Iraq

The Glendale Peace Vigil is adding a twist to its members' weekly anti-war gatherings this week, with a special vigil on Thursday to support the efforts of a like-minded group in New York. Beginning at 5 p.m. on Thursday, they will gather at the corner of Brand Boulevard and Broadway to support New York's Granny Peace Brigade. The brigade is a group of women, ages 59 to 91, who are protesting what they say is the unnecessary military deployment of service men and women in Iraq.

When Lisa Janacua, an office manager and assistant music librarian for Walt Disney Pictures in Burbank, volunteered for the California Army National Guard in 2003, she knew Iraq might be in her future. Janacua, the daughter of a Marine, was bitten by an urge to serve, but she would have preferred to do so on U.S. soil. "Most of us don't want to go," she said. Janacua's three daughters — who range in age from 12 to 18 — didn't want their mother to leave their Hermosa Avenue home in Montrose for the place they know only as a distant land of improvised explosive devices.

GLENDALE — Reports that the deployment of U.S. troops to Iraq could be greatly downgraded by the middle of 2009 pleased anti-war residents and elicited tepid praise from Republican Rep. David Dreier, an early and avid supporter of the war. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki met in Iraq to establish a draft agreement in which U.S. forces will conditionally withdraw from Iraq starting in...

Ryan Carter A local legislator will be part of a House of Representatives delegation visiting Iraq later this month. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Glendale), who sits on the House Committee on Foreign Relations, will be one of about 12 representatives who will visit the war-battered country. The trip will include visits to Baghdad and Mosul, north of the capital. The lawmakers will stay there about a week. "The trip will give me and other members of the delegation a real firsthand impression of what the conditions are like in Iraq and what our soldiers are facing, both with morale and with assessments from commanders on the ground," Schiff said.

CITY HALL ? The names of the area's Iraq war dead will soon join those of their fallen comrades in other major conflicts on the city's Veterans Memorial Monument at City Hall. The City Council will likely vote Tuesday to approve the installation of a fifth granite panel to an existing four-panel monument that lists the area's fallen soldiers from World War I and World War II as well as the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. The quarter-inch polished black granite blocks include the names of Glendale, Montrose and Crescenta Valley residents and alumni who died in the service of their country since Glendale's incorporation in 1906.

Rosemont Middle School students arrived early to school on Thursday in order to take a very special phone call. Four soldiers serving with the 81st Brigade, 1-303 CAV, stationed since August in Al Taqaddum, Iraq spoke to the students via satellite communications. The seventh and eighth graders were members of the CJSF (California Junior Scholarship Federation), a school organization that emphasizes high academic standards and student community service. Last fall the organization raised over $600 for Freedom Calls Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has built a satellite network dedicated to providing state-of-the-art video conferencing, telephone and Internet services to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a letter to the editor last month, I posed a question about Congressman Adam Schiff's trip to Iraq. I wondered if the trip was a fact-finding trip to Iraq, or did it include a first-class junket with family and staff to the high spots of Europe at our expense? I suggested that I could guess the answer. After Mr. Schiff returned, I contacted his office and requested information about the trip. Who went, did they fly first class or coach, where did they stay, did they visit any other cities, who paid for the trip, etc?

Dozens of people came out to demonstrate and memorialize American military deaths in Iraq conflict.DOWNTOWN GLENDALE -- More than two-dozen people gathered at the corner of Broadway and Brand Boulevard Wednesday night to mark a grim milestone: the 2,000th American military death in the Iraq war. Some held candles, and others held up signs and solicited supportive honks from passing cars. The vigil was one of several scheduled throughout the area Wednesday night in recognition of the country's war dead, including one in La Crescenta at the corner of Briggs Avenue and Shields Street, and others in Burbank, Sunland, Eagle Rock and Pasadena.

Josh Kleinbaum Rep. Adam Schiff couldn't resist. A handful of pilots on the U.S. aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy, deployed in the Arabian coast to support coalition forces in Iraq, sat down for a midnight meal and a poker game late one night last week. They asked Schiff, part of a five-man congressional delegation to the Middle East, to join them. A few hours later and a few dollars poorer, Schiff went to sleep. "I'd like to say that I threw the hands, but they took me," Schiff said in his Pasadena office.

GLENDALE — Army Sgt. David J. Hart, 22, a Lake View Terrace resident who attended elementary school in Glendale, died in Iraq on Jan. 8. Hart, along with two fellow infantrymen soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division, died of wounds sustained during combat in Samarra, Iraq, in an incident that is under investigation. Though Hart’s most recent home was in Lake View Terrace, he attended Calvary Christian School in Glendale, said Sarah Sherman, a former classmate and friend.

After having spent a couple of Christmases in Iraq, and another at Fifth Fleet Headquarters in the Middle Eastern island nation of Bahrain, it is impossible to take the tranquillity of Christmas in Glendale for granted. This will be my first holiday season at home in several years and I am cherishing every moment. When I look back at these combat deployments, I am thankful for the many neighbors who made special efforts to welcome me home from Iraq, to the men of Fire Station 26, who turned out in force to mark the day, and to the Glendale Police Department, which had motor officers to control traffic and display their highly visible support.

J.R. Martinez - a former soldier, actor and current contestant on “Dancing With the Stars” - was named the grand marshal today for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses parade on Jan. 2. Martinez, the current cover story for “People” magazine, underwent 33 surgeries after his Humvee triggered a land mine in Iraq in 2003 and he suffered burns over much of his body. Tournament of Roses Assn. President Rick Jackson announced Martinez on the front lawn of the Tournament House today, setting off a pop of red, white and blue confetti stars.

An Iraq veteran received a kidney donation this week in San Diego, donated by a fellow Marine left brain-dead following a training accident, squeezing what is normally a five-year process into two days. The rare, fast-paced swap shows the deep bond among servicemembers and their families, one that continues even after death. As Sgt. Jacob Chadwick prepared to leave the hospital Thursday, hundreds of motorcycles and police cars escorted 2nd Lt. Patrick Wayland's casket through his hometown of Midland, Texas as thousands lined the streets waving American flags.

Family members and friends of Glendale resident Holman "Ace" Hudson this week were left trying to make sense of the Iraq war veteran's sudden death. Ace Hudson died in his sleep on Jan. 8 following a quiet night at home with his wife of seven months, Lindsey Mancuso Hudson. He was 30. Results from an autopsy to determine the cause of death are pending. "He is a larger-than-life kind of guy, and he makes friends everywhere he goes," said his sister Maura Hudson, 40. "I don't have any words to describe how wrong this is. " The third child and only son of retired Los Angeles County Deputy Dist.

Leedoosh Nersesian fled Iraq in fear when she was 20 years old. Nearly 30 years later, she decided to return to her native Baghdad, using her skills in English, Arabic and Armenian to translate for the U.S. forces in Iraq. Nersesian said she took leave of her Glendale family, including two teenage boys, out of what she felt was an obligation to help the country she loves to stabilize the country she knew as a child. It has proven to be a difficult journey. "Initially, I was very excited with happy tears going back after 30 years, since I had spent most of my childhood time in that country surrounded by my family and friends," Nersesian wrote in an e-mail.

Three writers have joined forces to create a theater experience with their stories on how war affects soldiers and their families. Angelique Gross, a student at Los Angeles Valley College and the main producer, came up with the idea for a night of one-act plays. She wrote "Wake" about a year ago and it centers on a family dealing with the loss of a son who died in Iraq, she said. Gross' brother just returned from a tour of duty with the army in Iraq. She also has several family members who have served in Afganistan and Iraq, she said.

I t all began while waiting in line for tacos in Santa Barbara. Chiropractor Dee Ann Nason of NorthGlen Chiropractic at 1306 W. Glenoaks Blvd. in Glendale began talking to a man waiting in line with her. Before long, the man began talking about the challenges he was going through acclimating to civilian life. The war veteran had driven trucks and carried heavy equipment through much of his tour. The bouncing motion of the large trucks he drove led to back pain and a lack of sleep.

Looking at Paul McKenna Jr., one thing is clear. “It’s not a young person’s war anymore. I turned 50 on my way to Iraq,” he said. “But to look at young people who I met for the first time and then six months later was in a combat zone with them, and to see the growth, it gives us a lot to be proud of.” McKenna, a Unites States Marine from 1977 to 1985, tried his hand at acting, teaching and served as vice president of a transportation company before joining the Army National Guard about 16 years later.