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On July 28, a memorial to Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, who was killed on a shooting range by a Marine veteran in 2009, will be unveiled at 8050 E. Highway 191 in Odessa, Texas.
To honor him, a Wyoming based sculptor named Vic Payne created a 15-foot-tall likeness of Kyle that will sit atop a 48,000-pound limestone base near a local Veterans Affairs clinic. Overall, the project ran about $1 million.
Kyle’s widow Taya told the press in a statement that “the goal is for the setting to be a healing and peaceful place for veterans and their families receiving care at the medical center, and those citizens who want to stop by and take a moment in honor of Chris and all those who serve.
According to OA Online, Kyle’s surviving family members are expected to attend and speak at the unveiling. The local news site also reported that government officials, including Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), will be there along with Odessa doctor Sudip Bose, who served as a frontline physician in the second battle of Fallujah, where Kyle fought. Larry Gatlin, a native Odessan and country singer will be singing the national anthem.
“We hope this is a place of solemn peace for them as they see what a community has done to honor one of its own and that will last for generations to come,” said Odessa oilman Kirk Edwards, who chairs the Chris Kyle Memorial Committee.
The plaza not only hosts Kyle’s statue, but is also surrounded by four trees from former President George W. Bush’s Crawford Ranch. And its limestone base is engraved with names of the 50 states and woven into a Navy Seal trident.
The unveiling will be open to the public, but tickets to a lunch at the Odessa Chuck Wagon Gang cost $17.50 on www.ocwg.org.
Pentagon insists the US government's repeated lies about Afghanistan are no big deal
The Pentagon's top spokesman tried to downplay recent revelations by the Washington Post that U.S. government officials have consistently misled the American public about the war in Afghanistan for nearly two decades.
Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock first brought to light that several top officials acknowledged to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction that the war was going badly despite their optimistic public statements. The report, based on extensive interviews and internal government data, also found that U.S. officials manipulated statistics to create the public perception that the U.S. military was making progress in Afghanistan.
An Army colonel's alleged abuse saddled his wife with ongoing medical needs. Escaping him could bring that care to a screeching halt.
Katherine Burton was sitting on her couch when she heard a scream.
Though she had not yet met her upstairs neighbors, Army. Col. Jerel Grimes and his wife Ellizabeth, Burton went to investigate almost immediately. "I knew it was a cry for help," she recalled of the August 1 incident.
Above her downstairs apartment in Huntsville, Alabama, Jerel and Ellizabeth had been arguing. They had been doing a lot of that lately. According to Ellizabeth, Jerel, a soldier with 26 years of service and two Afghanistan deployments under his belt, had become increasingly controlling in the months since the couple had married in April, forcing her to share computer passwords, receipts for purchases, and asking where she was at all times.
"I was starting to realize how controlling he was, and how manipulative he was," Ellizabeth said. "And he'd never been this way towards me in the 15 years that I've known him."
Soldier charged in deadly West Point vehicle rollover will face court-martial
Staff Sgt. Ladonies Strong, the soldier charged in September over a deadly vehicle rollover at West Point, will face trial by court-martial, Military.com reported and Task & Purpose confirmed.
US troops repelled a brazen Taliban attack that was literally on Bagram Airfield's doorstep
Taliban fighters attempted to fight their way into Bagram Airfield on Wednesday by invading a medical facility just outside of the base's perimeter, a spokesman for Operation Resolute Support said Wednesday.
J.P. Lawrence of Stars and Stripes and Jim LaPorta of Newsweek first reported that the battle lasted for several hours after using car bombs to attack the hospital, which is near the base's northern corner. Helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft were reportedly used to drop ordnance on the hospital.
Mark Wahlberg and his family's fast-casual chain Wahlburgers may be coming to a base near you
Actor Mark Wahlberg will be visiting troops overseas to plug Wahlburgers, a fast-casual restaurant chain owned by the actor and his two brothers, Donnie Wahlberg, and chef Paul Wahlberg.