By: LOLITA C. BALDOR – Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A Marine company involved in the shooting of civilians in Afghanistan last March responded appropriately to an ambush against them, and should not have been pulled out of the country, the commander of Marine Corps special forces said Thursday.

Marine Maj. Gen. Dennis J. Hejlik, head of Marine Corps Special Operations Command, also told reporters that a legal tribunal investigating the incident has been postponed until mid-January at the request of one of the officers involved.

“Obviously it was not my decision to bring the company out of theater,” Hejlik said. “It was the theater commander’s decision. I will never second guess the commander on the ground. I will say, I did not agree with it. To this day, I do not agree with it.”Eight members of the Marine Corps company involved in the March 4 shooting — which left as many as 19 civilians dead and 50 injured — were ordered back to Camp Lejune after the incident, and the rest of the company was told to leave Afghanistan and return to ships in the Persian Gulf.

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Marine Silent Drill Team – Awesome!

Source: Associated Press
November 24, 2007
(Emphasis added…see blog note at the end)

An Egyptian Christian woman has been jailed for her father’s brief conversion to Islam over 40 years ago which made her legally a Muslim despite her official papers stating that she is a Christian, her lawyer said Thursday.

Shadia Nagui Ibrahim, 47, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in jail on the charge of fraud for stating she is a Christian on her marriage certificate, according to Agence France-Presse.

Under Egyptian law, a person’s official religion is based on the father’s religion.

Nagui Ibrahim’s father converted to Islam in 1962 after leaving home when she was two years old. Three years later he reconciled with her mother and returned home, re-converting back to Christianity. He had someone forge his document to say he was Christian.

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Any “grunt” who has seen the Elephant will tell you that field artillery is one of his best friends. From personal experience, “up close and personal”, I will say that this is absolutely true!

I received this video in an email that I received from my friend, Bob Rohrer. 

Bob writes, “On a recent trip back to Camp Pendleton several of us stood before the 1stMarDiv Hq building looking out at the parade field. I could not help but recall the many times I had passed in review there to the tune of Waltzing Matilda. As a young man I used to wonder why a tune about dancing with some Gal named Matilda could possibly be the the song of this most decorated Division in the USMC….If you did not already know this, as the newsman says “Now you know the rest of the story”!