Definitely not a rave and not really a rant...

[wondersofwine]

JFK Chapel is right beyond the parking lot of the building where I work on Fort Bragg.
The parking lot is cordoned off today for a funeral at 2:00 PM. Another fallen Special Forces soldier (a captain). I don't think I knew this one personally. The SFC a couple weeks ago (who was killed in Afghanistan) I remembered because he came to the library nearly every day to use the library computers. He left behind a wife and high school age daughter. His daughter's high school is setting up a memorial rock garden in memory of her father and the other fallen soldiers. Even when I don't know them personally, it hurts. Sigh...

[Innkeeper]

I agree with you. It is never easy.

[hotwine]

Don't recall the chapel there being named for JFK, but the Special Warfare Center was called the JFK Center for Special Warfare; it supported the SF groups and school and PsyOp groups worldwide. Is that center still there?

[wondersofwine]

Yes, it is Hotwine. I work in the Special Operations Academic Facility across the street from it. The SOAF building was opened maybe twelve years ago? It will be memoralized within the year and named for COL Aaron Bank (called the father of the Green Berets).

[hotwine]

Don't recall a Col Bank. The SF back in the 60's were mainly trainers of indigenous forces .. baby-sitters of struggling national forces ... 'way off on the fringe of the Regular Army, with zip for promotion opportunities. Considered a career-killer assignment. Interesting.

"And the last shall be first."

[winoweenie]

Enough with the nasty references to the Red Sox Hotsie. WW [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/wink.gif[/img]

[wondersofwine]

LOL, WW.
Frontline on tv had an interesting program on Donald Rumsfeld. I didn't see the entire program, but part of the drift was that Special Forces are on the rise as they receive assignments such as rounding up Taliban leaders in Afghanistan (of course the "biggest catch," Osama bin Laden, is still at large.) It also covered some of the disagreements that arose between the civilian Secretary of Defense officials and the Pentagon/military commanders about how to approach the Iraq problem.