Florida National Guard

The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have depleted the equipment inventory of the National Guard, potentially hampering its response to the predicted heavy hurricane season, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said Monday. The Florida National Guard has only 53% of the dual-use equipment it once had for responding to a storm or domestic disturbance, a recent analysis by the Government Accountability Office found.

A Florida Army National Guard Apache attack helicopter with a crew of two crashed in north Florida while on a training mission, killing one crew member and injuring the pilot, the National Guard said. The AH-64A Apache helicopter was on a routine training mission with three other aircraft at Camp Blanding in northern Florida when it crashed, the Guard said in a statement. The cause of the crash was not yet known but was being investigated by Army safety officers.

The Pentagon announced Tuesday which ground units it would be sending to Iraq and Afghanistan starting in mid-2005. The units, which will deploy between mid-2005 and mid-2006, will maintain the current level of U.S. forces in each country, excluding the extra troops being sent to provide security during Iraqi elections scheduled for January, military officials said. About 138,000 troops are in Iraq and 18,000 in Afghanistan.

In a twist on the photography that inflamed the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, a separate group of U.S. soldiers in Iraq shot a video of themselves beating prisoners and using the hand of a dead Iraqi to "wave hello," according to documents released Friday. The DVD, which soldiers derisively titled "Ramadi Madness" in reference to a turbulent city in Iraq's Sunni Triangle, prompted an internal Army investigation of the Florida National Guard troops from West Palm Beach who were involved.

A U.S. soldier charged with deserting his unit in Iraq walked away from the war partly to avoid orders to abuse Iraqi prisoners, his attorneys argued Wednesday. Attorneys for Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, an infantryman with the Florida National Guard, spent the first day of his court-martial asking a military judge to allow witnesses to testify in support of Mejia's claim that his unit was ordered to abuse Iraqi detainees. The judge, Col.

A soldier who refused to return to duty in Iraq reported to his unit in Florida on Tuesday and said he would go to prison rather than take part in "an oil-driven war." Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, who is seeking to be declared a conscientious objector, met with officials at his Florida National Guard unit after repeating his determination not to return to the Middle East and fight. "I'm prepared to go to prison because I'll have a clear conscience," Mejia said.

The nation's top general Monday tearfully recalled his Italian parents' struggles when they arrived in the United States, and senators said his emotional testimony could help them gain leverage in the battle over changing the nation's immigration laws. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace, a Marine general who has served in Vietnam and Somalia, testified at a special field hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It was designed to highlight the role of immigrants in the military.

A pair of wild pigs that wandered off course were hit by an F-16 fighter, forcing the pilot to eject as the jet veered off a runway and crashed at Jacksonville International Airport. The pigs were killed. The pilot was bruised. The $16-million jet was destroyed. Lt. Col. Sam Carter, 46, was rolling down the runway at 160 m.p.h. after landing Tuesday night when he saw "a brown blur" and felt a bump before his Air National Guard jet veered toward a ditch and a stand of pines.

A pilot seeking asylum crowded a group of his relatives into a small, government-owned cargo plane and flew Monday from Cuba to Florida, landing safely at Key West International Airport. Two Florida National Guard F-16 fighters scrambled to intercept the yellow Soviet-made Antonov-2 Colt biplane once it appeared on U.S. radar screens after taking off from Pinar del Rio in western Cuba. The fighter pilots ordered the aircraft to land as local police and federal agents waited alongside the runway.