The Champagne Squadron

Come on. They have to expect us to laugh at that! Don’t they?

DVIDS

KABUL, Afghanistan – The first of six Mirage aircraft from 2-3 Champagne Squadron, French Expeditionary Air Group, landed at Kandahar Airfield recently.

The squadron, which is relocating from its former detachment base at Dushanbe Airport, Tajikistan, will now have greater capability to support ISAF and coalition operations in southern Afghanistan. Operating from Dushanbe, the fighters’ flying time will be decreased by 40 minutes.

Squadron personnel are excited about the challenges ahead and are pleased they will have more efficient and flexible response times to participate in operations.

“We are looking forward to joining forces here at Kandahar and Regional Command South,” said Lt. Col. Gilles Juventin, the French detachment commander. “It’s a great opportunity to operate in a different tactical environment and it will allow us much better integration with our allies.”

When the relocation is complete the French air wing will have 150 personnel, including a special forces combat group of 20 and 100 personnel from the air expeditionary group.

The Mirage 2000D is an air-to-ground fighter which has been operational with the French air force since 1992. It has seen active service in operations over Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan.

I cannot be certain but I suspect that this news release’s author did not intend the irony I find in the bolded paragraph.
By U.S. Army Pfc. Melissa M. Escobar, 22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

JALALABAD AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, March 20, 2007 — When the first six soldiers from the medical team with C Company, 710th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, Task Force Spartan, touched down here, they inherited a bigger and better aid station, but one that was in need of some improvement.

At the time, the building was occupied by Marine embedded trainers and served as the sleeping quarters for French troops, making it ill-equipped to receive patients.

When the building was finally cleared, the medical team of soldiers, led by Army 1st Sgt. Danny Darroch, a native of Dodge City, Kan., was ready to begin the construction of the new aid station. With his guidance the team began to map out how it would transform the original sleeping quarters into a fully functional and operating aid station that would put the old single “B-hut” station before it to shame.

The trained medics would have to take on a new role. They would be part-time construction workers while remaining full-time medics.

“We didn’t need engineers, we had medics,” said Army Capt. Lisa M. Dennis, commander, C Company of Desoto, Texas.

The team had several challenges before it. The biggest challenge was to build up the station on their own without the expertise of engineers.

In order to accommodate the larger number of services the new aid station has to offer, such as X-rays, dental care, physical therapy, a laboratory and a pharmacy, the team needed to separate the new aid station.

The team members built partitions to give each new department its own area. The station was also in need of desks, cabinets and shelves, which the team was also responsible for building.

With construction projects going on in the aid station, the team managed to treat patients even as repairs went forward. Still, the team remained focused on marshalling resources necessary to achieve its vision for the future.

“When we first got here we were begging, borrowing and stealing to get anything we could to build the walls for rooms. The resources weren’t available,” explained Darroch.

Somehow they managed to complete the necessary projects to become fully operational in just three weeks.

“It was neat to have a vision in my head about how I wanted it to look and then watch it become real,” Darroch said.

With several construction projects done and partitions up, the aid station officially opened the first week of March.

“I was very impressed when I came here to see the development that the team made,” Dennis said.

The remainder of the crew joined the six soldiers here and picked up hammers and scrap lumber to build what they had needed to complete the aid station. Every piece of furniture, with the exception of three beds, was built by “Charlie Med”.

Now the aid station door is open to receive those in need.

Although it may seem like it is completed, it is a constant work in progress. “There is always room for improvement but we’re pretty confident with everything we’ve done here,” Darroch said.

Photo caption:

U.S. Army Sgt. Amanda Marion, medical specialist, C Company, 710th Brigade Support Battalion, tends to a bug bite on the leg of Army Pvt. Keith B. Miller, 76th Engineer Company, at Jalalabad Airfield, Afghanistan, March 19, 2007. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Melissa M. Escobar

Ah, the summer of 1944. I remember it well. The French countryside was alive with the sounds of birds and turning coats. Flowering baskets and collaborators hung from every lamp post. And a beautiful young woman named Lilli Marlene bade a tearful farewell to her beloved Otto, and prepared to welcome her beloved Hank, just as her mother had a generation before.

I wrote that two years ago, to mark this occasion, the anniversary of the Liberation of Paris. The French have spun a myth over the generations of how General LeClerc and the forces of Free France entered the city in triumph. The facts are somewhat different and show that the French owe that event to the Fourth Infantry Division of the United States Army and to the Spanish expats of the French Second Armored Division.

When commanded by officers with skills and backbone, the French soldier can fight as well as any. They are demonstrating that in Afghanistan today. In the Second World War, that type of officer was less prevalent and far too many French soldiers died because of it. The Resistance, equally covered with myths, spent as much time fighting among its various political flavors as it did fighting the Boche.

Congrats to my brother on eleven years of marriage.

Oh, yeah. It’s also a holiday in France. They celebrate the capture of a nearly vacant prison by an unruely mob. Huge victory.

We had snow today in Rochester, the first real snow of the season. Not enough to accumulate, but it may overnight.

I still remain disgusted and dismayed about the actions of the Senate Republican leadership. What’s worse, they don’t seem to realize that they’re trampling all over their base.

My appendix seems to be cranky again. I cannot afford to take the time nor spend the money until January so I’m going to “gut” it out until then. Then, there’s my teeth. Don’t get me started. I didn’t have the money to finish the sedation dentistry I started a couple of years ago and now I realize that perhaps, just perhaps, I should have.

Everything’s broken or unused. Sad but true.

Everyone is opining about this OSM thing. I wasn’t recruited [yet another instance of being overlooked, but am I bitter?]. It sounds like a good concept, but would seem to be very edit intensive for someone(s). Putting the thing together timely and without error is going to drive the folks involved at that end to distraction.

I’m still fixing the blog. Got in with Feedburner and Technorati to drive some visitors by the old homestead. Still repairing links, and old posts. The comments from the Blogger side are gone. I’m deleting the occasional post, as well, that was fairly meaningless even at the time it was originally written.

This blog is like the four and a half million dollar man. A bit stronger, faster, and just a little cross-eyed.

Ralph Edwards dies. OK, so after the first year, did anyone, anyone, really get surprised when they got a call to come down to his show?

You know, I am going to write a book. Lulu is a very interesting concept, and inexpensive as things go in life. Maybe I’ll put together a Best of the Blog. Though the posts I like the best, probably no one else does.

Come on, the waiting room for hell as a jury pool. That has to be funny! And, I thought Christmas in Cambodia was funny. It has the wrong Pope, but Vatican Rips Lateran Treaty has a certain something. It continues to generate searches finding my blog looking for the Maltese Air Force, the Maltese Falcons. And, it goes without saying that You Cannot Humiliate French Soldiers. Then there’s Canada: where life is not so miserable. Maybe I gotta book there.