STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER

Interviews with surviving soldiers from the Blackhawk shoot down, now recuperating a couple miles up the road:

?It started out fine. We were like little kids on a plane ride,? Nelson, 28, said with a quick smile as he lay in his bed at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center on Wednesday.

Above the thunderous whir of the aircraft rotors, Nelson and his buddies yelled back and forth, shooting the bull as the copter lifted off.

About 12 of the guys from his Fort Sill, Okla.-based 2nd Battalion, 5th Field Artillery, were with Nelson, including a best friend sitting across from him.

The back door of the helicopter was open and lots of soldiers were snapping pictures, said Nelson, of Orange, Texas. A second Chinook carrying other soldiers going on rest-and-recuperation leave in the United States was flying behind them.

And a Blackhawk is down. Six heroes lost. (Note this story is an AP story in the Stars and Stripes)

The helicopter went down about 9:40 a.m. on a riverbank along the Tigris River about a half mile from the U.S. base in Saddam Hussein's former palace. The military said it did not know how many people were aboard...

(Now referring to the Chinook shoot-down) ...Another of the wounded soldiers died in a hospital in Germany Thursday, bringing the Chinook death toll to 16.

The death Friday brought to 142 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq by hostile fire since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1. A total of 114 U.S. soldiers were killed in action before Bush's declaration.

Thanks for keeping score. I can almost hear the cheering at DNC headquarters. Probably won't help Army morale though.

Of course everyone knows about the large number of folks who won't re-enlist due to the low morale caused by extensive deployments and danger in Iraq, right? And following on the heels of the recent Stars and Stripes "morale series" is this:

As the Army closed out fiscal 2003 at the end of September, so many soldiers had raised their right hands to re-enlist that the service met its retention goals and then some, retaining 106 percent of the soldiers it hoped to keep.

?We needed 51,000 soldiers to re-enlist, and we got 54,151,? said Sgt. Maj. James Vales, a senior retention manager at Army headquarters in Washington.

Read the rest here. I hope to have a bit more on this subject later.

After the sensational coverage of the "morale" stories it should be interesting to see how the mainstream press covers this reality story about retention. "Not at all" is my guess.