In the News
It was a recruiting poster that first caught the attention of Sgt. Jacob Rosales.
The poster, at Fort Irwin, California, highlighted a new type of unit and a promise for a fundamental change to how the Army plans to prosecute long-standing missions in countries like Afghanistan.
And at Fort Bragg, that promised change is becoming a reality.
The 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade is nearly at full strength, officials said. And the unit, the second of its kind in the Army, is already preparing for a deployment early next year.
Since February, Vietnam War veteran Roland Rochester has been going outside of the Fayetteville Veterans Affairs Medical Center to see a private doctor for treatment of diabetes, anxiety and high blood pressure.
Rochester, 65, said he sees the private doctor and a neurosurgeon with the VA’s blessing. He said the VA doesn’t have the capability to treat him, so it pays for his treatment to go elsewhere.
FORT BRAGG, N.C. – Under Secretary of the Army Ryan D. McCarthy visited Fort Bragg July 26 to meet with Soldiers assigned to the 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade and discuss the importance of their mission, what it means to be a part of the SFAB and the future of the U.S. Army.
McCarthy said that the performance of the SFABs has exceeded expectations and that this due largely to the skills, expertise and dedication of the Soldiers who volunteer to be a part of the unit’s specialized advise and assist mission.
Much of North Carolina’s congressional delegation signed onto a bill that would impose sanctions on Turkey over that country’s holding of pastor Andrew Brunson.
The bill calls for U.S. officials at international financial institutions to oppose loans to Turkey pending the release of Brunson, according to a summary from Rep. Mark Walker of Greensboro, the bill’s sponsor. Walker is a former Baptist preacher and co-chair of the Congressional Prayer Caucus.
Senators and congressmen who represent North Carolina were quick to disagree with statements made by President Donald Trump during a Monday news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In response to questioning, Trump said Putin had denied that Russia was involved in attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The four congressional lawmakers who represent the Fayetteville area issued statements critical of Russia following President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.
Here is what they said:
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, Republican
President Trump on Wednesday stoked divisions in Europe by wading into the middle of an intense fight over the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, a project that critics fear will give Moscow new leverage in the region and could create a geopolitically dangerous Russian-German economic alliance.
At a high-stakes NATO summit in Brussels, the president blasted the $9.1 billion pipeline and argued that it is giving Russia undue influence over Berlin and, by extension, fracturing the solidarity of NATO.
President Trump tore into the NATO summit in Brussels on Wednesday with a double-barrel assault on Germany, saying a pipeline deal would render the country “captive to Russia” even as Berlin looked to the U.S. for defense from Russian aggression.
The charge, leveled at a breakfast meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, surpassed expectations that Mr. Trump would shake up the old military alliance.
Five months after the October deaths of four U.S. soldiers in Niger, the government added the African nation and its neighbors to the list of countries where service members receive additional hazard pay.
To avoid future delays in payments for troops participating in an expanding theater of war, a North Carolina congressman who represents Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, where all four soldiers were stationed, wants the Department of Defense to reconsider how it determines who is eligible for imminent danger pay.
A team of 12, including two teens, from North Albemarle Baptist Church is among a number of American missionary groups stranded in Haiti because of an uprising.
First slated to leave Saturday from a week-long mission trip in the underdeveloped nation, a forced closure at the airport after escalating protests delayed the team’s departure. As conditions worsened overnight, Sunday’s planned exit was nixed as well.