NEWS OF THE FORCE: Monday, March 14, 2016 - Page 2

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NEWS OF THE FORCE: Monday, March 15, 2016 - Page 2

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U.S. Army

    

    U.S. Army chemical defense experts needed additional chemical warfare detectors to help protect warfighters or emergency responders from chemical and industrial toxic agents, and found their solution from Smiths Detection, in Edgewood, Md.

    The Army National Guard is offering up to $20,000 to qualified warrant officer candidates.

    U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Joshua Headd was reunited with his family during Star Wars night at a Grand Rapids Griffins game at the Van Andel Arena, in Grand Rapids, Mich.

    Soldiers of U.S. Army Reserve's 350th Civil Affairs Command, in Pensacola, Fla., have welcomed a new commander during an assumption-of-command ceremony.

    Col. Michael Tougher, III, assumed command of the Guam Army National Guard's 105th Troop Command on Saturday, March 12.

    The partnership between an Army National Guard unit and the Colombian army is four years old. The two organizations had 26 “engagements” last year, and the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff has approved the continuation of the program.

    The Mississippi Army National Guard has deployed 80 troops in south Mississippi to assist county emergency operations if needed with high water issues.

    And Army Staff Sgt. Tiffany Rodriguez-Rexroad’s goals in participating in the Army Trials at Ft. Bliss, Texas, for the 2016 Department of Defense Warrior Games were to heal and to remain on active duty. Rodriguez-Rexroad was injured in December when as a pedestrian she was hit by a truck. She’s since had hip-replacement surgery and is recovering. She was at the 2016 U.S. Army Trials trying out for the team for the first time, competing in cycling and field events such as shot put and air rifle marksmanship. Rodriguez-Rexroad is unable to participate in other events such as sitting volleyball until she fully recovers from her surgery. She's assigned to the Brooke Army Medical Center's Warrior Transition Battalion, at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Her hometown is Bruceton Mills, W. Va., which she proudly claims has a population of 85. More than 100 wounded, ill and injured soldiers and veterans were at Fort Bliss to train and compete in adaptive sports including archery, cycling, shooting, sitting volleyball, swimming, track and field, and wheelchair basketball. The Army Trials, conducted by the Army Warrior Transition Command from March 6-10, help to determine who will get a spot on the 2016 Army Team for the DOD Warrior Games. About 250 athletes, representing teams from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, the U.S. Special Operations Command and the British armed forces will compete in the DOD Warrior Games, June 14-22, at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Rodriguez-Rexroad said she’s especially appreciative of the coaches who have helped her at the Warrior Transition Battalion and at the Army Trials. Her athletic skills and conditioning have improved since arriving at Fort Bliss, she said. She said she began adaptive reconditioning activities such as field events and shooting air rifles at the battalion, noting that they helped her feel positive about herself. She started participating in cycling, which enabled her to maintain weight and fitness levels and also led her to competing. Cycling, she said, is her favorite event, and she has been doing it for about a year. When she first saw a hand cycle at the Center for the Intrepid, she said, "That’s cool, I want to try that." Adaptive reconditioning includes any physical activities that wounded, ill and injured soldiers and veterans participate in regularly to support their physical and emotional well-being. These activities can contribute to a successful recovery. "Being able to do this stuff makes me able to know that I’m not broken," she said. To support each wounded, ill or injured soldier’s return to the force or transition to veteran status, the Army created a framework called the Comprehensive Transition Plan. The CTP uses six domains - career, physical, emotional, social, family and spiritual - to establish goals that map a soldier’s transition plan. As the owner of the plan, each soldier takes charge of his or her transition and becomes accountable for developing and achieving their goals. One requirement for goals is to comply with ongoing medical and military responsibilities. "I’ve always been athletic, and getting back into athletic activities is a great help for me," she said. Rodriguez-Rexroad said she enjoyed herself at the Army Trials. 'I like the camaraderie of the games," she said, "and I like being able to prove that soldiers who are wounded, ill or injured are still able to accomplish things. If I don’t make the team this year, I’m coming back again."

 

Former Missouri prison guard indicted for child porn

    A former Missouri corrections officer is facing a series of child pornography charges, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has reported.

    Greg A. Tarpley, 55, of St. Clair, Mo., was indicted on Jan. 27 on one charge of receipt of child porn and four charges of child porn possession. He has not returned a call from the newspaper seeking comment.

    The indictment claims that he received and possessed the images between Aug. 1, 2014, and Oct. 9, 2014.

    A Department of Corrections spokesman, David Owen, said that Tarpley worked at the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center, in Pacific, from Dec. 27, 2005, to Oct. 21, 2014. Owen declined to provide information about why Tarpley left, or even confirm that he was the same person as had been charged. The Post-Dispatch confirmed it last week with Tarpley's lawyer.

    Tarpley has a deadline of next week to file motions challenging the evidence in his case. State records list him as a corrections officer I in 2014, earning nearly $25,000 before he left. He earned nearly $29,000 the year before.

    The investigation began on Aug. 15, 2014, when Officer Jacob Walk, of the then-St. Charles County Sheriff's Department, found a computer on a peer-to-peer file sharing website that appeared to be offering child porn. Walk downloaded 59 files and traced the IP address, according to a police report of the incident.

    Related site: www.stltoday.com .

 

U.S. Coast Guard

    

    The U.S. Coast Guard is scheduled to decommission this week its high endurance cutter USCGC Boutwell (WHEC 719). She's to be transferred to the Philippines' Navy.

    The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy have rescued Jon Hoag and his crew after they were stranded for hours in harsh conditions on the open sea off the coast of Hawaii.

    The U.S. Coast Guard has called off its search for a man who fell overboard from a cruise ship off Key Largo, Fla.

    And you can download the U.S. Coast Guard's app on your smart phone or set up a free vessel safety check by the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

 

The parting shots

    "My wife finally convinced me to sign what's called a living will," Cuzin Jim says. "It's a document that gives her the right, if I become attached to some mechanical device, to terminate my life. So yesterday, I'm on the exercise bike, and..."

    Seattle's ambitious Office of Arts & Culture has allocated $10,000 this year to pay a poet or writer to create a work while present on the city's Fremont Bridge drawbridge. The office's deputy director told the Seattle Post-
Intelligencer in January that the city wants to encourage "public art" and that the grant will oblige the recipient to create a work of prose or poetry from the bridge's northwest tower to help the people of Seattle understand the function of art in the city. The artist will not be "in residence," for the tower has no running water.

    The Dominant-submissive lifestyle soared to higher-brow status in February when the New York Times reported on the recent marriage of the celebrated composer of "moody, queasy" works and compulsive dominant Georg Friedrich Haas to Mollena Williams, who blogs introspectively of her own kinky bondage as "The Perverted Negress." Friedrich had introduced himself to her on a dating site with the note, "I would like to tame you," and credits her acceptance for his improved productivity - because, he said, "I am not any longer disturbed by unfulfilled thoughts." Although Williams-Haas is a black woman submitting to a white man, she explained that, "To say I can't play my personal psycho-drama out just because I'm black, that's racist."

    Columbia County (Pa.) District Judge Craig Long felt the need to post a sign outside his courtroom in January informing visitors that they should not wear pajamas to court. However, even Judge Long acknowledged that his admonition was not enforceable and that he was merely trying to encourage
minimal standards.

    Andrew McNeil, 34, was arrested in Lincoln, Neb., in January and charged with disturbing the peace. According to the police report (and lacking follow-up
reporting by local news outlets), McNeil was found around 11 p.m., naked and "covered in sawdust."

    Rob Moore, 32, was arrested for misdemeanor drug possession in Marathon, Fla., in February, but he had only come to police attention when an officer heard him banging on the trunk of his car from the inside. Without follow-up reporting, Moore's story was that he was looking for something in
the trunk, fell in, and couldn't get out.

    Anthony Nemeth, 26, seeking pain medication but lacking a prescription, leaped over the pharmacy counter of a Walgreens in Bradenton, Fla., in February and demanded a supply. Customer David West, 25, standing at the
counter with his girlfriend, ended the "robbery" with four quick punches, sending Nemeth to the floor. West is a competitive boxer and reportedly a former state champion.

    And wheelchair-user Betty Jeffery, 76, was briefly the victim of a purse-snatching in Pitsea, England, in February. She appeared vulnerable, but in
fact is a former national arm-wrestling champion and slugged the young female thief in the face, slowing her down and leading her to drop the purse as she fled.

 

            

 

 

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