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One night in November of 1935, a flashy swing-band singer named Beach Powers, twenty-three, was driving down a lonesome stretch of Route 54, about ten miles outside Eureka, Kansas, with Claude Forshee, twenty-one, and their dates, the fifteen-year-old twins Evelyn and Dorothy Coolscott. They were on their way to El Dorado to see a movie. (The dreamiest show in cinemas that season was "Top Hat," in which Fred Astaire sings "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" to Ginger Rogers.) A cow wandered into the road. Powers swerved to avoid it, only to crash into a tanker truck filled with gasoline. The truckdriver, and everyone in the car, burned to death.
Someone else was supposed to be in that car that night, seventeen-year-old Stanley Dunham, but his grandmother had made him stay home. Every family has a chancy cow or two roaming the meadows of its past. The reason that anyone other than the Dunhams knows the story of this particular stray has to do with what happened a lifetime later, on November 4, 2008, when Stanley Dunham's grandson was elected President of the United States.
Barack Obama's grandfather Stanley Dunham was born in Wichita in 1918. He was named after Henry Morton Stanley, a Welshman who immigrated to the United States and fought in the Civil War—first with the Confederate Army and then, switching sides, with the U.S. Navy, before he deserted—and who, in 1869, was assigned by the New York Herald to find David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary thought to be lost in Africa. As the story goes, when Stanley found his man in 1871, near Lake Tanganyika, he said, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
In 1896, six years after Henry Morton Stanley published his last book, "In Darkest Africa," Obama Opiyo, a prominent man in the village of Kanyadhiang, in western Kenya, had a son, Onyango Obama, by one of his five wives. As a boy, Onyango went to a missionary school run by Seventh-Day Adventists, where he learned to read and write English. When he grew up, he converted to Islam and took the name Hussein. In 1933, Hussein Onyango purchased his fourth wife, Akumu, for the price of perhaps thirty-five cows. Akumu's second child, Barack Hussein Obama, was born in 1934, the year before a cow wandered onto Route 54 outside Eureka, Kansas, failing to take the life of Stanley Dunham, and about the time that a Dutchman and ten Luo men, not including Hussein Onyango, had a deadly encounter with the hippos they were hunting in Lake Victoria, a body of water that Henry Morton Stanley had once circumnavigated.
Meanwhile, back in Kansas Stanley Dunham, whose grandmother didn't often manage to keep him home, eloped with Madelyn Lee Payne on the night of her senior prom, in 1940. During the Second World War, Stanley Dunham enlisted in the U.S. Army; Hussein Onyango took a job as a cook for the British in Nairobi; and Madelyn Dunham worked at Boeing, making B-29s in Wichita. Before Stanley was sent to Europe, he trained Stateside for a spell, and in November of 1942 Madelyn had a baby. She named her Stanley Ann, because Stanley was her husband's name, and because in the summer of 1942 she had seen Bette Davis play a woman named Stanley in a movie called "In This Our Life." (In the film, directed by John Huston, Davis's character, a remorseless villain, kills a child while driving drunk and then blames the son of the family's maid, a young black man who aspires to be a lawyer. In the closing scene, Stanley, pursued by the police, loses control of her speeding car and dies when it careers off the road, crashes, and goes up in flames.)
Years passed. Many improbable things happened, some of them historic. And then, on September 26, 1960, the day of the first Nixon-Kennedy debate, seventeen-year-old Stanley Ann Dunham, of Wichita, Kansas, met twenty-six-year-old Barack Hussein Obama, of Kanyadhiang, Kenya, in Elementary Russian 101, at the University of Hawaii. By Election Day, she was pregnant. They married on February 2, 1961, in the Wailuku County courthouse. In twenty-one states, that marriage would have been illegal—a violation of miscegenation laws. As recorded on a birth certificate, which you can find at whitehouse.gov, because so many people have demanded to see it, Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, 1961, at the Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital, in Honolulu, at 7:24 P.M.
If you tell a life backward, it'll have the contingency of "How I Met Your Mother" and the inevitability of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." This will make it seem at once unlikely and foreordained, and much more so, on both counts, if your subject is the President of the United States. It's a pickle. "I believe that life is chaotic, a jumble of accidents, ambitions, misconceptions, bold intentions, lazy happenstances, and unintended consequences," David Maraniss writes in "Barack Obama: The Story" (Simon & Schuster), "yet I also believe that there are connections that illuminate our world, revealing its endless mystery and wonder." Maraniss is an editor at the Washington Post. His research took him around the world. He interviewed hundreds of people and made many remarkable discoveries. His six-hundred-page book is full of riveting stories, shrewd observations, and fascinating details. It's like reading Michener.
After the war, the Dunhams bounced around. First they went to California, and Stanley studied at Berkeley. Then they went to Oklahoma. After a while, they settled east of Seattle, where Stanley sold furniture. They moved to Hawaii in the summer of 1960, just after Stanley Ann graduated from high school, and not long after Hawaii became part of the United States. In 1957, when Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., was working in Nairobi as a clerk, he eloped with a schoolgirl named Kezia, and had two children with her; meanwhile, he studied, and pondered the relationship between Kenya and Britain. In 1959, while working with Betty Mooney, an American missionary, he wrote a book called "Otieno Jarieko," a Luo primer, printed for the Kenyan Department of Education; it was with Mooney's encouragement that Obama applied to and was accepted by the University of Hawaii, and joined the first of a generation of Kenyans to be educated in the United States.
This, in Maraniss's account, is another happenstance. "The Westernization of the Obamas began a generation earlier, when Seventh-Day Adventist missionaries encountered Onyango in Kendu Bay, taught him English, and introduced him to European clothing and culture," Maraniss writes, and "the family's rise was furthered in the next generation when his son, Barack, happened upon a woman from the United States who was sent to Kenya to spread the twin gospels of literacy and the Lord." It's a case in point: "That is how history works, the history of families as well as the history of nations and movements. Along with the rational processes of biology and geography, of politics and economics, there come seemingly random connections that spin out profound and unintended consequences."
There is something quite searching and wonderful about seeing much of history as a chaos of chance. It has a few pitfalls, however. One is that it renders brutality, as a driver of the course of human events, hard to see and even harder to gauge. Politics and economics appear in Maraniss's account, in carefully researched detail: slavery and abolition, Jim Crow and civil rights in the United States, and colonialism, imperialism, and anti-colonialism in Kenya and Indonesia. But they can seem like richly painted stage cloth. Another difficulty is that telling the story of the President's ancestors to explain how the President became the President is a teleological project, and a teleologist who embraces randomness is in some danger of finding himself unable to decide which details to include and which to leave out. In the nineteen-fifties, Barack Obama, Sr., bumped into many people who, unlike Betty Mooney, didn't send him down a path that led to Elementary Russian 101. A teleological narrative requires leaving them out, which Maraniss generally does. (All biography is teleological, to one degree or another, which is a problem, but a knowable one.)
At other times, he makes odder choices. Stanley Dunham's troubled mother, Ruth Armour Dunham, committed suicide in 1926, when she was twenty-six. She swallowed ten grams of strychnine and left a note, explaining that she was killing herself because her husband no longer loved her. Stanley was eight, and his brother, Ralph, Jr., was ten. (Stanley told his grandson that he found the body; Maraniss, sleuthing, says that's impossible.) Stanley Dunham died in 1992, but Maraniss was able to interview his brother. "It was while playing Uncle Wiggily, as Ralph Jr. remembered it," Maraniss reports, "that he and Stanley were told their mother was dead." It's a striking detail; the dissonance is an agony. It also tells us something about the man who would one day raise a boy who would one day become President. But it's buried in a paragraph in which Maraniss explains that the boys had bought the board game at a drugstore; that they had paid for it with money their grandparents had given them; that it was manufactured by the Milton Bradley Company; and that it was based on a series of books, which Stanley and his brother had read, about a "lame old rabbit with the striped barber-pole cane, and his cast of creature friends and enemies, the Skeezicks, Bushy Bear, Woozy Wolf, Jimmie Wibblewobble, and Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy." Wiggily was plenty.
Returning to that road accident on Route 54 in 1935, when "Top Hat" was playing in Topeka, Maraniss deduces what might be called the stray-cow theory of history. "The genealogy of any family involves countless what-if moments," he writes. "Here was one in the line of generations leading out from Stanley Dunham, the what-if of a less insistent grandmother, a disoriented cow, and the teenage Stanley immolated on a roadway in Kansas." It's a very interesting theory. It also, as Maraniss's choice of words suggests, has as much to do with genealogy as with biography.
Genealogy is among the fastest-growing hobbies in America. Ancestry.com, the largest Internet provider of family records, began posting documents, like wills and censuses and birth certificates, in 1996. The service, which provides online access to more than ten billion records, currently attracts nearly two million subscribers. It's Facebook for the dead.
In monarchies, genealogy, obviously, means a great deal; lineage determines political authority. In the United States, genealogy, as a hobby, has waxed and waned, but pedigree has never been a national project. In American politics, being self-made is better than being an heir; coming from nothing is worth more than coming from something. It's not that Presidential biographers have never traced anyone's ancestry; it's that most haven't made that much of it, and the canniest of them have made a point of mocking it. "None of Mr. Lincoln's family seems to have been aware of the preciousness of long pedigrees," William Dean Howells remarked, in his "Life of Abraham Lincoln." By which he meant: ancestry is for aristocrats; in a democracy, it's bunk. Lincoln's grandfather could have been just about anybody, for all Howells thought anyone needed to know or care. Except that he couldn't have been black.
No American's ancestry has been the subject of more scrutiny than Barack Obama's, and, for that reason, few American Presidents have had more of an effect on the writing of Presidential biography. The scrutiny began with self-searching, in Obama's 1995 memoir, "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance." And then, during the 2008 Presidential campaign, it plummeted into absurdity with the charge that the Democratic candidate was not a U.S. citizen. Before the release of the "long-form" birth certificate, last year, a Gallup poll found that more than two in five Republicans believed that the President was either definitely or probably born in another country. After the release of the birth certificate, a follow-up poll found that nearly one in four still believed that to be the case. Maraniss, then, is embracing the beauty and, in a way, the innocence of randomness partly as a way of battling what he calls "strange armies of ideological pseudo-historians" who have researched Barack Obama's origins in order to argue some or all of the following: that he is not an American citizen, that he was born in Nairobi, that he was educated at a madrassa in Jakarta, that he is a Muslim, that he is a Kenyan nationalist, and that he is an anti-imperialist and a socialist.
The last of these positions is taken by Dinesh D'Souza in "The Roots of Obama's Rage," which is the basis for his forthcoming documentary "2016." D'Souza argues that the President of the United States is his father, reincarnated, and that Obama even "took his father's name in order to cement his explicit identification with him."
Weird stuff happens. What does it mean? Making a man responsible for the name his parents gave him the day he was born is a good illustration of the consequence of embracing a theory of history in which nothing is chaos and everything is conspiracy. Given a choice between a chaotic theory of history and a conspiratorial one, I'll take chaos. Still, there are other choices. You could chalk things up to fate: blame Providence. Or you could get empirical: employ social science. Historians who study the movements of populations, the flow of ideas, the traffic in goods, the barter of culture, and even the rhythms of nature find explanation in structures, in order. In biography, order is to be found in the journey of life; in genealogy, in lines of descent. In biography, the boy is father of the man. In genealogy, the boy is a leaf on a branch of his family's tree. Marry chaos to biography and we live in a world of wonder and innocence. Marry conspiracy to genealogy and we live in a world of unending inequality, in which our origins are inescapable.
Barack Obama barely knew his father. "He had left Hawaii back in 1963, when I was only two years old," Obama wrote in "Dreams." This isn't quite true, as Maraniss points out. (By no means does Maraniss believe only in chaos. He has a passion for chance, but also a belief in order and a commitment to evidence.) Barack Obama's father actually left Hawaii in June of 1962—he went to Harvard, to enroll in a Ph.D. program in economics—and his mother left nearly a year earlier, in August of 1961, taking her baby with her to Seattle when the baby was less than a month old, so that she could study at the University of Washington. Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Obama, Sr., never lived together, and were divorced in March of 1964.
That spring, the Boston office of the I.N.S. refused to renew Obama, Sr.,'s visa; the file mentions that officials at Harvard "couldn't seem to figure out how many wives he had." He left the country that summer, and was soon joined by an elementary-school teacher from Newton named Ruth Baker, who married him in Nairobi, in December of 1964. The following year, Stanley Ann Obama, who had moved back to Honolulu, married an Indonesian student named Soetoro Martodihardjo, who went by the name Lolo Soetoro. She graduated with a B.A. in anthropology in August of 1967, and then flew with her six-year-old son to Jakarta, on the island of Java, to be with her new husband, in another country that was in the process of remaking itself, having thrown off colonial rule. She had a daughter, Maya, in 1970 and, the next year, sent her son back to Hawaii to live with her parents and attend Punahou, a prestigious prep school founded by missionaries.
Barack Obama did not meet his father until he was ten years old and just starting fifth grade at his new school in Hawaii. In 1971, the elder Obama flew from Kenya and stayed in a guest apartment in Stanley and Madelyn Dunham's apartment building. His visit lasted only a matter of weeks. After that, the boy never saw his father again. Nevertheless, according to D'Souza he has, for his entire life, been animated by his father's unrealized ambition to avenge the colonized peoples of the world by destroying the United States. The White House is haunted by the ghost of Hussein Onyango's son: "The most powerful country in the world," D'Souza writes, darkly, "is being governed according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s." Inheritance is destiny.
Obama began "Dreams from My Father" with this sentence: "A few months after my twenty-first birthday, a stranger called to give me the news." He was in his apartment in New York, on Ninety-fourth Street, making breakfast, when the phone rang:
"Barry? Barry, is this you?"
"Yes . . . Who's this?"
"Yes, Barry . . . this is your Aunt Jane. In Nairobi. Can you hear me?"
"I'm sorry—who did you say you were?"
"Aunt Jane. Listen, Barry, your father is dead."
And that's how his story of inheritance begins: "I sat down on the couch, smelling eggs burn in the kitchen, staring at cracks in the plaster, trying to measure my loss."
Barack Obama, Sr., had been driving along a stretch of road, bordered by sunflowers, between Kenyatta National Hospital and Mawenzi Gardens, when he lost control of his car and drove into a pole. Maraniss doesn't get to Obama's father's death until page 413. "Dreams" is a coming-of-age story. In Maraniss's book, Obama never comes of age, not even by the last page, when he's twenty-seven, and about to start Harvard Law School. Maraniss is biding his time, Robert Caro-style, but he's up to something else, too. "There are certain tendencies and recurring themes from Obama's history that help explain his presidency," he writes—everything in this book is meant to foretell—and these began in his family's past, long ago.
The splashiest parts of Maraniss's book, some of which appeared in a much discussed excerpt published in the June issue of Vanity Fair, cover Obama's years as a teen-ager and as a young man. In high school, in Hawaii, he read Baldwin and Ellison and staged debates and smoked pot and played basketball. "Good luck in everything you do, and get that law degree," he wrote in a friend's senior yearbook. "Some day when I am an all-pro basketballer, and I want to sue my team for more money, I'll call on you."
In 1979, he went to Occidental College, where he perfected his impression of Mick Jagger and published a poem titled "Pop" in a student literary magazine called Feast. It begins:
Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken
In, sprinkled with ashes,
Pop switches channels, takes another
Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks,
What to do with me, a green young man
Who fails to consider the
Flim and flam of the world, since
Things have been easy for me.
He wanted to be a writer. He wanted to live in a writer's city. He transferred to Columbia and started a long-distance relationship with Alex McNear, one of the editors of Feast. He wrote the usual wobbly and sometimes wonderful but always frighteningly self-conscious stuff that smart, driven kids write in college. "I haven't read The Wasteland for a year, and I never did bother to check all the footnotes," he wrote in a letter to McNear, around the time he was taking a class with Edward Said. "But I will hazard these statements—Eliot contains the same ecstatic vision which runs from Munzer to Yeats. However, he retains a grounding in the social reality/order of his time. Facing what he perceives as a choice between ecstatic chaos and lifeless mechanistic order, he accedes to maintaining a separation of asexual purity and brutal sexual reality. And he wears a stoical face before this. Read his essay on Tradition and the Individual Talent, as well as Four Quartets, when he's less concerned with depicting moribund Europe, to catch a sense of what I speak."
Much of this, like most of the genre to which it belongs, kept in boxes in the bottom of our closets, is quite painful to read. The boy version is braced with bluster ("You seem surprised at Eliot's irreconcilable ambivalence; don't you share this ambivalence yourself, Alex?"), the girl's flooded with feeling. Genevieve Cook met Obama at the end of December of 1983. Obama, in his autobiography, does not reveal her name; Maraniss describes their time together as "the deepest romantic relationship of his young life." She kept a diary:
January 10, 1984
Wonder where it will go with Barack. . . .
January 22
What a startling person Barack is—so strange to voice intimations of my own perceptions—have them heard, responded to so on the sleeve. A sadness, in a way, that we are both so questioning that original bliss is dissipated—but feels really good not to be faltering behind some façade. . . .
February 19
Despite Barack's having talked of drawing a circle around the tender in him—protecting the ability to feel innocence and springborn—I think he also fights against showing it to others, to me.
They slept together for more than a year, and for a while they lived together. She found his remoteness infuriating:
February 4, 1985
Who is this boy/man/person, Barack Obama? . . . I find now that questions of who he is reflect back on myself. . . . Some sense of the veiled withholding that I still feel flutters between us—constantly respun from both our ends.
By May, it was over. That summer, he moved to Chicago.
Not long after that, Obama's half sister Auma, one of Kezia's children, visited him in Chicago. After she left, he decided to go to Kenya, to meet the rest of his family, and wrestle with the story of his origins.
Maraniss follows Obama to Africa for only a few short pages. "Obama had come to Kenya hoping to put all the pieces of his shattered genealogy back together again," he writes. But what Obama did in Kenya, at least as he writes about it in "Dreams," was to try to measure the distance between what he had inherited and who he wanted to be. ("Facing what he perceives as a choice between ecstatic chaos and lifeless mechanistic order," as the young Obama put it, he chooses . . . change.) Putting the pieces of his "shattered genealogy" back together again was not so much Obama's project as it is Maraniss's.
In "Dreams," Obama writes about discovering that his father was a fierce and brutal man who tried to drink away his disappointments. (He also beat Ruth, and Maraniss's evidence suggests that he may have beaten Stanley Ann, too.) He calls his father the Old Man. The Old Man, Auma tells him, "came back here thinking that because he was so educated and spoke his proper English and understood his charts and graphs everyone would somehow put him in charge. He forgot what holds everything together here"—kinship. "He was lost," Obama says.
Kinship is not what holds everything together in the United States, at least as far as the national myth would have it, or used to have it, before a baby born in the Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital, in Honolulu, at 7:24 P.M. on August 4, 1961, derailed that story. Washington rides his horse. Jackson charges into battle. Lincoln fells trees. Kennedy fells Nixon. Obama goes to Kenya. What Obama offered in "Dreams," and promised, during his campaign, was a different notion of becoming: the inheritance, and then the transcendence, of race. He meant that as an allegory for America. "I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas," he said in 2008. "I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible."
Back in Chicago, working on the South Side, watching black kids growing up edgy and angry, he wished he could ask the Old Man "just what it is that we've done to make so many children's hearts so hard."
That wasn't his father's question or, for that matter, his mother's. Nor was it a question either of them could have answered. Nor has their son, who is lost in a story no longer of his own making. It's still a good question, though. ♦


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Bottled Sushi Ingredients
Many of the bottled ingredients used when making sushi are probably familiar to you. These bottled sushi ingredients keep, unopened and in a cool dark pantry, for many months. Refrigerate opened bottles of sushi ingredients, such as soy sauce or rice vinegar, so that they taste good and last longer:
Thick chili sauce: Even though chili sauce didn't start out as a Japanese ingredient, sushi bars would have to close their doors if they ran out of it!
Mirin (sweet cooking sake): A slightly syrupy, sweet cooking sake (about 8 percent alcohol).
Plum wine: True Japanese plum wine is made with unripened plums, rock sugar, and a strong distilled spirit, making it more of a sweet, fruity liquor than a wine.
Ponzu sauce: Authentic ponzu sauce derives its unusual fragrance and zip from yuzu, a lemon-colored, tangerine-shaped citrus grown for its zest, not pulp.
Rice vinegar: Mild but full of flavor. In a pinch, apple cider vinegar is a good substitute for rice vinegar.
Sake (Japanese rice wine): You needn't invest in expensive sake for cooking purposes, but do buy one that's drinkable.
Sansho (Japanese pepper): The dried and ground pods of the prickly ash tree that create a fragrant, finely ground pale spice that's more minty-citrusy or tangy than spicy hot.
Soy sauce: Soy sauce was introduced to the Japanese by the Chinese centuries ago. The Japanese took this fermented soy bean sauce and tweaked its taste to suite their palates.
Shichimi togarashi (seven-spice chili seasoning): Traditionally contains fresh chili flakes, black and white sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sansho, ao-nori, and Mandarin orange peel.
Dark sesame seed oil: The roasted, nutty fragrance of dark sesame seed oil is enough to make anyone hungry!
Spicy sesame seed oil (rayu): Rayu is basically dark sesame seed oil, heated up with chili.


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Many diseases can be prevented or cured if they are found early. That's why it's so important to get screened.
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National Health Information Center - NHICU.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Adults need shots (vaccines) just like kids do. Make sure you are up to date on your shots.
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Getting screening tests is one of the most important things you can do for your health. Talk with a doctor or nurse about scheduling important screenings.
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Find answers to many questions about HIV and STD testing. Locate a testing site near you.
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Half of all blindness can be prevented. A vision screening does not replace an eye doctor's exam, but it can help identify people who are at risk for eye disease.
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Colonoscopy is a procedure that can detect early signs of colorectal or colon cancer. Learn how colonoscopy is performed, how to prepare for, and begin routine screenings.
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Search and Browse on your PDA or mobile device the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations for screening, counseling, and preventive medication based on a person's age, sex, and pregnancy status.
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Use the information in this pamphlet to help you stay healthy. Learn about which screening tests to take, whether you need medicines to prevent diseases, and steps you can take toward good health.
If you have a new health insurance plan or insurance policy, find out which preventive services must be covered without your having to pay a copayment or co-insurance or meet your deductible.
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Preventive services such as screenings, immunizations, and advice from your doctor are available to help you stay healthy. Find out which preventive services are right for you.
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You have your medals,Now, give one to Them.Spouse MedalChild MedalParent MedalLet them know you care.
Save Our Benefit DoD Podcasts In The FightASM Job Advantage
15 provisions enhance benefits for Veterans
WASHINGTON — Effective Aug. 1, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) implemented 15 more provisions of the Harry W. Colmery Educational Assistance Act of 2017, also referred to as the Forever GI Bill.
These provisions, in addition to the 13 implemented since the law was signed less than a year ago, will have an immediate and positive impact on Veterans and their families using VA benefits to pursue their educational goals.
By Claudette RouloDoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9, 2018 The Defense Department will establish a sixth branch of the armed forces, the U.S. Department of the Space Force, by 2020, Vice President Mike Pence announced today.
In a speech at the Pentagon, the vice president also announced plans to establish a new combatant command -- U.S. Space Command -- as well as a Space Operations Force and a new joint organization called the Space Development Agency.
By Abigail KellyAugust 9, 2018
ARLINGTON, Va. -- Social media plays a significant role in everyday life, especially for military families. It helps them learn information about their next duty station and stay connected to the family and friends they leave. At the same time, the tool is also used by terrorists to seek out individuals and information.
Therefore, it is essential to follow Army regulations on social media use and protect operational security because if members of the military community put too much information online, and violate operational security, the safety of service members and their families can be at risk.
By Joe Versen on July 31, 2017
The Department of Labor Veterans' Employment and Training Service works daily to make sure that those who serve have the employment support they need when they transition back into civilian life. Here are three ways we're getting veterans back to work:
1. Transition Training
As a component of the Transition Assistance Program, or TAP, the Labor Department provides a mandatory three-day employment workshop, as well as an optional two-day Career Technical Training Track curriculum focused on licensing, credentialing and apprenticeship programs that lead to well-paying civilian jobs and meaningful careers. During the 2016 fiscal year, the department hosted over 6,300 employment workshops worldwide for over 184,000 participants.
By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON August 28, 2015 -
America sends its sons and daughters to war, and a new play titled "I Will Wait" looks at the effect of these deployments across the generations.
The brainchild of Amy Uptgraft, the play connects the experiences of spouses from World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Afghanistan and Iraq. Uptgraft wrote the play with Gregory Stieber, who also directed the play. It premiered July 31 in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
From a Department of Defense Education Activity News Release
ALEXANDRIA, Va. August 26, 2015 —
Nearly 75,000 students are beginning the 2015-2016 School Year in Department of Defense Education Activity schools around the world.
DoDEA schools educate children of service members and the civilians who support them in 12 nations, seven states and two territories. Through its Educational Partnership Branch, DoDEA provides support to more than a million military-connected students who attend public schools throughout the United States.
By Amaani LyleDoD News Features, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON August 26, 2015 -
Today, Women's Equality Day not only commemorates the ratification of the 95th anniversary of the 19th Amendment -- which solidified women's voting rights -- but it also coincides with current milestones for women in service, a Pentagon official said in an Aug. 24 DoD News interview.
Officer and Enlisted Personnel Management Director Juliet Beyler, who oversees department-wide policies that include promotions, assignments, separations, force management, and awards and decorations, said casting a wider net for talent and diversity across the force is critical.
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), all Americans including all military members (active duty, retired, Selected Reserve, or Retired Reserve) and their eligible family members must have health care coverage that meets a minimum standard called minimum essential coverage or pay a fee. Your TRICARE coverage meets the minimum essential coverage requirement under the ACA.
"The term "active duty" means full-time duty in the active service of a uniformed service for more than 30 consecutive days".
By Terri Moon Cronk DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON August 21, 2015
TRICARE beneficiaries who take certain brand-name medications on a regular basis will be required to fill prescriptions at a military treatment facility or through a mail-in program beginning Oct. 1, a Defense Health Agency official said yesterday.
George Jones, DHA's pharmacy operations division chief, said the new policy does not apply to active-duty troops, overseas beneficiaries, nursing-home residents and those with other health insurance that has a prescription-drug program. In certain circumstances, he added, some beneficiaries might be waived from the program on an individual basis.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. NR--August 21, 2015
The Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be buried with full military honors.
Army Maj. Dale W. Richardson of Mount Sterling, Illinois, will be buried Aug. 29, in Mountain View, Ark. Richardson was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, and was the passenger aboard an UH-1H Iroquois (Huey) helicopter that was en route to Fire Support Base Katum, South Vietnam, when it was diverted due to bad weather. After flying into Cambodian airspace, the aircraft came under heavy enemy ground fire, causing the pilot to make an emergency landing in Kampong Cham Province, Cambodia. The Huey's four crewmen and its four passengers survived the landing. One crewman was able to evade being captured by enemy forces and later returned to friendly lines. The other three crewmen and one passenger were captured. Two of the captured crewmen were released by the Vietnamese in 1973, and the remains of the other two captured men were returned to U.S. control in the 1980s and identified. Richardson died at the site of the crash during a fire fight with enemy forces. His remains were not recovered after the fire fight.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. NR-336-15August 21, 2015
By Terri Moon CronkDoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, Aug. 14, 2015 - The 2015 Military Youth of the Year honor, presented jointly by the Defense Department and Boys and Girls Clubs of America, was awarded to an 18-year-old military daughter from Vogelweh, Germany, during a ceremony held at the Navy Memorial Naval Heritage Center here yesterday.
RianSimone Harris, 18, an 11-year member of the program, was selected from six finalists for her sound character, leadership abilities and willingness to give back to her community -- the partnership's goal in supporting youth programs and military youth, officials said.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. NR-328-15August 11, 2015
The Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that servicemen, missing from World War II, have been accounted for and their remains are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
Army Air Forces 1st Lt. William P. Cook of Alameda, California; Flight Officer Arthur J. LeFavre of Red Bank, New Jersey; Staff Sgts. Maurice J. Fevold of Chicago, Frank G. Lane Jr. of Cleveland and Ward C. Swalwell Jr. of Chicago; and Sgt. Eric M. Honeyman of Alameda, California, have been accounted for and will be buried with full military honors. Cook was buried Oct. 18, 2014, in Oakland, California. Fevold was buried Oct. 20, 2014, in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, and Lane was buried May 2 in Willoughby, Ohio. Honeyman was buried on June 22 in Trail, British Columbia, Canada. LeFavre will be buried on Aug. 18 in Arlington National Cemetery. The group representing the crew will be buried on Aug. 18 in Arlington National Cemetery. Swalwell will be buried on Aug. 20 in Arlington National Cemetery.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. NR-326-15August 10, 2015
The Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Army Cpl. Nehemiah E. Butler Pocomoke City, Maryland, will be buried today in Arlington National Cemetery. In late December 1950, Butler and elements of Company C, 19th Infantry Regiment (IR), 24th Infantry Division (ID), were deployed near Seoul, South Korea, when their unit was attacked by enemy forces. During the attempt to delay the enemy forces from advancing, Butler was separated from his unit while moving towards a more defensible position. Butler was reported missing Jan. 1, 1951.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. NR-321-15August 06, 2015
Airman Missing From World War II Accounted For
The Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing since World War II, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Stephen V. Biezis of Chicago will be buried Aug. 14, in Arlington National Cemetery. His co-pilot, 1st Lt. James F. Gatlin of Jacksonville, Florida, was buried Jan. 30, in Bushnell, Florida. On Dec. 23, 1944, Biezis and his crew of five were assigned to the 575th Bombardment Squadron, 391st Bombardment Group, 9th Air Force and were deployed to Germany. Biezis was the co-pilot of a B-26C Marauder that crashed after being struck by enemy fire while on a bombing mission against enemy forces near Ahrweiler, Germany. Biezis, Gatlin and three other crew members were reported killed in action. His remains were not recovered during the war.
By Amaani LyleDoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, Aug. 8, 2015 - In remarks at the National Purple Heart Ceremony at George Washington's Mount Vernon estate today, the senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff praised heroes across wars and eras who have exemplified bravery and endured incomprehensible peril.
Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Bryan Battaglia stressed that the Purple Heart is a decoration of explicit distinction, recognizable not just to the American citizen, but to people around the world. "Many nations, militaries envy our culture and the dignified manner that we hold to our fallen, but also how we recognize and care for our wounded," he said.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 1, 2015 - Military children may have opportunities to live in interesting places but they also face unique challenges that can affect their education, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command said yesterday at the Military Child Education Coalition seminar here.
Navy Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr. said the MCEC offers customized tools and information to give military children the greatest opportunity for a successful education, with long-term impact.
U.S. Transportation Command
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill., Aug. 29, 2014 - Many service members may not know of their entitlements when shipping personal vehicles as they move overseas or return stateside, according to U.S. Transportation Command officials.
"Our customers have reasonable expectations on the delivery of their vehicles," said Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul H. Guemmer. "I know I do."
Guemmer is the Deputy Director (Military) for the Strategy, Capabilities, Policy, and Logistics Directorate at Transcom, which is headquartered here. He is responsible for DoD's transportation strategy across the entire Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise, to include infrastructure, long-range programs, future requirements, coalition integration, and mobility partnerships with industry.
August 28, 2014Online Resource Provides Student Veterans with Key Education and Benefits Information
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today launched an improved version of the GI Bill® Comparison Tool, which was first launched in February 2014. The GI Bill Comparison Tool is designed to make it easier for Veterans, Servicemembers, and dependents to estimate their GI Bill education benefits and learn more about VA's approved college, university, and other education and training programs across the country. It also provides key information about college affordability and value so beneficiaries can choose the best education program to meet their needs.
In the past 6 months, nearly 350,000 people have accessed the tool on VA's GI Bill website. The top schools searched by users include: American Public University, Harvard, University of Texas at Austin, Arizona State University, and University of Washington.
Please include 1-3 ideas for ensuring that a move goes smoothly. Also, if possible, include your name (first name, last initial is fine) and email address (for any follow up questions).
By Jim GaramoneDoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, Aug. 25, 2014 - The Defense Department has issued a request for proposals to modernize its electronic health records and allow DoD to share health data with the private sector and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
It is a multi-billion dollar request to replace many of the current DoD legacy health care systems. This includes Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application (AHLTA), Composite Health Care System (CHCS) (inpatient), and most components of the Theater Medical Information Program-Joint (TMIP-J), with the objective of achieving initial fielding of a modernized replacement by the end of calendar year 2016.
August 25, 2014
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today announced plans to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a new Medical Appointment Scheduling System; the next step in a series of actions VA has taken to replace its antiquated legacy scheduling system. The new system will improve access to care for Veterans by providing medical schedulers with cutting-edge, management-based scheduling software. The RFP will be made public by the end of September 2014; eligible vendors will have 30 days to respond from the day of issuance.
by Lt. Col. Sandra Kent 7th Bomb Wing Judge Advocate Office
8/5/2014 - DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- Election season is right around the corner and political campaigning is ramping up. It's a good time to review campaigning restrictions placed on military members and civilian Department of Defense employees.
Restrictions are imposed to avoid any inference that an individual's political activities imply or appear to imply official sponsorship, approval or endorsement by the DoD. Even though there are restrictions on political activities, military members and civilian employees may vote for whomever they choose.
August 5, 2014VA launches new identity theft website and toll-free help line
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today announced that it has launched a new campaign to educate Veterans about identity theft prevention. The new campaign, titled More Than a Number, references the personally identifiable information that VA encourages Veterans to protect.
"We recognize that for Veterans, as for all Americans in the digital age, identity theft is a growing concern," said Steph Warren, VA's Chief Information Officer. "Our goal is to help educate and protect those who have protected this great country."
by Staff Sgt. Ian HoachlanderAir Force Personnel Center Public Affairs
"JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas" - The number of Airmen and families moving overseas without the proper passport or VISA is increasing, according to Air Force Personnel Center officials.
This costs Airmen time and money during a permanent change of station, and it's a waste of Air Force funds as well.
By Karen ParrishAmerican Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29, 2013 - As a new school year begins, a Department of Veterans Affairs official announced today that VA will nearly triple the number of colleges and universities it partners with to offer on-campus vocational and rehabilitative VA counseling through its "VetSuccess on Campus" program.
Curt Coy, VA's deputy undersecretary for economic opportunity, told reporters during a conference call that the program, which began in 2009, will expand from its existing 32 campuses to 94. Its primary goal is to provide on-campus counseling and referral services to student veterans as they transition to civilian life, Coy said.
By Claudette RouloAmerican Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 26, 2013 - Department of Defense Education Activity students, parents and employees should expect quite a few changes in the upcoming school year, the DODEA director said in an Aug. 23 interview.
Those changes will be both visible and behind the scenes, but they all are geared toward improving the quality of education at DODEA schools, Marilee Fitzgerald told American Forces Press Service and the Pentagon Channel.
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2013 - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs today announced the second round of HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing funding to local public housing agencies across the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
The $7.8 million in added funding will provide housing and clinical services for 1,120 currently homeless veterans.
By Ellen CrownU.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Aug. 15, 2013 - Experts from the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs gathered here yesterday to discuss the future of veterans' mental health and traumatic brain injury research efforts at the Military Health System Research Symposium.
Discussion leaders included Health Affairs Director of Medical Research Dr. Terry Rauch, Acting Chief Officer of the VA Office of Research and Development Dr. Timothy O'Leary, U.S. Army's Combat Casualty Care Research Program Director Col. Dallas Hack, Deputy Director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center Katherine Helmick, and Uniformed Services University School of Medicine's Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress Director Dr. Robert Ursano.
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 14, 2013 - Today, the Department of Defense announced its plan to extend benefits to same-sex spouses of uniformed service members and Department of Defense civilian employees, according to a DOD news release issued today.
After a review of the department's benefit policies following the Supreme Court's ruling that Section Three of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, and in consultation with the Department of Justice and other executive branch agencies, the Defense Department will make spousal and family benefits available no later than Sept. 3, 2013, regardless of sexual orientation, as long as service member-sponsors provide a valid marriage certificate.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 575-13
August 09, 2013
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. service member, missing from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Marine Corps Pfc. Jonathan R. Posey Jr., 20, of Dallas, will be buried Aug. 12 in Arlington National Cemetery. In December 1950, Posey, assigned to L Battery, 4th Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, was serving provisionally as an infantryman with the 7th Marine Regiment at Yudam-ni in the vicinity of the Chosin Reservoir. On Dec. 2, 1950, Posey was killed in action while the 5th and 7th Marine Regiments were withdrawing to Hagaru-ri.
From a TRICARE Management Activity News Release
FALLS CHURCH, Va., Aug. 7, 2013 - The Defense Department will reduce the number of TRICARE Prime service areas in the United States beginning Oct. 1, affecting about 171,000 retirees and their family members.
Those beneficiaries, who mostly reside more than 40 miles from a military clinic or hospital, received a letter earlier this year explaining their options. They will receive a second letter later this month.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 6, 2013 - As part of the Integrated Mental Health Strategy, the Defense Department's National Center for Telehealth and Technology and the Veterans Affairs Department's mental health informatics section have partnered to develop an interactive online educational and life-coaching program. Moving Forward, at http://www.startmovingforward.org, is designed to teach problem-solving skills to members of the military community, Dr. Robert Ciulla, director of the mobile health program at the National Center for Telehealth and Technology, told American Forces Press Service today.
Moving Forward is focused on addressing stress -- specifically, recognizing when a person is stressed, identifying stressors and developing stress management skills.
by Master Sgt. Marvin PrestonAir National Guard Readiness Center Public Affairs
8/7/2013 - JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. -- The schedule of a military spouse is an arduous one.
Appointments, dinners, and family time are vital to maintaining the normalcy that can strain military life. Add volunteerism and the schedule can get as challenging as that of the crafter at the grinding wheel, but a military spouse is earnestly involved and focused.
Alicia Hinds Ward, the 2013 Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year, is another in the long line of military mothers and spouses who work a multitude of tasks -- seemingly at the same time.
Calling all CHEFS and PROFESSIONAL COOKS! Food Network is giving you a chance to win up to $20,000!
Do you have the ability to make something out of nothing? Can your recipes prove as inventive as they are delicious?
By Jim GaramoneAmerican Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 6, 2013 - Savings and the ability to reprogram funds made possible today's announcement by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that unpaid furlough days for about 650,000 civilian employees are being reduced.
Hagel signed a memo cutting furlough days for about 650,000 Defense Department civilian employees from 11 to six. This means that for most employees, the furlough will be over Aug. 17.
DALLAS - The Army & Air Force Exchange Service and The Walt Disney Studios are teaming up to offer first-run films to military families at continental United States Exchange movie theaters.
The agreement marks the first time in the Exchange's 118-year history that movies will be shown at continental United States Exchange theaters on the same day of general market release. First-run movies have previously only been available at Exchange theaters outside the continental United States.
By Terri Moon CronkAmerican Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 5, 2013 - A White House and Defense Department challenge to hire 50,000 military spouses by the end of 2015 surpassed its goal Aug. 1, the acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness told members of the Defense Department's Military Family Readiness Council at the Pentagon today.
The effort to hire 50,000 spouses reached fruition through the Military Spouse Employment Partnership, a group of more than 180 employers that vowed to recruit military spouses, Jessica Wright said.
By Tim HippsU.S. Army Installation Management Command
SAN ANTONIO, Aug. 6, 2013 - A group that got its start in Army Entertainment is the driving force behind the American Military Spouses Choir, an "America's Got Talent" quarterfinalist scheduled to perform tonight at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
The show will be televised live on NBC at 9 p.m. EDT.
From a Department of Veterans Affairs News Release
WASHINGTON, Aug. 2, 2013 - The Department of Veterans Affairs announced yesterday that veterans filing an original fully developed claim for service-connected disability compensation may be entitled to up to one-year of retroactive disability benefits.
The retroactive benefits, which are in effect Aug. 6, 2013, through Aug. 5, 2015, are a result of a comprehensive legislative package passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama last year.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 30, 2012 - Bells have rung in 194 Department of Defense Educational Activity Schools around the world, marking the start of another school year.
Marilee Fitzgerald, the director of the agency, spoke during a Pentagon news conference today about changes to the school system and the unique role these schools play.
From a Federal Voting Assistance Program News Release
ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 28, 2012 - Service members, their families and U.S. citizens living overseas now have voting information at their fingertips with the Federal Voting Assistance program's new mobile website.
The site provides an interface that quickly leads users to voting information in an easy-to-read, mobile-friendly format.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27, 2012 - While U.S. service members in Afghanistan made mistakes in handling Qurans in February, there was no intent "to disrespect the Quran or defame Islam," the general investigating the incident wrote in his report.
U.S. Central Command released the results of the investigation into the incident, in which Qurans removed from a library for detainees were mishandled at Bagram Airfield.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 709-12August 27, 2012
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of three servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, were recently identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
Army Sgt. 1st Class William T. Brown of La Habra, Calif., Sgt. 1st Class Donald M. Shue of Kannapolis, N.C., and Sgt. 1st Class Gunther H. Wald of Palisades Park, N.J., will be buried as a group on Aug. 30, in a single casket representing the three soldiers, in Arlington National Cemetery. Brown and Shue were each individually buried on Sept. 26, 2011, at Arlington and May 1 in Kannapolis, N.C.
By Lisa DanielAmerican Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2012 - The White House initiative to hire veterans and military spouses has surpassed its goals, having led to the hiring or training of more than 125,000 veterans and spouses in the past year, First Lady Michelle Obama announced today.
Speaking to sailors and their families at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Fla., the first lady said 2,000 companies have hired 125,000 employees through their pledges to the "Joining Forces" campaign, and, of those, 140 employers have hired 28,000 military spouses.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 696-12August 22, 2012
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in action from World War II, has been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. John E. Hogan, of West Plains, Mo., will be buried Aug. 24, in Arlington National Cemetery. On Sept. 13, 1944, Hogan and eight other crew members were on a B-17G Flying Fortress that crashed near Neustädt-on-Werra, Germany. Only one of the crewmen is known to have successfully parachuted out of the aircraft before it crashed. The remaining eight crewmen were buried by German forces in a cemetery in Neustädt.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2012 - Finwe Wiendenhoeft is a military-connected kid living the kind of healthy lifestyle First Lady Michelle Obama encourages through her "Let's Move [ http://www.letsmove.gov ]" campaign ? and one endorsed by the Defense Department [ http://defense.gov ].
Healthy is a way of life for Finwe, 9, who lives with her family on 30 acres in southwest Wisconsin, according to her mother, Kristina, and it was their recipe for a meatless burger that earned the two seats at the first-ever "Kids' State Dinner [ http://www.letsmove.gov/kids-state-dinner ]" at the White House yesterday.
From a Department of Labor News Release
WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2012 - The Labor Department today awarded grants totaling $11.53 million through the Veterans' Workforce Investment Program to provide an estimated 5,500 veterans with job training and skills development services.
"These grants will increase the skill sets of veterans and result in training and credentialing for jobs in high-demand industries," Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis said. "Our veterans made sacrifices on behalf of our nation, and I ask all employers to renew their commitment to veterans, because the best way to honor our veterans is to hire them."
VetJobs and its veteran service partners are assisting MasterCard with an educational study to identify financial issues faced by enlisted personnel and their families.
We are conducting focus groups on August 28 and August 29 in Virginia Beach. Focus group participants will be paid $50.00 for their time. The focus groups will last 60 to 90 minutes.
By Gary SheftickArmy News Service
LONDON, Aug. 9, 2012 - Air Force family member Janay DeLoach leaped 6.89 meters last night at Olympic Stadium here to take the bronze medal in women's long jump at the Summer Olympics.
USA teammate Brittney Reese won the gold with a jump of 7.12 meters, and Russia's Elena Sokolova earned the silver with a jump of 7.07.
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Kim Kardashian: My Marriage Wasn't Fake & I Really Loved Kris Humphries
Kim co-hosts 'Live With Kelly' on Jan. 23 and says it's crazy that people think she only married Kris for money!
Kim Kardashian is coming out swinging to defend her 72-day-marriage. The reality star spoke in-depth for the first time about why her marriage to Kris Humphries ended in divorce. When Kelly Ripa tells her that most people believe Kim married Kris for the cameras, Kim gets very upset!
"If you really think about it, I would hope this is fake and someone wouldn't go through this," Kim says. "Me being a hopeless romantic, I wanted it to work so badly and I made all that money and the wedding was fake and just for TV? I'm a smart woman! I would have stayed married longer!"
Kim says she's actually hurt that so many people attacked her after she filed for divorce and she doesn't find it hard to watch her marriage currently unravel on Kourtney and Kim Take New York.
"It doesn't make sense. I didn't think following my heart would create this much backlash," she says. "I watch it back because it's therapeutic. It's crazy to see, to see [Kourtney and Scott] and what they're talking about, about me. How different I was the past couple of months … they felt what I was feeling too."
But does Kim think she'll ever tie the knot again?
"I'm a hopeless romantic," she says. "I fell in love and I thought it could work. I think I learned that I need to re-write my fairy tale. I definitely tried everything I felt I could. You hear stories of people who have kids and had this life and it ended up not working out. I want babies … I want that forever love and I just felt like, if I feel in my heart this isn't right, then why wait years for the same result."
— Chloe Melas
More Kardashian News


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Hollywood Effects Aid Marine Training
By Amy May
Special to American Forces Press Service
BUTLERVILLE, Ind., June 23, 2008 - The scene in Building 7 at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center here was chilling.
Visitors were greeted by the sounds of a screaming man, covered in blood and missing his legs just above the knees. A walk up the blood-stained and cartridge-littered staircase revealed another injured man attempting to lift his automatic weapon for a shot at whoever appears in the doorway. All the while, eerie music played on the loudspeakers and other gun-toting, shouting men darted out of the shadows to take shots at the training Marines.
A California special effects company set up the scene to imitate the real thing.
This realistic urban warfare training is what training center strives to do for everyone from local police officers to its latest guests, 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based in Camp Lejeune, N.C.
An expeditionary unit, explained Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Bryce Piper, is a self-sufficient, 2,200-member unit that is rapidly deployable and cross-trained for a number of missions. Although much of their training here centered on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Marine expeditionary unit could be called upon to conduct a wide variety of missions, including conducting humanitarian, security or rescue operations anywhere in the world, clearing buildings and performing diplomatic missions in a war zone.
"This training is part of the regular work up for every MEU. We do this type of training as part of our regular cycle to make sure every Marine knows his job and knows the job of the Marine next to him," Piper said.
The Marines have excellent facilities at Camp Lejeune, said Capt. Shawn Rickrode, but they get used to them after training there daily, so it's beneficial to require them to use their skills in an unfamiliar environment, just as they would in a real mission.
The Marines spent their days at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center rotating through several training stations.
One scenario had the Marines guarding an entry point of the forward operating base, searching vehicles and their drivers played by actors seeking entry. If the Marines miss a bomb or fail to notice the driver is armed, they pay the price.
"We give them the general scenario, but the actors run with it," Rickrode said. "Obviously, we can't blow a vehicle apart, but some [explosions] are very loud and very sudden. We use cork to imitate the shrapnel."
Piper said another important lesson is cultural sensitivity. The Marines must try to learn the customs of a society they might be deployed to. For example, in Middle Eastern culture, it's rude to show the bottoms of your feet, and there are strict rules about men interacting with women.
The Marines can use a voice recognition translator when interacting with local citizens. Rickrode demonstrated the device, which takes sentences in English and translates them. It can be hooked up to a megaphone if the Marines wish to address a crowd.
It's an important device, Rickrode said, because there is no way the Marines could learn all the languages they might encounter.
At the mock checkpoint, the Marines dealt with vehicles attempting to storm the gate, cooperative drivers and exploding vans -- all situations they might face in a real war zone.
Another scenario required the Marines to visit a village tribal leader in Afghanistan.
The leader, an actor, expressed his distrust of the United States, but finally offered some intelligence about a cache of weapons behind a building where two suspicious men had been seen. As the Marines checked that out, a land mine exploded on a nearby soccer field, and several people were seriously injured. In that situation, the Marines must assume defensive postures, check out the immediate danger and then offer aid to the injured.
Marine Corps 1st Lt. Brandon Ward, in charge of the scenario, said it tests the Marines on several levels.
"They come in planning to bring peace and stability. Now we'll see if they'll hold true to their word and help out. The challenge is to get out of the aggressive mind set and just help the people," he said.
The most spectacular special effects were at the building-clearing scenario. The Marines were required to go through several buildings, looking for insurgents. Thin wires stretched across the courtyards to fire simulated, and loud, rocket-propelled grenades at anyone foolish enough to stick his head out a door or window. Inside, the Marines were shot at with small, paint-filled cartridges that bore an uneasy resemblance to blood upon impact.
In the Building 7 scenario, the Marines blasted open the door with an explosive and found an injured man inside.
After the initial push into the building, a few Marines stayed behind to offer help to the man who lost his legs in the explosion. Another man inside, however, wouldn't stop trying to raise his weapon and fire, so he had to be shot.
Marine Corps 1st Lt. Craig Bryan said the training should instill a willingness to help the injured, even if they are insurgents. If the person displays no aggression and drops his weapon as ordered, the Marines should offer medical aid. "Everyone deserves that," he said.
The special effects workers labored nearby, mixing buckets of fake blood and restringing their RPGs. The company has worked on TV shows such as "Point Pleasant," "Silk Stalkings" and "Pensacola: Wings of Gold." It formed a second division after Sept. 11, 2001, which offers military training complete with pyrotechnics, sound effects, realistic wounds and actors to play the enemy. Rickrode said about 40 actors portrayed various insurgents, injured people or drivers for the Marine training exercises.
The Marines also practiced techniques used when pulling over vehicles and attended a demonstration of military working dogs.
The dogs are trained for aggressive patrol work or to sniff out explosives. The MEU does not have dog handlers, but the commanders wanted them to be familiar with the dogs as a resource they could call upon.
After each scenario, the Marines went through the "hot wash," or after-action review. This is usually conducted by the trainers and commanders, but Muscatatuck Urban Training Center offers an additional tool: video. Building 7 is equipped with 58 cameras.
Doug Barker, a former Indianapolis Police Department employee, set up the system and hopes to install video surveillance in 23 locations at the training center. After an exercise, he can create a video for the trainees to watch. Showing people what they did right or wrong is much more effective than telling them, he said.
"They need to see what it looks like. It's not real effective until they actually see it," Barker said.
The Marines also trained for urban scenarios in nearby communities and at Camp Atterbury, Ind., but much of their time there was cut short by flooding and a tornado. Some of them put their training on hold to help with sandbagging at Indiana towns threatened by flooding.
"Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief are among the primary mission capabilities of the 26th MEU," Marine Corps Col. Mark J. Desens, the unit's commander, said. "Though it's not what we came here to do, we are ready to help those affected by this crisis."
The Marines said their training at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center was challenging. It was their first visit, and they were glad they made the journey, they said, even if the Indiana weather was a little inhospitable.
"This facility is so perfect for this type of training," Piper said. "The urban environment is exactly the kind of thing we're trying to train to."
(Amy May is a Camp Atterbury Crier staff writer.)
*Related Sites:*
26th Marine Expeditionary Unit [ http://18.104.22.168/26thmeu/index.htm ]
Muscatatuck Urban Training Center [ http://www.mutc.org/ ]
Camp Atterbury [ http://www.campatterbury.in.ng.mil/ ]
Hollywood Effects Aid Marine Training [ http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=50281 ]


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BENEFITING: Northern Illinois Food Bank
EVENT: Foodie 5k
A community fun run/walk featuring a post-run festival with music provided by 93.9 MyFM, delicious food from local Food Trucks, a Kids' Zone with fun fitness activities provided by My Gym Wheaton, and the opportunity to meet Ozzie from the Kane County Cougars.
All registered participants will receive a Foodie 5K long-sleeved dry-fit t-shirt, a voucher to a Kane County Cougar home game of your choice and a $2 voucher to be used at a food truck during the event.
Friday, April 11
12:00 pm - 7:00 pm: Packet pick-up at participating Athletico locations or Northern Illinois Food Bank. Determine pick-up location upon registration.
Click HERE for detailed race information, incuding certified course map.
The Foodie 5k is a chip-timed fun run/walk.
Online fundraising prior to the race is encouraged by all runners!
$1 donated equals $8 worth of groceries to a family in need.
Click HERE to download the event Poster.
Click HERE to download the event Brochure.
Click HERE to view Fundriasing Incentives.
Click HERE to download the Online Fundraising Guide.
Click HERE to download Fundrasing Tips.
Click HERE to download editable sample letters.
Northern Illinois Food Bank is excited to announce a partnership with Kopf Running for the inaugural Foodie 5K. Kopf Running is an endurance coaching company that specializes in working with charity athletes. Coach Seth provides customized training programs for any distance race as a certified running coach through USA Track & Field and the Road Runner's Club of America, and creates programs personalized to the individual, and the programs are easy to follow – for both the beginner and experienced runner.
Through Kopf Running, Foodie 5K participants can take advantage of discounted training services. Any race participant that purchases a customized training program will also receive weekly training & nutrition tips as well as "Ask the Coach" email/phone support. Coach Seth will work with each team member to create a personalized training plan, no matter if you are participating in your very first 5K or if you are attempting to set a personal best!
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The Crimson takes the water for the first time this autumn at a quartet of regattas (photo courtesy Athletic Communications).
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The Harvard sailing teams open their fall season this weekend with a quartet of events including the Harvard Invitational. The coeds will race at the 41st Harry Anderson Trophy and the Lark Invitational hosted by No. 2 Yale and No. 10 Tufts, respectively. The women will compete at the Toni Deutsch Trophy at MIT. All races are set to begin at 9:30 a.m.
Fans can follow results from the 41st Harry Anderson Trophy and the Toni Deutsch Trophy, live, here.
Follow Harvard Athletics on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay connected with all the breaking news from around Cambridge and to get inside access to your favorite Crimson programs.
Last Season
During the 2012-13 campaign Harvard raced to a first-place finish at the Ted Farrarone Team Race March 30-31. The coed squad finished second at the Tufts Central Series Sept. 8-9 and ninth at the 64th New England Team Racing Championship/Fowle Trophy May 4-5, while the Crimson women sailed to sixth-place results twice, at the 27th Women's Brad Dellenbaugh Trophy March 30-31 and 45th Women's President's Trophy Intersectional April 6-7.
Leading the Fleet
Michael O'Connor is entering his 17th season at the helm of the Harvard program. Since he took over the Crimson program in 1997, Harvard has won national team race championships in 2002 and 2003, as well as the 2003 national coed championship and the women's national title in 2005.
Captains of the Ships
Senior Isabel Ruane will return to her duties as captain for the third consecutive season, while classmate Ames Lyman will join her as co-captain.
Third Time's a Charm
Isabel Ruane's third consecutive year as captain marks the first time in Harvard sailing history that the Crimson were led by the same sailor for three-straight seasons. The senior's third term displaces Clay Johnson '07's and Ben Lamont '14's two-season record.
Preseason Prestige
Harvard's coed sailing team has been ranked 16th in the SailingWorld.com preseason national poll, presented by Sperry Top-Sider. The Crimson is one-of-four Ivy League schools to make the list, trailing No. 2 Yale, No. 3 Dartmouth and No. 8 Brown.
Related Link: Sailing World's College Rankings
Coming Up
Harvard will return to the water next weekend, Sept. 21-22, when the Crimson compete in five regattas.


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- Zuccardi Q Malbec, 2012 Modest, not too spicy Rather light malbec Drinkable but not special 88 pts
- Good. Worth buying again.
- $38 at Grill From Ipenema (1st and Battery, Seattle) - pleasant, smooth. Not too sweet nor too dry
- Nice Whole Foods wine. Also at Murphy's.
- strong, full, maybe a little too full bodied for my taste. yet awesome even so. it's kinda like "Malbec plus".


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Game Boy / Game Boy Color
Action Man: Search For Base XACTION MAN™, the "Greatest Hero Of Them All", is crashing onto Game Boy Color!Help ACTION MAN track down and stop DR. X before he uses his evil weapon on the world! Based on the internationally top-selling toy brand that is taking the U.S. by storm, players assume the role of Action Man, the "Greatest Hero of Them All". As ACTION MAN, players get a chance to use ACTION MAN devices, explore a jungle, climb through a mine, rescue scientists from a snow base, and penetrate DR. X's secret Moon Base! Can you stop DR. X from unleashing his evil weapon? With tons of cool equipment and outfits, there's nowhere ACTION MAN can't go and nothing he can't do on Game Boy Color! Look out, DR. X!Features:Customize ACTION MAN for each mission with tons of gadgets, uniforms, and special e.m.p. weapons that disable enemiesOver 15 levels of gameplayGame-engine from the developers of WWF Wrestlemania and Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue for Game Boy ColorBattle robots, security drones, huge insects, and the evil Dr. XPassword system to save progress


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Working with a tanking Paladin
[A few edits are added – bracketed italics like this – where I try to remove my foot from my mouth…]
Tankadins cause more swearing among healers I know than anyone else. While part of it is that tanking with a paladin is harder to learn – and so till they "get it" they're not so good a tank as a warrior or bear – part of it is a miscomprehension of how to work with the tankadin effectively. So, let's take a look.
Now, to start I'm going to give a basic overview of how a pally tanks. This isn't detail – for that I'll recommend either this article from WoW-Insider; this US forum post; or this EU forum post. Actually, all three give slightly different viewpoints (and the commonalities are extremely useful for non-tankadins). On we go…
As with all tank types, the pally tank does his job by generating lots of threat. While talents and skills can enhance the generated threat, it's mainly created through actions.
Like all tanks, the tankadin generates threat through damaging foes. Nothing new, no modification of our behavior is needed.
The tankadin can also gain threat from being damaged in that he's got talents that return damage to the attacker. In some respects a variation on the first method, it is still nothing that changes our behavior.
The tankadin can heal. Ahhhh, think about this again. The tankadin's healing generates threat. Half the heals [Halved again due to innate talent – see below], divided by the number of mobs, applied to every mob. THIS requires thought. Because every heal you do for this tank is not just threat you're building but it's threat you're pre-empting from the tank. Basically, you are DOUBLING your threat level when you heal a tankadin. BUT… the tank is doing a lot of things and so can't stick to healing — if s/he does, that's damage that's not being done, which means less threat… Fortunately, I have a general recommendation you can use till you gain experience here.
Until the tankadin's mana is below half, you are responsible for the bottom 2/3 of the tank's health, and the tankadin is reponsible for the top third. Assume at level 70 your tank as about 12K health (buffed), that means the tankadin manages a 4K pool and you get the bottom 8K. [As Gwaendar graciously corrects me below, this is wildly wrong. While the pally's healing will generate threat, I forgot about the innate halving of healing threat. And while I was at it, the consequences of trying to cast a spell while being beat upon. Most embarassing of all is the fact that some of these same points are in the guides I referenced. Gah. But then, that's why I ask for comments and corrections. So I get better…]
Which means you spend less time and mana healing — it actually gives you a better use of the five second waltz. It also allows you to play more with the rest of your party.
Oh – in case your tankadin is fairly new to the job, you really, REALLY have to watch one thing. The paladin has a bubble, just like the priest. Except that while the bubble is up the paladin can't attack. That'd be bad enough, but there's worse. The bubble is also, essentially, fade. The idea of a tank tripping fade gives me nightmares. Be prepared. If the pally bubbled it's a desperation instinct. Slap a big heal and a renew and then fade yourself and hope SOMEBODY else has high aggro. And… have a macro standing by. Something like:
/me says YOU FRIGGING IDIOT YOU'RE A TANK QUIT BUBBLING AND PASSING THE MOBS INTO MY FACE. Pretty please with sugar and sparkles?
5 Responses to "Working with a tanking Paladin"
"The tankadin can heal.(…) Until the tankadin's mana is below half, you are responsible for the bottom 2/3 of the tank's health, and the tankadin is reponsible for the top third."
Uuuh, no. Just no. What you describe is the FFXI paladin, not WoW.
A tankadin won't heal himself for the following reasons:
1. Pallie heals have a native 50% aggro reduction, it's the least efficient way to generate hate
2. A level 70 cookie-cutter tankadin will have 0 points in holy, meaning his heals don't benefit from the talent which gives 70% chance to resist interruption. Self-healing while tanking doesn't work because even a Flash of Light takes ages to go off
3. When casting non-instant spells, a pallie doesn't block. When he doesn't block, he is crittable, crushable and open to 15% more normal hits than when he's blocking.
4. Most of the threat the tankadin generates comes from Holy Shield, which assumes you're actually blocking.
Not only are you responsible for 100% of the pallie's health pool, you will also to have to make sure that you overheal as little as possible. Getting healed will return a tankadin's mana, unless it's an overheal – in which case the whole effect is lost (not just the overheal portion).
However, if you really are experiencing loss of aggro from a tankadin, he's either new to the job or needs a little bit more +spell damage (+120 to +200 is enough even for raiding, I'm told) on his tanking gear. If there's one thing tankadins are good at, it's generating a ton of aggro very fast.
FYI there are two Paladin bubbles, the self only FULL immunity one DOES allow the Paladin to attack at 50% of normal attack rate (Full speed with prot talents) AND it is possible for the Pally to keep the mob on him while bubbled for a short time using his taunt.
I would normally ignore something like this but a TRULY talented paladin tank can use this technique macroed as a wonderful debuff remover, fear breaker, or as a slightly gimped last stand, giving you time to get off that clutch heal.
Lastly, DO NOT fade until he has clicked OFF the bubble. Pally bubbles do not affect the aggro table by a set number or anything of the sort… they are just automatically at the bottom of the list until the bubble drops. They can also still generate aggro during the bubble. Your best bet is to fade right AFTER the bubble since they were most likey generating less threat while bubbled (due to the reactive nature of a lot of pally threat).
One other thing to recommend for your tank if he hasn't already, go to the forums at:
and read up. there is no better pally tanking resource anywhere on the web.
I'm a lvl 70 Protection Paladin. When i'm in a instance with a group there is one thing that i never do when tanking is to try and heal myself. Tanking Paladin do not try to attempt to heal them self when tanking. No do we attempt to bubble when tanking. If we ever do that it is absolutely dire if we ever do for very few reasons. I'll likely fail on health from not been healed from the healer than pulling my bubble. You have to remember that there is a difference between been in a instance than soloing for a paladin where he will heal himself soloing. But tanking is a different thing. Its the healers responsibility for 100% of the tank health and that means a Paladin tank.
Paladins can hold aggro and aggro on multiple mobs just fine. All you as a healer had to do is keep him healed. Healing allows a Paladin to recieve 10% of the healing back in mana to them. Paladin want to take damage because on healing its how they get a constant source of mana back. A paladin being healed also generate threat through Spiritual Attunment, its threat that goes on that paladin aggo list or adds to his aggro for even more threat. Paladin can take physical damage just fine as the more damage we take the more threat we generate on the mob in reflected damage and with Holy Shield.
The difference is though is that people needs to know how to work with the different tanks, warriors, paladins, druids. Each works differently and as such a group needs to work as such differently with the tank.
I'm also a lvl 70 tankadin. I fully agree with Gaoheart here above me. We pallies have the ability to create aggro in a wide area around us (consecration), and in my case I seldom loose that aggro, that means no one of my party members get attacked, no one else needs healing but me so the healer only needs to focus on me. I really don't see how that should be a problem for a healer. In some cases, where u have alot of adds or spawn, maybe one or two of theese slips by my AoE, but that really is no problem (or shouldnæt be). In my opinion priests are the worst healers for a paladin. Because they way to often bubbbles me. That means I'm not getting hit (aggro building from auras/blessing and buffs), not creating aggro/threat and not getting healed (meaning my mana pools is getting emptied fast. Ever heard the expression "blue rage" bar? No mana, no threat building). Luckely we nowget a 2% base mana return for each block when we have blessing of sanctuary up. But if we are bubbled…. The healers I like best in a group is Pallies, druids, shammies and then priests.


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Donations handed out as quickly as they come in
Tuesday, as grateful families got the help they so desperately needed for Thanksgiving, local food pantries pleaded for even more help.
"Just trying to keep the head above water, is what it is," says Brian Barks. That's how he describes the state of things at the Food Bank of the Heartland. 30,000 pounds a day leaves the food bank's shelves, leaving the pantry empty at times.
It's a service people like Jennifer Smith say they don't want what they'd do without. Smith is out of work, and took time away from applying for a countless number of jobs to stand in a line, wrapping around a block, for food. As unlucky as she feels, on this day, she still found a reason to give thanks.
"Tonight, we'll probably serve around 600 people," said Chelsea Salifou with Hope Heartland Mission, Food Bank of the Heartland's biggest recipient of donated goods. Chelsea is just one person in an assembly line of volunteers who are giving back.
"We had a lady come in on Tuesday," described Salifou. "She said 'you know, I had to make a decision. Do I pay my rent or do I buy a Thanksgiving meal for my kids?"
Organizations like the Food Bank of the Heartland and volunteers like Chelsea Salifou hope the next time you think about empty shelves, you realize the reason and the need are real and not easy to overcome.
"It's not getting any worse, but it's not getting any better," said Barks.
And this year, the Food Bank of the Heartland crossed a new threshold, forced to buy $200,000 worth of food because food donations were running short. Fortunately, monetary donations made up the difference.
All of the organizations KETV talked to Tuesday want to express their thanks to anyone and everyone who has helped them with time and donations.


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Kershaw to 2-0 as Dodgers shut out Pirates
LOS ANGELES -- Clayton Kershaw followed his Opening Day shutout with another gem as the Dodgers beat the Pirates, 1-0, on Saturday night at Dodger Stadium.
Kershaw struck out nine against one walk and allowed only two Starling Marte singles. The left-hander, who held the Giants to four hits in his 2013 debut, extended his scoreless streak to 20 innings, dating back to Oct. 3.
"Unbelievable," said third baseman Luis Cruz. "He's amazing."
Following Marte's leadoff single in the first inning, Kershaw recorded 17 consecutive outs before the outfielder reached on an infield hit in the sixth on a bang-bang play.
Kershaw struck out four straight between the fifth and sixth innings, and had four frames with multiple punchouts. He threw 97 pitches.
"It's hard to say you've seen him pitch better when he hasn't given up any runs," manager Don Mattingly said. "But we've seen stretches where he's pretty much like this every time out. He's obviously throwing the ball good. He's been really good."
The Dodgers needed another dominant performance from their ace, as the offense was stymied by Pirates right-hander A.J. Burnett, who allowed one run on four hits in 5 1/3 innings. He struck out nine with four walks.
"That's a pitchers' duel right there," Burnett said. "I was going up against one of the best, so I tried to follow what he was doing. It was my first time pitching against him -- the first time really seeing him. It fires me up to be in a game like that."
Mark Ellis provided the Dodgers all the runs they needed with a single in the third inning, the second baseman's first RBI of the year. Carl Crawford scored from second base on Ellis' liner to left field after reaching on an infield hit and stealing second, his second steal of the night.
In Kershaw's two starts, the Dodgers have managed only five runs. They've scored in only two innings. But the lefty hasn't let the offense's woes change his demeanor on the mound.
"It doesn't affect anything for me," Kershaw said. "I'm trying to not let them score any runs regardless of if we're winning 10-0 or 1-0. The way I'm trying to pitch doesn't change, regardless of the score."
The Dodgers' offensive issues haven't reached Crawford, though. He continued his strong start at the plate with his third multi-hit game. Crawford's been a catalyst at the top of the lineup and given the Dodgers exactly what they envisioned when they traded for him in August.
"Carl just keeps rolling along," Mattingly said. "I think we're seeing little glimpses of what everybody else was seeing for a while. We see the speed and really what Carl can cause."
Still, the Dodgers had plenty of opportunities to tack on insurance runs and came up empty. Their best chance came in the sixth inning. The Dodgers loaded the bases with one out, only to see Cruz pop out and Justin Sellers ground out.
Cruz and Sellers both went 0-for-4, remaining hitless on the season.
"I just feel a little bit different, like jumpy and not selective," Cruz said. "I think it's part of the game. I'll be fine. I still have to go out and play defense. We have a lot of good pitching, so defense means a lot to us."
A night after recording his first hit of the season, Matt Kemp went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. He also grounded into a double play to end the seventh inning.
Mattingly isn't worried about his star center fielder. He believes it's only a matter of time before Kemp finds himself at the plate.
"The track-record guys you don't really worry about," the manager said. "I know Matt's going to hit. I know Matt's going to stay after it and he'll hit."
Three Dodgers relievers combined for two scoreless innings to preserve Kershaw's second win of the season. Paco Rodriguez and Kenley Jansen each had a strikeout in the eighth, and closer Brandon League recorded his second save in as many nights.
Andre Ethier extended his hit streak to five games with a single to right in the fourth inning. The outfielder is the only Dodgers player with a hit in each game this season.
Los Angeles ran its home win streak against Pittsburgh to eight games, dating back to Sept. 16, 2011.
"We won the series all ready, so it's a big win for us," Kershaw said. "We have to come out tomorrow and close out the series."


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Shun Classic Hollow-Ground Chef's Knives
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- Summary
Indispensable for everyday cutting tasks from chopping to slicing, Shun's chef's knife features a supersharp blade hollow-ground with indentations that reduce friction and minimize sticking.
- VG-MAX "super steel" blade is clad on each side with 34 microthin layers of stainless steel, creating a variegated look reminiscent of a Damascus-style blade.
- Indentations along the blade reduce friction and keep slices from sticking.
- Exceedingly sharp cutting edge is long lasting and easy to maintain.
- Durable PakkaWood handle resists moisture and has a D shape, to sit comfortably in the hand.
- This NSF-certified knife meets the high-level safety standards for professional kitchens.
- Handcrafted in Japan.
- Dimensions & More Info
- 6" chef's knife: 6" -long blade, 5" -long handle; 5.9 oz.
- 8" chef's knife: 8"-long blade, 5"-long handle; 7.8 oz.
- Handcrafted in Japan.
- Use & Care
- Always use caution when handling sharp objects.
- Avoid cutting on hard surfaces such as stone, metal or glass.
- It is not advisable to use any knife but a meat cleaver to cut through bone, as other blades can be easily damaged.
- Hand-wash with warm water and a mild detergent; rinse and dry immediately.
- Avoid cleaners containing bleach or citrus extracts.
- Sharpen as needed. With regular use and honing once a week, your knife should not need sharpening more than once or twice a year.
- Sharpen your knife at home using a whetstone or knife sharpener designed to sharpen at a 16-degree angle, or have it sharpened by a professional.
- Store knife in a safe place to protect its edge and prevent injury.
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UPS can deliver most in-stock items within 3–5 business days. UPS is unable to deliver to P.O. boxes.
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Orders received by 9:00 p.m. ET Monday through Thursday will arrive the next business day; orders placed Friday through Sunday will arrive on the following Tuesday.
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At Williams Sonoma, we take great pride in the quality and craftsmanship of our products. Attention to design, materials, safety and construction are our priority. Upon receipt, please inspect your purchase and notify us of any damage; we will arrange for a prompt replacement.
If within 30 days, you are dissatisfied for any reason, you may return your purchase for a refund of the merchandise value. An original receipt or gift receipt is required for all returns and exchanges. Returns with a gift receipt will be refunded in the form of a Merchandise Credit for the amount indicated on the gift receipt. Returns with original receipt will be refunded in the original form of payment, cash and check refunds over $100 will be issued as a company check (may take 14 business days from time of request).
For all cutlery returns (knife sets, single knives, cutting boards, knife sharpeners and knife storage), please contact us at 888.922.4108 to initiate the return.
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Rated 5 out of 5 by ArtieBucco from Good enough for a professional kitchen Quality steel, nice profile and fantastic fit and finish. The D shape handle makes this thing feel like it's melting into my palm when holding it. If you're a righty this knife is worth checking out. I only wish they offered this handle for the Kaji line. Used the 8" chef knife in a professional kitchen daily for a year and it's held up nicely. A few scratches but absolutely no rust or chipping problems as it's been well maintained. The steel holds an edge for about a month or 200 plus hours with some honing on a ceramic rod in between. For a home cook that's several months to a year depending on level of care.Date published: 2018-11-23Rated 5 out of 5 by DrEllen from The Perfect Knife I bought a Shun knife a couple of months ago. It was so amazing, I ended up buying two more (in different sizes. It is absolutely the best knife I have ever owned. It cuts with ease tomatoes PAPER THIN, and equally impressive, any other fruit or vegetable I have - all without any exerction on my part. A friend of mine mentioned she could never find a good knife. I gifted her one. She is delighted, and plans on buying additional ones for herself. IT IS 'THE PERFECT KNIFE.'Date published: 2014-08-30Rated 5 out of 5 by TeteATarte from Excellent Knife Love this knife. It gets the job done. I will say that I did have the earlier incarnation of it last year and while sharp and a dream to handle, that blade was just too thin and within about 2 months the point chipped off and another nick made its way into the blade. I returned the defective knife to WS. The replacement knife seems to have a slighty thicker blade than before and this seems to be making the difference: the same sharpness without the fragility. Go for it!Date published: 2014-03-02Rated 5 out of 5 by Donna61 from My new favorite chef's knife Excellent knife...extremely sharp, glides through vegetables...great for chopping.Date published: 2013-08-13Rated 5 out of 5 by Cookindad from Favorite gift I've been giving Shun knives as gifts to good friends and family. I love them and they are always well received. Easy to order from WSDate published: 2012-12-30
Can this be ordered with the left-handed handle? If so, how?Hi Holly, Sorry, we do not offer the left-handed version of this knife.Date published: 2019-11-27