up with the idea of naming an unnamed peak as one of the options for a memorial on National Forest System lands.

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Andrea Moore
900 N. Roop St
775.887.2244 x 1019
awmoore@clan.lib.nv.us

Capital City Reads: A Thousand Splendid Suns

CARSON CITY, NEVADA-The Carson City Library would like to invite the entire community to participate in a citywide reading initiative to discuss the timely, and powerful message found in Khaled Hosseini’s best seller, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

OAKLAND, Calif (AP) - A clash between Oakland police and Occupy Wall Street protesters left an Iraq War veteran hospitalized Wednesday after a projectile struck him in a conflict that came as tensi...

U.S. Army Spc. Garrett Fant, 21, a 2008 graduate of South Tahoe High School, died on Sept. 26 in Afghanistan.

The U.S. Army has not sent an official notice of his death but it has been confirmed through the news organization KSAL out of Kansas. Fant's mother is Julia Towle Farell of South Lake Tahoe.

— Major Heath Kelly, 35, Reno, decorated field artillery officer, husband and father, commander of Joint Force Headquarters in Carson City, served in Iraq 2004-2005. Avid student of military history, known for his dry sense of humor. See story

— Sgt. 1st Class Christian Riege, 38, Carson City, father of three, served in Afghanistan 2009-2010, also served in U.S Navy for two years before joining the Guard. See story

— Sgt. 1st Class Miranda McElhiney, 31, Reno, owner of a small baking company, well known in the company for providing cupcakes for guard functions. See story

— Florence Donovan-Gunderson, 67, South Lake Tahoe. See story| Video

Additional stories:

Customer shot in shoulder recounts IHOP attack

Four victims remembered

See all stories on IHOP Shooting

One was an Iraq War veteran who loved military history. Another was an Afghanistan war vet and fitness buff. Still another would bring in cupcakes for colleagues when they gotpromotions. All of ...

Names of those killed in yesterday's IHOP shooting are:

• Major Heath Kelly, 35, Reno, decorated field artillery officer, husband and father, commander of Joint Force Headquarters in Carson City, served in Iraq 2004-2005. Avid student of military history, known for his dry sense of humor. See story
• Sgt. 1st Class Christian Riege, 38, Carson City, father of three, served in Afghanistan 2009-2010, also served in U.S Navy for two years before joining the Guard
• Sgt. 1st Class Miranda McElhiney, 31, Reno, owner of a small baking company, well known in the company for providing cupcakes for guard functions. See story
• Florence Donovan-Gunderson, 67, South Lake Tahoe. See story

According to Sheriff Kenny Furlong, the names of those wounded are not going to be released at this time.

One of those wounded is Wally Gunderson, husband of Florence Donovan-Gunderson, who died in the attack.

See all stories on IHOP Shooting

By Cheva Heck
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — A crew of military veterans who are preparing for future employment while they're helping to protect Lake Tahoe communities from wildfire were visited today by U.S. Forest Service and California Conservation Corps officials.

CARSON CITY – Gov. Brian Sandoval figured the Nevada soldiers serving in Afghanistan appreciated his visit last week when they literally tore the organizational patches off their uniforms and offered them up as keepsakes on his trip to see the country’s military efforts first-hand.
Sandoval, back nearly a full week today, said his eyes teared up when the soldiers made such a heartfelt gesture.
“But it’s all about the soldiers, it’s not about me,” he said.

CARSON CITY – Gov. Brian Sandoval had a teleconference with the Nevada press today from Kuwait, where he is staying in the midst of a week-long trip to the Middle East, including visits with Nevada troops at several bases in Iraq.
Sandoval left Monday with the governors of Kentucky, Tennessee and Utah on the trip, and he expects to return this weekend.

It is heartening to see the support given to our troops deployed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, those returning from the war zones, and others stationed in remote parts of the world. The backin...