United We Roll at Stardust Radio

SSG
221st Calvary
Nevada Nat’l Guard

Deputy Sheriff
Nye County Sheriff's Office
Nevada

America's greatest Heroes are those who put their personal lives on hold as they protect others, either through military service or as a first responder or, in some cases, as both. So many times during our conversations with deployed troops, we have found that many wear more than one hat and often the hats they wear all point in the same direction – that of helping other people in one way or another.

Deputy Sheriff Ian Michael Deutch shall remain a Hero in Nevada and in the USA. So many American hearts are heavy with sorrow for the Deutch family & friends and our prayers are filled with thoughts for their comfort and well being. May God be with you.

For Immediate Release:
April 27,2010

GOVERNOR OFFERS CONDOLENCES AND PRAYERS TO FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF NYE COUNTY SHERIFF DEPUTY KILLED WHILE ON DUTY

(Carson City, Nevada) – Governor Jim Gibbons today offered condolences on his behalf and on behalf of the people of the State of Nevada to the family, friends and colleagues of Nye County Sheriff Deputy Ian M. Deutch. Deputy Deutch was killed during a brief gun fight with a crime suspect in Pahrump, Nevada on Monday night. Deutch had just returned to work with the Nye County Sheriff’s Office after serving a military tour in Afghanistan. He was a Staff Sergeant in the Nevada National Guard 221st Cavalry based in Las Vegas and had received numerous awards for his military service.

“This is a tragic reminder of how fragile life can be,” Governor Gibbons said, “Deputy Deutch is a true hero. My heartfelt sympathy and prayers go out to his family during this time of deep grief.”

Governor Gibbons has ordered state flags lowered to half-staff this Saturday in honor of Deputy Deutch’s funeral services.

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United We Roll World Tour Show
Stardust Radio www.stardustradio.com
Tuesday 4/27/10 2:00pm – 4:00pm Central (Live)
Wednesday 4/28/10 6:30pm – 8:30pm Central (Repeat)

Welcome Stardust Listeners and thank you for joining us on United We Roll this Tuesday, the 27th day of April, 2010 as we take time to honor those who serve our country and who protect our freedom!

We have three very full and very interesting visits with 6 of our Heroes of Freedom who are stationed in countries just about a world away. The show will stay within our normal 2 hour period today, ending at 4:00pm Central – unless live radio has an unexpected surprise for us. Remember, if you are not able to stay with us through the show this afternoon, it will repeat again tomorrow evening, Wednesday, April 28th at 6:30pm Central. In addition, an MP3 copy will be placed on our show archive site for listening and downloading. You can reach our archive site at www.stardustradio.info or on the United We Roll page at www.stardustradio.com.

(2:08pm) During our first visit today, we will be talking about a record setting event that took place on April 10th at TC Manas where the 16,000th combat sortie took off carrying fuel to aircraft in the air who in turn provide protection for our troops on the ground in Afghanistan. Joining us are the Captain of that KC-135 flight, Cpt Christine Stanaback of the 376th Expeditionary Operations Group and also joining us is SSgt Lucas Mailander, otherwise known as “Beef”, of the 22nd EARS (Exp Air Refueling Squad) who is a Boom Operator on the KC-135 and brings us an excellent description of his viewpoint as he connects with other aircraft thousands of feet in the air. We will have a story on the 16K sortie in our blog along with a link that will include some great photos.

(2:45pm) Our next guest is not only special to all of our listeners as a Hero of Freedom, but also to our local Stardust family as Sgt Timothy Ruffin is from a town just a few miles from our station. Currently deployed as the Senior Medic for Bravo Company, 2-7 Infantry, 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Sgt Ruffin is on his second deployment rather than being at home studying medicine due to a military process called “stop-loss”, which he will explain to us. Still, this incredibly dedicated young man is serving each and every day where he tries to beat death on a daily basis, taking care of those around him and he continues his future plans to get his medical degree and then to be with a certain group of patients who he considers to be the best to serve and to treat.

(3:19pm) Our final visit for today is with three deployed members of a US AFENT Combat Camera Team (CCT). Joining us are MSgt Kim Harrison (journalist), TSgt Jimmy Boone (videographer), and SSgt Quinton Russ (photographer). Now these folks do not stay at a base and cover stories there. They are constantly on the move by helicopter from base to FOB to base covering all kinds of stories. As you will hear, they have encountered all kinds of facilities or lack thereof. Talk about technology today and using it out in the field! I think you will all find this to be a very interesting visit. And if you are at all interested in photography, video or media, I know you will enjoy this visit.

We want to remind all of our active duty members and your spouses to keep very detailed records of your service including dates of transfers, deployments, locations, any and all activities, illnesses, awards, everything and anything. Your records may be very important at a time of retirement or medical discharge.

As always, our hearts and prayers go out to our military members, families, Veterans and to all of our first responders & their families - everyone who puts their lives on hold and on the line for us and our families.

We would like to invite our Veterans, active duty members, family members and anyone who is interested in health and legislative issues that affect those who protect our freedom to tune in to our other broadcasts – OFFE with Gene Simes and Jere Berry at 8pm Central on Tuesday nights and also with Rick Townsend and Firebase Network Sundays at 6:00pm Central.

May God Bless You All and May God Bless America!

The spirit of the military member does not begin with enlistment or graduation from ROTC or boot camp or one of the Academies. It is something that is within the person before they come to the military and is nurtured from there on. This young man’s story clearly shows how his determination to succeed at his goals, comes from a strength that is totally his and only requires help in guidance from some of those around him. You go, 2LT Marc Ward! We will be watching the Warrior Games in May (10-14) and wish you great success!

April 22, 2010

Peterson lieutenant to compete in Warrior Games

by Elton Price
Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center Detachment 4

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- (Editor's note: Peterson's 2nd Lt. Marc Ward was one of 20 Air Force members recently selected to participate in the Warrior Games scheduled May 10 to 14 at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. About 200 wounded, ill and injured active duty, Guard and Reserve members, as well as retired personnel and veterans, from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard will compete.)

In the blink of an eye ...

Just ask 2nd Lt. Marc Ward how fast everything can change. In the blink of an eye, his drive toward a national championship with the U.S. Air Force Academy rugby team came to a crashing end.

May 3, 2003, the Zoomies were facing the No. 1 ranked team in the nation -- the University of California, Berkeley -- in the college rugby semi-finals. Up until that day, the Bears had racked up 12 consecutive national championships, were ranked No. 1, and trailed the 4th ranked cadets by a single point, 8-7.

And then came "the" stick.

About 20 minutes into the game, the Bears were running a sweep right, when the solidly built, 6-foot-1, Ward zoomed out of nowhere to lay a ferocious stick on the ball carrier. The ball went flying, and the Academy's Josh Dean picked it up and scored as Ward crumpled face down on the ground.

"I was left unconscious on the field for five minutes," Ward said. It took the medical crew 30 minutes before they could cart him off the field. "I was hospitalized for four days, none of which I remember."

As he lay on the field, his stunned family could only look on.

"My dad, brother, sister, both grandmas, uncles, aunts -- my whole family was there," he said, explaining that the game -- at Stanford University's rugby pitch -- was only about a 30-minute drive from his hometown of Alamo, Calif.

He was taken by ambulance to Stanford University's medical center, which -- luckily for him -- had one of the top neurological teams in the nation. Coincidentally, Stanford's chief of neurology -- Dr. Larry Shuer -- was also a family friend. The doctor's daughter and Marc's sister, Marcie, played soccer together on the Stanford University soccer team.

For the first couple of days, because of all the pain medicine, Marc couldn't even tell the doctors exactly what was wrong. They conducted a battery of tests -- X-rays, CAT scans, MRIs -- but couldn't find anything conclusive.

For four days, his family stayed at his bedside as the medical team continued to try to find out exactly how badly he was hurt. Finally, his father was allowed to take him home. He stayed at his father's house on convalescent leave for about three months, not knowing it'd be more than two years before he'd make it back to the Academy for his sophomore year.

Tests finally revealed he had "completely avulsed (tore) two nerves between the C-5 and C-6 vertebrae."

The injury left his right arm pretty much useless.

"I had pain that started near my shoulder and kind of moved down my arm," he said, describing the pain as kind of a prickly feeling. "With nerve injuries, they heal themselves about an inch or so a month."

He began rehab while convalescing at his father's house. It took nine months before he could even move his arm, and more than a year before he had much range of movement at all.

Gradually though, he did get better.

That fall, he attended St. Mary's College, just east of the San Francisco Bay area. Later that year, he found his Academy rugby coach -- Rob Holder -- had taken a job as the head rugby coach at Stanford University. When Holder asked Marc to be one of his assistants, Marc jumped at the chance.

By June, 2005, he'd recovered enough to return to the Academy. The injury still limited some of his activities -- he couldn't do pull-ups as part of his physical training test -- but he made up for it by maxing out on other parts of the test.

"I don't think the muscle will ever completely come back," he said, flexing his right arm.

Back at the Academy, he maintained his ties with the rugby team. He served as an assistant coach, and even tried to play some his junior year, but hung up his cleats after suffering a few minor concussions. His senior year -- even though he didn't play -- he served as team captain.

Despite all of his injuries, Ward still loves rugby.

This past November, he scored a tournament best 54 points to lead the Air Force rugby team to a sixth consecutive gold medal at the annual Armed Forces Rugby Championship at Fort Benning, Ga. In the title match, Air Force soundly beat Army 34-0.

Playing a grueling five games in three days, the Air Force ruggers trounced their sister services by a combined score of 226-3. They didn't allow a single try.

Ward, a space-force-enhancement test analyst for Det. 4, Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, is looking to take that same intensity and passion to this year's Warrior Games. He'll compete in the 400- and 200-meter races.

Ward said he's training for the games on a four-days-on, one-day-off schedule.

"I sprint 500 or 600 meters, rest for three minutes, then repeat," he said. He completes five sets during each training session. He said he's also continuing his normal weight training regimen.

Despite not running track since his freshman year of high school, he'd like to run the 400 meters in under 50 seconds. That's a pretty lofty goal considering the current men's world record is 43.18 seconds set Aug. 26, 1999, by former Olympic great Michael Johnson.

But, as Ward well knows, miracles happen.

Just ask that U.S. Air Force Academy team playing Cal-Berkeley way back in 2003. Despite Ward's injury, the Zoomies upset Goliath that day, knocking off Cal-Berkeley, 46-28. They then beat Harvard, 45-37, the following day to win the national championship.

It is with bittersweet hearts that we share this news. Sad because of the many years it has taken for this young American Hero and his loved ones to finally be together. However, we also celebrate the efforts of all involved to bring TSgt Walter McClellan home. The hearts of millions of your fellow Americans reach out to embrace the McClellan family.

Release No. 04-06-10
April 23, 2010

U.S. Airman MIA from WWII is identified

WASHINGTON (AFRNS) -- The remains of a U.S. Airman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors, according to Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office officials.

Tech. Sgt. Walter A. McClellan of the U.S. Army Air Forces will be buried today in his hometown of Pensacola, Fla.

On April 17, 1945, Sergeant McClellan's B-17 Flying Fortress was struck by enemy fighters while on a bombing run against a rail depot in Dresden, Germany. Following the war, U.S. teams attempted to locate the remains of the crew but because the area was under Soviet control, no further searches could be conducted. The U.S. Army was forced to declare the remains of the "Towering Titan's" crew to be non-recoverable.

Two reports from German citizens in 1956 and 2007 indicated that the remains of a 19-year-old were buried as an "unknown" in a local church cemetery in Burkhardswalde. Church records revealed that the grave held the remains of a young American flier who had parachuted from his aircraft over the town of Biensdorf, was captured and killed by German SS forces near Burkhardswalde. He was first buried in the town's sports field, but exhumed by the townspeople after the war and reburied in the church cemetery.

In September 2008, a recovery team of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command exhumed the grave in Burkhardswalde and recovered human remains and other artifacts, including a silver Army Air Forces identification bracelet bearing the emblem of a qualified aerial gunner. The biological profile of the remains and Sergeant McClellan's dental records enabled JPAC scientists to establish the identification.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call 703-699-1169.

In the years that we have been honored to host interviews with deployed members we have learned how the forces have blended - sending Air Force members to join in an Army unit, Navy members to help out in a medical setting on land and so many other missions where members of different forces work together.

Well, we recently talked with some US Navy members who are deployed to work in a position that is largely needed because of the dradown and the large number of troops who are packing up their belongings and heading home. These Navy members are working as US Customs Agents, checking luggage and cargo before it departs Iraq. Now, what if a dispute should come up between a Navy Customs Agent and one of the military members on his/her way home? This is not a problem, because the Navy members are deployed under orders from Homeland Security, not an armed force, so that eliminates any such questions.

The following article adds some info to the really great interview we hosted during our show on April 13th:

Balad Navy Customs works to keep U.S. safe
http://www.balad.afcent.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123193168 Photos and video

by Senior Airman Wes Carter
332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

3/4/2010 - JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq -- The last days of a servicemember's deployment can be filled with the uncertainty of an itinerary, a busy schedule and visions of friends and family members. One thing a redeploying Airman shouldn't stress over is having their cargo inspected by the Navy customs team.

"We aren't the bad guys," said Petty Officer 1st Class Chauvone Taylor, a customs and border inspector with the Naval Expeditionary Logistics Support Group Delta Company at Balad. "We are here to protect the United States and the people flying home."

When servicemembers are trying to fit all of their equipment and belongings into their bags, there are a few things that should be left out.

Movies bought at the Iraqi Bazaar, ammunition, knives or anything that could be construed as a weapon and war trophies should be left at JBB, Petty Officer 1st Class Taylor said.

The customs team doesn't stop their inspection with personal cargo. They are obligated to search any cargo leaving the deployed environment. Their work speeds up the time it takes for a deployed member to see their family.

"The Navy customs mission is important in the AOR because we are the forefront in keeping harmful agricultural pests, illegal drugs, and weapons from entering the U.S.," said Chief Petty Officer Todd Bloker, the Balad Navy Customs team chief. "Without Navy Customs, all troops leaving the AOR would have to funnel through Kuwait to get back to the U.S."

The team's operations tempo is steadily increasing as American forces leave Iraq as part of the Presidentially-mandated order to reduce the U.S. footprint.

"As the responsible drawdown of forces in Iraq continues, entire units are returning to the U.S. and taking their equipment with them," Petty Officer 1st Class Taylor said. "Navy customs agents are responsible for inspecting all the cargo before it can leave the base."

Although the servicemembers are Navy, their authority to search equipment and personal cargo doesn't come from a military entity or even the DOD.

"We fall under the Department of Homeland Security," Petty Officer 1st Class Taylor said. "This allows us to maintain integrity for everyone we search- from the lowest ranking enlisted member to the highest ranking officer, we search them all."

Like a pilot, a security forces member or air traffic control Airman, the Navy customs doing a job that is vital to the safety of the United States. While out processing JBB, servicemembers should remember that the customs sailors are not there to antagonize or pry but to protect.