Articles 4.10.2005

The Pajora Valley Register-Pajorian has an article on the California memorial service for Staff Sgt Jason Hendrix. SSG Hendrix was killed in Ramadi on 2.16.2005, and buried in Oklahoma last week. The memorial service was held at a local VFW, with the post's Honor Guard giving a 21-gun salute. The article indicated that the family has been in contact via e-mails and letters with an Iraqi woman who SSG Hendrix had fallen in love with. According to his family, "her family was killed and she came to Washington to work with the military as a translator." The two had no plans for marriage at the time of his death. SSG Hendrix was remembered for always showing concern for his soldiers.
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The Oakland Daily Press, MI, has an article on a memorial Mass held in Michigan for Capt Sean Grimes, of the 1-9th, who was killed on 3.4.2005, and buried in New Jersey on 3.15.2005. According to the article, Capt Grimes had R&R leave scheduled for 3.10.2005, during which he was planning "to introduce the family to a woman he met in Korea and was planning to marry." He was a Physician's Assistant in Iraq, and had been interested in medicine ever since volunteering at a hospital as a young man.
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Several more articles mention protests around Iraq and in Ramadi. The Washington Post (via the San Francisco Chronicle) reported that "about 1,500 Sunni Muslims did gather in Ramadi, a restive town in western Iraq, to demand U.S. withdrawal. One banner there read, "Leave our land. We want to govern ourselves by ourselves." "We want them to leave and, by the will of God, they can visit us next year as visitors to our country, but not like soldiers who order and govern," said Saadoun Ali, one of the protest organizers." Knight Ridder briefly mentioned that protesters in Ramadi "marched to an American checkpoint to call for an end to checkpoints and curfews." An AP article indicated that "To the west of the capital, 5,000 protesters issued similar demands in the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, reflecting a growing impatience with the U.S.-led occupation and the slow pace of returning control to an infant Iraqi government." AFP reported that "About a hundred university students also demonstrated against US troops in Ramadi," and there is a single AFP photograph of protesters in Ramadi. A Reuters article has a picture of soldiers observing a protest in Najaf, south of Baghdad. However, the soldiers are wearing the 2nd ID patch, and no protests were reported in Najaf, so it is possible the picture is actually from Ramadi or elsewhere.
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The Associated Press has an article on "growing signs of hostility between secular Iraqi insurgents and Muslim extremists" in Iraq. One of the example cases is from Ramadi, where "homegrown Iraqi fighters have begun recently to air their differences in menacing fliers plastered on walls and distributed in mosques — making threats and denouncing the tactics of the extremists, according to witnesses who have seen the fliers. Some of the fliers threaten reprisals against the militants or threaten to inform police of their identity and whereabouts."
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Other articles from the region:
- Reuters: Iraq's Allawi Agrees His Bloc Will Join Govt
- LA Times (reg req'd): Millions Said Going to Waste in Iraq Utilities
- NY Times (reg req'd): Shiite Leader Named Iraq Premier to End 2 Months of Wrangling
- AFP: Saddam still haunts Iraq 2 years on