I made a Power Point show for Memorial Day. Music and all - now I can't figure out how to upload the thing so that it all works and plays the music. I can get it done so that the music plays as background music, but I need it specifically timed. Anyone have any brilliant ideas?????


I'm not above bribery here....

Email me if you know how to get this done - please!

Shots Reported at U.S. Capitol Office Building

Friday, May 26, 2006

WASHINGTON — Police sealed off the Capitol on Friday after receiving reports of gunfire in a House office building across the street.

Capitol police are investigating "the sound of gunfire in the garage level of the Rayburn House Office Building," said an announcement on the internal Capitol voice alarm system...

Read the rest at Fox News

UPDATE:
Capitol Police Give 'All Clear'
House building search complete
Video: All Clear - Inside Rayburn

Zamboanaga, Philippines (May 26, 2006) - The first patient is admitted to the casualty receiving (CASREC) ward aboard the Military Sealift Command (MSC) hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) anchored off the city of Zamboanga Philippines. For the next several days, the ship will be conducting humanitarian and civic assistance in the local area. Mercy is on a five-month deployment to South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Mercy’s medical crew will provide general and ophthalmology surgery, basic medical evaluation and treatment, preventive medicine treatment, dental screenings and treatment, optometry screenings, eyewear distribution, public health training and veterinary services as requested by the host nations. Mercy is uniquely capable of supporting medical and humanitarian assistance needs and is configured with special medical equipment and a robust multi-specialized medical team that can provide a range of services ashore as well as aboard the ship. The medical staff is augmented with an assistance crew, many of whom are part of non-governmental organizations that have significant medical capabilities. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Photographer's Mate Don Bray.

via Michelle Malkin:

Meet "Jessie MacBeth." He's the latest cause celebre of the anti-war Left -- a "former Army Ranger and Iraq war veteran" who accuses his fellow troops of committing a litany of atrocities against innocent civilians. Anti-Vietnam War veteran John Kerry and the Winter Soldiers cast a long shadow....

There's just one problem: According to Department of the Army spokesman Paul Boyce, there is no record of "Jessie MacBeth," a.k.a. Jesse Adam MacBeth, having served in either the Rangers or the Special Forces -- or or in any part of the Army at all. Boyce told me Tuesday that a check on MacBeth's credentials came up empty. "At a minimum, this appears to have been concocted" and "some sort of hoax," Boyce said. Special Operations Command and the State Department have been alerted.

Read the rest at Human Events on Line, or check out this post over at Michelle's blog - about the theft and exploitation of one of Michael Yon's most moving photographs (Blackfive has more)

Drawdown at Keflavik
F-15 Eagles wait to take off from Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland, on Monday, May 22, 2006. Airmen and Sailors are reducing operations after more than 50 years of U.S. presence at the base. The F-15s and crews are from the Hawaii Air National Guard's 154th Fighter Wing at Hickam Air Force Base. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. John E. Lasky)

By Maeve Reston, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

WASHINGTON - In the first chapter of what is likely to be a blistering campaign, U.S. Rep. John Murtha's Republican challenger, Diana L. Irey, traveled to Washington yesterday to decry Mr. Murtha as one-time patriot who has "lost his way" after his recent comments about a November incident involving U.S. Marines and civilian killings in the city of Haditha, Iraq.

In remarks at the National Press Club, Ms. Irey, a Washington County commissioner, asked Mr. Murtha to apologize for and retract his comments about the incident in Haditha in which 15 unarmed Iraqis and eight insurgents died after a Marine was killed by a roadside bomb...

...Ms. Irey, of Carroll Township, said Mr. Murtha was denying the Marines due process and had put American troops in danger with his remarks.

"John Murtha was a patriot," Ms. Irey said at the Press Club. "...But many years have passed and I say again my opponent has lost his way because the comments and actions of late are not that of a patriot. Rather they serve to aid and comfort our enemies..."

It's the kind of thing that makes me wish I could live in PA, so I could vote for her - read the rest of the article.

To donate, or see how you can help in Ms. Irey's campaign, visit her website.

by Petty Officer 1st Class Bart A. Bauer
May 25, 2006
Sgt. Joshua Dubois and fellow “War Hawks” from the 506th Regimental Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, hone their marksmanship skills at the small-arms range at Forward Operating Base Rustimiyah in east Baghdad.

from Marine Corps News:

When some Marines return from Iraq, they bring back memorabilia, such as tattered Iraqi flags or old photos of Saddam Hussein they found in cluttered streets. Some, like 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Jeremy Russell of Salem, Ore., will bring back something no Marine wants – memories of Marines being killed on the battlefield and scars from being wounded in action. Russell, an infantryman with Weapons Company of the Hawaii-based 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, was manning a machine gun turret in a Humvee struck by an improvised explosive, or IED, last month. The bomb wounded one of his hands and a leg, but resulted in the death of three other Marines who were in the vehicle with Russell. “I thought I was going to die,” said Russell. “It felt like minutes had passed and everything was in slow motion, but it really took only two seconds for the IED to detonate and throw the vehicle on its side.” Russell’s unit is slated to rotate out of Iraq this Fall. Photo by: Sgt. Roe F. Seigle



Story by Sgt. Roe F. Seigle

HADITHA, Iraq (May 25, 2006) -- When some Marines return from Iraq, they bring back memorabilia, such as tattered Iraqi flags or old photos of Saddam Hussein they found in cluttered streets.

Some, like 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Jeremy Russell of Salem, Ore., will bring back memories of actions on the battlefield and scars from being wounded in action.

Russell, an infantryman with Weapons Company of the Hawaii-based 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, was manning a machine gun turret in a humvee struck by an improvised explosive device, or IED, last month.

The battalion arrived in Iraq two months ago, and has since had to deal with numerous IEDs while patrolling the streets in the Haditha “Triad” region – an area of about 75,000 people along the Euphrates River in western Al Anbar province and renowned insurgent hotspot.

The blast left him with a piece of shrapnel embedded in his right hand and a severely bruised leg, and left three other Marines dead: Sgt. Lea Mills, 21, from Brooksville, Fla.; Sgt. Edward G. Davis, 31, from Antioch, Ill.; and Cpl. Brandon M. Hardy, 25, from Cochranville, Pa.

“I thought I was going to die,” said Russell.

The IED struck Russell’s vehicle during a three-hour mission to recover another U.S. military vehicle.

With vehicle in tow, the Marine convoy was enroute to their base at the Haditha Dam. It was 2:30 a.m., and the night seemed quiet, said Russell.

“I could hear the Marines below me talking about their families while I was in the turret,” said Russell. “I just kept my eyes on the road behind me to make sure there were no vehicles approaching.”

Still, he kept alert to ensure no vehicles approached the U.S. convoy. Aside from IEDs, vehicle suicide bombers are also a threat in Al Anbar province, said Russell.

Russell said the Marines’ talking in the vehicle “died down a little” just seconds before an earth-shattering explosion, which was followed by two fireballs on either side of the vehicle. Russell tucked his chin and closed his eyes, hoping to avoid the majority of the blast. He did. The blast destroyed the rear left side of the humvee and flipped the vehicle 180 degrees onto its left side.

Russell was ejected from the vehicle onto the roadway and feared the vehicle would rollover on top of him.

“It felt like minutes had past and everything was in slow motion,” recalled Russell. “But it really took only two seconds for the IED to detonate and throw the vehicle on its side.”

As he laid in the street, disoriented from the blast, Russell, who is serving his first combat deployment since he joined the Marine Corps in 2004 to “see the world,” remembers smelling fuel – a leak from the vehicle’s gas tank.

He also saw the vehicle's three other passengers lying motionless in the street. Two of the Marines were killed on impact and another died a short time later, according to medical records. Russell climbed back into the humvee to notify the other Marines in the convoy of his situation, but the radio was broken.

Russell then notified Marines ahead of him in the convoy by using luminous flares he located in the vehicle. He also rearmed himself with his M-16 rifle, ready to fight off a secondary attack.

Believing he was the only Marine around, Russell saw Lance Cpl. Cheyenne Macintosh, an amphibious assault vehicle crewman from Seaman, Ohio. Macintosh was traveling back to Haditha Dam in the same convoy as Russell.

Macintosh, 20, was checking the mortally-wounded Marines when he noticed Russell had survived the blast and was completely covered in soot.

Staff Sgt. Michael Woodridge, 28, a section leader assigned to Weapons Company, had several other Marines from other vehicles in the convoy secure the area and be watchful for a secondary attack.

“It was chaotic,” said Woodridge, a native of Augusta, Ga. “The back end of the humvee was completely gone.”

Shortly after, Russell was evacuated by helicopter to a near-by medical facility. As his adrenaline began to wear off, he began to feel the pain from his injuries on the helicopter, he said. Shrapnel was lodged in his hand, his right leg throbbed in pain after he was tossed around inside the turret, and eventually ejected onto the ground, he said.

Russell, who is now fully recovered and back to daily patrols with his unit, says the incident has not deterred him from patrolling daily. Given the chance, he’ll deploy again to Iraq after his battalion returns to the U.S. in the fall, he said.

“I never imagined I would be in a life-or-death situation,” said Russell. “When I joined the Marine Corps, the only thing I knew about combat was what I saw on TV shows like M.A.S.H.”

As Russell recovers from the injuries to his hand and leg, his fellow Marines say he still has high spirits.

“Russell has kept his head up high and still has his sense of humor,” said Macintosh. “It helps everyone else in the platoon stay in high spirits until we can go home.”

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (May 19, 2006)- Maj. Toby G. Dyer, logistics officer for Regimental Combat Team-8, 2nd Marine Division, receives the Bronze Star from Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, the 2nd Marine Division Commanding General in a ceremony in front of the regiment’s headquarters May 19.
Photo by: Pfc. David A. Weikle