Message Center

For all the DC locals out there, one of our former Web peeps stumbled across this on the We Love DC blog:

American University, USOC Paralympic Military Program, Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity have joined forces to host the Armed Forces Wheelchair Basketball game at Bender Arena on April 1 at 6 p.m. The game features Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s “Wounded Warriors” as they take on the San Antonio’s Brooke Army Medical Center team.

All proceeds from this event benefit the Wounded Warrior Project and Push America, an organization dedicated to helping people with disabilities.

University President, Neil Kerwin, will be attending and speaking at the event in addition to wounded veteran and Wounded Warrior Project representative Ryan Kules.

Can’t make the event? The Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity – Theta Eta chapter from American University, the game’s organizers, encourage you to make a donation to the cause online. Again, all proceeds go to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project and people with disabilities.

For more information on the event, the benefiting organizations, and general inquiries, visit the event’s official website.

This is tomorrow- Go, go, go! It’s for a good cause!

Six Flags America celebrates April as the Month of the Military Child, offering military families discounted park admission (more than 65% from the regular ticket price of $49.99 plus tax,) and hosting an exclusive ice cream social and coloring contest, along with prizes, at the park every Saturday and Sunday from April 3 through April 18.

Military Discount Tickets are available exclusively at Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) and Information, Tickets, and Tours (ITT) offices at military installations around the Baltimore/ Washington region. Participating installations include Andrews Air Force Base, Fort George G. Meade, the National Naval Medical Center, US Naval Station Dahlgren, Patuxent River Naval Air Station, National Security Agency, Indian Head Naval Base, Anacostia Naval Station, and Bolling Air Force Base.

Ice cream socials will take place from noon to 3:00 p.m. at the party pavilion in Looney Tunes Movie Town at Six Flags America. Wristbands are required for this event and are included with your ticket purchase at your participating MWR/ ITT offices. Tickets for these events must be pre-purchased and are not available at the theme park.

For more information about park events and hours of operation at Six Flags America, please visit sixflags.com.

This April, Military Channel is putting its viewers at the top of the chain of command for the network’s first ever viewer’s choice month. Every Thursday night’s prime time lineup in April will be chosen by the Military Channel fans, appointing them “programmers-in-chief” of the network. Each week plays host to a particular genre as fans go online to vote for their favorite selection in each category.

Kicking off VIEWER’S CHOICE MONTH is the “Battle of the Branches” where divisions of the U.S. Military – Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard – square off in a popularity contest chosen by Military Channel’s viewers. Whichever branch gets the most votes will win and seize control of the Military Channel on Thursday, April 1 from 8-11 PM (ET).

The VIEWER’S CHOICE MONTH polls are open online  NOW and fans can begin to vote on their top picks in each genre. A breakdown of the weekly programming battles is as follows:

• Battle of the Branches (Thursday, April 1 from 8-11 PM): With good-natured rivalry expected, which U.S. Military branch will be the network’s fan favorite? Will it be the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines or Coast Guard?
• Battle of the Weapons (Thursday, April 8 from 8-11 PM): Tanks, submarines, airplanes, aircraft carriers and guns go head-to-head. Which high-powered weaponry will reign supreme?
• Battle of the Battles (Thursday, April 15 from 8-11 PM): Which battle will be reenacted? With Gettysburg, Stalingrad, Pearl Harbor, Normandy or Baghdad on the list, viewers could see anything from cannonballs to stealth fighters.
• Battle of the Wars (Thursday, April 22 from 8-11 PM): Historical turning-points clash to see which era takes the top spot between WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War or Gulf War.
• Battle of the Shows (Thursday, April 29 from 8-11 PM): It’s the showdown of Military Channel’s most popular series including World at War, Hitler’s Bodyguard, Ultimate Weapons, Great Planes or Special Ops Mission.

Check your local listings for more information!

Pretty big news! We can’t wait to see it!

National Geographic Entertainment (NGE) has acquired the film “Restrepo,” directed, produced and photographed by two award-winning journalists, photojournalist Tim Hetherington and journalist/author Sebastian Junger, for U.S. theatrical distribution.

Winner of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, Documentary, “Restrepo” chronicles the deployment of a U.S. platoon of courageous American soldiers in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. Hetherington and Junger focus on the remote 15-man outpost Restrepo, one of the most dangerous postings in the U.S. military. “Restrepo” is the account of a group of men who came to be considered the “tip of the spear” for America’s efforts in that area.

From May 2007 to July 2008, Hetherington and Junger dug in with a platoon of men from Battle Company, the Second Platoon of the 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, based at Restrepo. Named in honor of the platoon’s medic, PFC Juan “Doc” Restrepo, who was killed in action, “Outpost Restrepo” had no running water, no Internet, no phone communication, often no electricity or heat, and it was attacked as many as five or six times a day.

Hetherington and Junger ate what the soldiers ate, slept where they slept, went on every patrol and by the end had been completely accepted into the platoon. Their cameras never left the Korengal Valley as they shot 150 hours of combat, frustration, routine, jokes, terror and bravery during daily life at the outpost until the men themselves were finally shipped out. The two journalists went on to conduct in-depth interviews with the platoon members back at their home base in Italy.

Second Platoon’s 15-month tour of duty also serves as the basis for a new book by Junger called “War,” which will be published in May 2010 by Twelve, a division of the Hachette Book Group.

The film is scheduled for release on July 2, 2010.

HBO invites you to join us in thanking our veterans and active military. Visit the HBO kiosk in the museums listed from March through May to record a personal message of thanks to veterans and active military.

The survey is sponsored by the University’s Social Work program in cooperation with the University’s Social Sciences Research Center and its G.V. Montgomery Center for America’s Veterans.

What: A confidential Internet-based survey designed to assess the adequacy of the DEA program for its enrollees

Who: Any student currently enrolled in the DEA program at any institution voluntarily may participate

How: The survey is not funded by the federal government and the survey instrument and methodology has been approved by the University’s Institutional Review Board

Where: DEA enrollees voluntarily may take the brief survey online

When: March 15 through June 1, 2010

*****
The survey results/report will be posted this fall at www.veterans.msstate.edu under “research and development”.

It takes a strong heart to be an army wife, and whether she likes it or not, Daytime Emmy® nominee Lori Loughlin (“90210”) has what it takes. Loughlin stars with Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Stefanie Powers (“Hart to Hart”) and Johnny Messner (“Killer Instinct”) in “Meet My Mom,” a Hallmark Channel in HD Original Movie premiering Saturday, May 8 (9p.m. ET/PT, 8C), as the crown jewel of the network’s “Countdown to Mother’s Day” campaign, which will include two weeks of programming designed to celebrate the mothers and mother figures who love us, encourage us and support us.

The touching Mother’s Day story also brings an added bonus: Hallmark Channel will be setting up a unique ‘virtual wall’ on its Facebook page (facebook.com/hallmarkchannel), giving viewers the chance to submit testimonials, photos and videos which invite their fellow viewers to meet their mom. In addition, the wall, which will go live Monday, April 19, will also serve as a forum for military servicemen and women abroad to send a message of love and thanks to their own moms from far away, or for military moms to send love back home to their families. Beginning Wednesday, March 17, fans of Hallmark Channel on Facebook page can go to the page to submit videos, photos or testimonials for the Meet My Mom Wall.

This is a must-see/read about Section 60, in Arlington National Cemetery. Words may never truly do it justice, but Larry Downing seems to come close:

Section 60 is America’s promise to honor its warriors for first serving, and then dying, in the strange dusts on foreign soil. Its 22211 ZIP code is the final address for roughly 10 percent of America’s dead from combat action in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 570 service members from Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, are “interred, inurned or memorialized with honor inside the cemetery.”

Spend time in the section and you can’t help but breathe the restless cloud of uneasiness that hangs over the calm symmetry of the graves. Your eyes lie; you actually “see” the pieces of shattered hearts and lost ambitions scattered across the manicured grounds. — Larry Downing

View the photo slideshow, and read the entire story on the New York Times Lens blog. All we can say is, “Wow.”

Wow, we came across  a compelling story on CNN.com, told by Mike Scotti, a servicemember who talks of feeling alienated and isolated after returning home from Iraq.

It was 2003, and I was attending a friend’s wedding. As I sat at the table listening to the conversation, I suddenly realized that someone who had never been in combat could never even remotely understand what I had just been through.

I looked around. The chamber music quartet, the beautiful bridesmaids, the steak dinner … none of it was real. My buddies were, at that moment, probably on patrol and quite possibly engaged with the enemy. That was real.

Scotti is the subject of the documentary film Severe Clear. For the men and women returning home from the battlefield, this looks like it could be one film they need to see.

The Pat Tillman Foundation invites you to apply to become a Tillman Military Scholar. The Pat Tillman Foundation is dedicated to supporting educational opportunities for veterans, servicemembers and their families. Veteran and active servicemembers and their dependents (children and spouses) portray the very nature of leadership that the Foundation seeks to inspire in young people across the country.

Additional information can be found under the “Tillman Military Scholars” section of the Pat Tillman Foundation website.

The application process is open March 15- April 30, 2010. Apply today!

Now in its second year, the Tillman Military Scholars program supports educational opportunities for active and veteran servicemembers and their families by covering direct study-related expenses such as tuition, fees, books, room and board, and other needs, such as child care. In 2009, the Pat Tillman Foundation awarded $642,000 to 52 Tillman Military Scholars to men and women at 21 universities in 16 states for the 2009/2010 academic year. With these scholarships, the Foundation ensure these leaders have every opportunity to pursue broader educational goals.