Alla inlägg under december 2014

Av loren adams - 31 december 2014 23:06

 

Av loren adams - 29 december 2014 09:50

Gen. John Campbell opens the "Resolute Support" flag during a ceremony at the ISAF headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2014.   (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) 

 

(NEWSER) – The United States and NATO formally ended their war in Afghanistan today with a ceremony at military headquarters in Kabul as the insurgency they fought for 13 years remains as ferocious and deadly as at any time since the 2001 invasion that unseated the Taliban. The symbolic ceremony marked the end of the US-led International Security Assistance Force, which will transition to a supporting role with 13,500 soldiers, most American, starting Thursday. Gen. John Campbell, commander of ISAF, rolled up and sheathed the green and white ISAF flag and unfurled the flag of the new international mission, called Resolute Support. "Resolute Support will serve as the bedrock of an enduring partnership" between NATO and Afghanistan, Campbell said. He paid tribute to the international and Afghan troops who have died fighting the insurgency, saying: "The road before us remains challenging but we will triumph."

As Afghan forces assume sovereignty, the country is without a Cabinet three months after President Ashraf Ghani's inauguration, and economic growth is near zero due to the reduction of the international military and aid juggernauts. The United States spent more than $100 million on reconstruction in Afghanistan, on top of the $1 trillion war. This year is set to be the deadliest of the war, according to the UN, which expects civilian casualties to hit 10,000 for the first time since 2008. This has also been a deadly year for Afghanistan's security forces—army, paramilitary, and police—with around 5,000 deaths recorded so far. Around 3,200 of those have been police. The mission ends with 2,224 American soldiers killed, according to an AP tally, out of a total of some 3,500 foreign troop deaths.

 
 

Av loren adams - 28 december 2014 13:59

I don't think you will
ever fully understand
how you've touched my life
and made me who I am.

You are an amazing personality
and without you I don't know where I'd be.
Having you in my life
completes and fulfills every part of me. 

 

 
Av loren adams - 27 december 2014 12:14

  KANEOHE BAY: President Barack Obama in a Christmas Day speech to US troops stationed in Hawaii hailed their “extraordinary dedication and sacrifices,” as Nato prepares to wrap up its combat mission in Afghanistan. 

After a morning of exchanging gifts with family members during their annual year-end vacation in his birth state, the president and First Lady Michelle Obama paid a visit late on Thursday to a Marine Corps base in Hawaii. 

As service members and their families tucked into a dinner of lobster, turkey, green beans, yams and other traditional Christmas Day fare, the president took the microphone to thank them for “extraordinary service” that he said has allowed the United States to hand responsibility for security to Afghan forces. 

“We’ve been in continuous war now for over 13 years. Next week we will be ending our combat mission in Afghanistan,” Obama told the crowd, to cheers and applause. 

“Because of the extraordinary service of the men and women in the armed forces, Afghanistan has a chance to rebuild its own country. We are safer. It’s not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again,” he said. 

Nato’s combat mission ends on Dec.31, although some troops will remain to support the Afghan army and police who have taken on responsibility for suppressing worsening violence nationwide. 

Flags were lowered at Kabul airport earlier this month as the US-led Nato force in Afghanistan marked the closure of its combat command centre. 

Av loren adams - 26 december 2014 09:59

  God will continue to bless you more.I'm telling you my mind and my feelings 

nice Xmas but no place like home
this will be the last Xmas i do here
believe me
no much fun here 
the Military celebrated it for us though
but you can't compare it when i am home 
i 'll be in the office
watching TV , reading and eating
Love..I appreciate you more in my Life

you have been with me always.

Av loren adams - 26 december 2014 07:15

Top Afghan and U.S generals have visited Pakistan amid heightened security concerns following last week's Taliban-led school massacre in Peshawar.

Pakistan's army chief General Raheel Sharif addressed anti-terrorism efforts with Afghan General Shir Mohammad Karimi and U.S General John Campbell, commander of U.S and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

A statement by the International Security Assistance Force said Tuesday's meeting in Islamabad focused on military coordination "on both sides of the border."

The restive frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan is seen as a haven for several militant groups, including the Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the Peshawar school siege that killed nearly 150 students and teachers.

General Sharif traveled to Afghanistan a day after the attack to address transnational threats with Campbell and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Pakistan is engaged in a months-long offensive against rebels along the border. The Taliban cited the army's actions since June in the North Waziristan tribal district as the motive for the school assault.

Authorities have made an unknown number of arrests linked to the attack and an investigation is ongoing.

The country also responded by reinstating capital punishment. Pakistan announced on Monday the planned executions of about 500 Islamist terrorists, with six militants having been hanged since Friday.

Regional officials also have threatened to deport nearly three million Afghan refugees, most from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Following the school attack in the province's capital of Peshawar, leaders gave Islamabad one month to determine the fate of the area's undocumented residents.

   
An Afghan border policeman is seen patrolling a section of the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Av loren adams - 24 december 2014 14:32

 

The story has become yet another chapter in the book of Christmas legend.

The year was 1914 and soldiers on both sides of the battlefield somewhere in France were enduring a dark and frozen Christmas Eve night. World War I — the Great War, as it was called — eventually took the lives of more than 10 million people. But it is doubtless that the mostly-young men of that Christmas Eve were contemplating much more beyond their longings for home and warmth and family.

When soldiers on the German line placed candles on small Christmas trees and raised them above their trenches it touched the hearts of their enemies. These men — thousands of them on both sides — spontaneously began to sing the carols of Christmas.

What began in those moments became the legendary Christmas truce. Weapons were put down, men ventured from their fortifications and gathered in No Man’s Land to make note of the season together. They exchanged small gifts after agreeing to a truce so that all could celebrate the season.

And so for a short period of time, no shots were fired. The following day, men who only hours before fought fiercely now stood side by side and buried their dead. Together, with heads uncovered, they held a service to memorialize their fallen comrades. Before departing for another frozen night in the trenches, a solitary voice began to sing Silent Night, in French. He was joined by another voice — this one singing in German — the words of a hymn known and beloved by all.

Together they contemplated “heavenly peace”.

By then, Silent Night was nearly 100 years old. That it was familiar and beloved by men on both sides of the line was no surprise. “Silent Night” was known around Europe and was sung in many languages for generations.

But for years historians have argued about its history. Books, magazine articles, news reports and Internet web sites have told tall tales of a grand history for Silent Night. But in reality, the story of Silent Night is as simple as the song itself.

In Oberndorf, Austria on Christmas Eve of 1818, Joseph Mohr, an assistant pastor, took the words of a poem he had written previously to Franz Gruber, a schoolteacher and talented musician. Joseph asked his friend to put the lyrics to music so that it could be performed that very night at Midnight Mass. The result was Silent Night, sung as a duet by Mohr and Gruber. They were accompanied by the Church choir and a guitar.

Like most precious things associated with Christmas, Silent Night was passed on from person to person as it touched lives. For Christmases to come, the simple hymn was performed first in families, then by traveling chorales, and eventually it was performed in capital cities before royalty. In the nearly 100 years it took to be known of the World War I generation, it had been performed in dozens of languages.

Today, historians are working to correct the tall tale aspects of the story of Silent Night. Regardless of what you read out there, Silent Night was not born of a broken organ incapable of playing something more grand at that Midnight Mass because mice had eaten through the bellows. There was no inspiration for the song born of a city fire in Salzburg.

“Silent Night” was the invention of an assistant pastor and his talented friend for a simple celebration of Christmas. And so it is used these days as well — a touching message of peace, a reminder of the best wishes for the season.

 
Av loren adams - 23 december 2014 06:55

All I ever wanted was to be part of your heart,
And for us to be together, to never be apart.

No one else in the world can even compare,   

You're perfect and so is this love that we share.


We have so much more than I ever thought we would,
I love you more than I ever thought I could.


I promise to give you all I have to give,
I'll do anything for you as long as I live.


In your eyes I see our present, our future and past,
By the way you look at me I know we will last.


I hope that one day you'll come to realize,
How perfect you are when seen through my eyes.


i trust you with everything i have in my life..
we have come together a long way..
and the love i have for you cant be shared 
 
 Sweetheart..
I know you will be sleeping now..I love you more and more .
thank you honey fot staying with me in my life
 
..Wishing you Merry Christmas 
in Advance and i Love you more.
 

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