more on our Eskimo Guard and Iraq

See previous
More on the Eskimo Guard
More on Iraq effects
What impact will Iraq war call-up have

CSM Hudson Represents All Enlisted Members of Transformed Guard

By SGT Jim Greenhill, National Guard Bureau, Courtesy of National Guard Bureau Public Affairs
1/9/06, Arlington, VA

…CSM David Ray Hudson … uniquely qualified to be the senior enlisted advisor to the chief of the National Guard Bureau.

He eventually became the ninth state command sergeant major for Alaska… As a civilian, he served with the Alaska Highway Patrol, advancing from trooper to captain.

He observed how the Guard has transformed significantly in the two decades since he joined in ’84.

“When I joined the Alaska Army National Guard, the National Guard in Alaska had never deployed anywhere,” he said. “During World War II, the Alaskan Territorial Guard, which was made up of Eskimo scouts, had basically been forward-deployed by being in Alaska. Once in a while there might be a two-week annual training tour somewhere other than Alaska, but generally speaking even all the annual trainings were right in Alaska, because we were considered Arctic warriors, cold-weather experts. So everybody came to Alaska.”

And today?

“Today,” CSM Hudson said, “Alaska has deployed probably 70 percent of its resources.” [emphasis added]

In 1995, CSM Hudson served as command sergeant major of the 2nd Scout Battalion in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in west Alaska on the Bering Sea. The majority of the battalion’s Citizen-Soldiers were Yupik Eskimos, hunters who live on walrus, seals, whale, fish, moose and caribou.

“They had never left their villages, where they still have a subsistence lifestyle,” he said. “They primarily live off the game that they catch.

“Approximately 300 of them right now are sitting in Kuwait,” he said. “The Guard of today is nothing like it was 23 years ago. It’s a complete change. It is now an operational, professionally organized institution that does tremendously more than two weeks out of the year and one weekend a month.”….

Read the rest here

• http://www.gxonline.com/gxintelnews?id=37420

---

Site Search Tags: Eskimo+Scouts, Iraq, National+Guard, war, Yukon+Kuskokwim, Alaskan+Territorial+Guard, Army

Technorati Tags: Eskimo+Scouts, Iraq, National+Guard, war, Yukon+Kuskokwim, Alaskan+Territorial+Guard, Army

Advertisements

655,000 or 48,000 Iraqi deaths

Here is the original article (in pdf)

• http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/ lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf

Here is how one newspaper headlined it—
Survey says 600,000 have died in Iraq war
By Clive Cookson, Science Editor, and Steve Negus, Iraq Correspondent

• http://tinyurl.com/jrmcf

Financial Times
Published: October 11 2006 17:37 | Last updated: October 11 2006 17:37

or

Disputed study claims 655,000 Iraqi deaths
POSTED: 2:57 a.m. EDT, October 11, 2006 CNN

• http://tinyurl.com/kyw37

or

Enormous death toll of Iraq invasion revealed
11 October 2006, NewScientist.com news service, Debora MacKenzie

• http://tinyurl.com/tq7dl

or

One in 40 Iraqis ‘killed since invasion’
US and Britain reject journal’s finding that death toll has topped 650,000
Sarah Boseley, health editor, Thursday October 12, 2006, The Guardian

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1920167,00.html

or

Iraq casualty figures open up new battleground
By Dan Murphy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

• http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1013/p01s04-woiq.html

“The possibility of introducing bias in any kind of survey is real, and you spend more time designing the survey to eliminate the sources of bias then actually carrying it out,” he says. “One of the real risks in this is that people report deaths that don’t occur, so we did ask for death certificates. And in 92 percent of cases, they were provided.”

To be sure, the researchers of the Lancet study says possible errors leave a range between a low of 392,979 additional deaths and a high of 942,636. The 601,000 figure is the median.

The commonly accepted numbers until now have been much lower than Lancet surveys. The Iraq Body Count, a website that tracks civilian deaths in the war by compiling data from news reports, estimates 48,000 deaths have been reported in the media, while the Iraq Index sponsored by the Brookings Institution in Washington has counted 61,000 civilian deaths. President Bush estimated 30,000 civilian deaths late last year.

Fortunately,

• The Lancet paper on the Iraq War toll – http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2006/10/ the_lancet_paper_on_the_iraq_w.php

presents some the background to the current study.

The purpose in presenting this here is to examine the science, the evidence.

What about the science? It doesn’t take much reflection to see that estimating mortality from an invasion with a disastrous and chaotic aftermath is no simple matter.

The Reveres are pretty good at asking the questions you should be asking of medical or health studies. What else could account for the results? If the alternatives are not feasible, then the study has greater validity, whether or not we “like” the results.

powered by performancing firefox

---

Technorati Tags: Iraq, epidemiology, critical+thinking, statistics, Lancet, newsmedia
Site Search Tags: Iraq, epidemiology, critical+thinking, statistics, Lancet, newsmedia

more on Iraq effects

Tags

Bumsted, Grassroots Science, YKAlaska

• What impact will Iraq war call-up have –
  https://ykalaska.wordpress.com/2006/06/27/ what-impact-will-iraq-war-call-up-have/

Jody has a nice quiet story this morning about a disquieting deployment into the Iraq war.

Alaska Communities Struggle with National Guard Deployments

Listen to this story… by Jody Seitz

Morning Edition, July 4, 2006 · National Guard deployments to Iraq are drawing on a unique population of older Guard members in Alaska. The absence of these men from their communities poses distinct challenges to families already stressed by the high price of energy, the lack of jobs and, in some communities, the loss of municipal services. Jody Seitz of member station KDLG reports.

http://www.npr.org/ templates/story/story.php?storyId=5532219

Other NPR (National Public Radio) stories can be found here

http://tinyurl.com/gz3jh

---

Site Search Tags: Iraq, Guard, war

What impact will Iraq war call-up have

http://tinyurl.com/ggg9o

Eskimo Troops Brace for Iraq
Alaskan Guard units are called up for the first time in decades. Villages worry about losing men.
By Sam Howe Verhovek, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

June 5, 2006
KONGIGANAK, Alaska

….In this village of 386 people, six men have been notified to report for duty next month. ..The call-up in the marshy delta country to the west reaches villages so remote that there are only two ways to get here most of the year — by airplane or snowmobile — and a third from May to September, or perhaps October in a warm year with a late freeze-up: the river.

So in places with Eskimo names such as Kongiganak, Kwigillingok and Manokotak, elder leaders and wives find themselves planning how to carry on without strong young men who serve as vital providers of food….

===========================================
I did some calculations to see what numerical impact (and ultimately biocultural impact) the call-up will have.

• What will the effect be on the best leadership available, long-term and short-term?
• What about on subsequent “leaders” because there will be fewer strong men as the adolescent males grow into their leadership?
• What is the economic impact, e.g., will families have to move to Bethel or other villages because their breadwinner is gone? What social effects might there be as a consequence?
• How will preparedness and rescue occur during the autumn storm flooding and erosion season?
• Which other people will be able to assume the troops’ role or to share the load, e.g., are women allowed? males under 18? are there sufficient elders?
• How do we integrate our veterans back into our time, space, culture?
• What questions should we ask so we can be ready?

2005 Population by Gender and Age:

Male: 196
Female: 163
total 359

Median Age: 21.8

Pop. Age 18 and over: 204
Pop. Age 21 and over: 184
Pop. Age 62 and over: 15
============================================
6% of all men between 21 and 65 years of 386 pop. This assumes that all 98 men have a high school degree (see the R. BRETT STIRLING article
http://alaskatheviewfromuphere.blogspot.com/2006/06/ most-recent-adn-article.html and none have domestic violence or felony/alcohol convictions. I would guess the call-up affects over 10% of those in economic/leadership roles.

[R. Brett Stirling writes well and thoughtfully about living in rural Alaska, http://alaskatheviewfromuphere.blogspot.com/ and for the Anchorage Daily News, http://tinyurl.com/s6p5h]

Welcome, all, during 2008-2009

Tags

Bumsted, Grassroots Science, Unorganized Borough, YKAlaska

ClustrMaps Current Country Totals
From 12 Nov 2008 to 12 Nov 2009

United States (US)	29,827
Canada (CA)	2,800
United Kingdom (GB)	2,602
India (IN)	1,181
Australia (AU)	977
Philippines (PH)	903
Singapore (SG)	413
France (FR)	411
Malaysia (MY)	399
Germany (DE)	380
Egypt (EG)	303
New Zealand (NZ)	296
Thailand (TH)	292
Netherlands (NL)	259

Greetings, all

Tags

Bumsted, Grassroots Science, Unorganized Borough, YKAlaska

I hadn’t looked at the ClustrMap in awhile so I was quite pleased to see all the little dots from visitors far from the usual locations (click on the map in the sidebar to see a larger image in a new tab). A nice surprise is that the maps now come with a table of the country of origin– a good way to test one’s geography knowledge by checking the dot location with the country name. This is the country of the IP address used by visitors.

I wish it were easier to visit in reverse, in analog or digital space.

Current Country Totals
From 12 Nov 2008 to 4 Jul 2009

United States (US)	20,669
Canada (CA)	1,935
United Kingdom (GB)	1,767
India (IN)	704
Australia (AU)	632
Philippines (PH)	570
Singapore (SG)	298

Sarah Palin content

Tags

Bumsted, Grassroots Science, Sarah Palin, YKAlaska

revised 2009-07-03 A good summary of recent events of former Gov. Palin is Palin Resigns: Exit stage right

revised 2008-10-15 A good summary of Gov. Palin in Alaska is

• Sarah Palin, A View From Anchorage Listen Now [41 min 28 sec] add to playlist Fresh Air from WHYY, October 15, 2008 · Supporters and detractors alike can’t seem to get enough of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Anchorage Daily News columnist Michael Carey discusses the woman who promises to bring “a little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street” to Washington, DC.

[additions]
Cama’i visitors.

Local results for ‘Palin’ using the search box. You may also use the site search tag in each post, Sarah+Palin.

WordPress.com doesn’t have the best internal search engine, but I’m usually good about using the tags correctly. If you want to know more about Alaska and Alaska Natives, including Eskimo people, especially Yup’ik people of the Yukon Kuskokwim Nushagak region, try using the categories in the sidebar or the site search tags at the bottom of each post.

The Nushagak River is in the Bristol Bay region (Dillingham is the hub. The link opens in a new window) from which Todd Palin’s family comes.

• Where is… Palin and bridge to Nowhere Alaska
• Where is… Wasilla (Gov. Sarah Palin’s residence)
• Most popular in 2007, 2008 YKWP (boring post)
• Electricity disaster declarations in Alaska
• Tsunami Awareness Week
• Bethel “town hall” meeting on AGIA
• Gov. Palin 2008 State of the State address
• Ask the Governor (maybe in Bethel)
• Briefs 4
• Mass disease pass, 2007
• Rhonda McBride appointed rural advisor to Gov. Palin
• E-mail the Governor

Our terrific state-wide public radio network is offering a reprise of their hour-long show about Governor Palin. Listen here, AK: Sarah Palin, Revisited

Related posts specific to Palin–

• https://ykalaska.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/where-is-palin-and-bridge-to-nowhere-alaska/
• Todd Palin, Sarah Palin’s husband, and rural Alaska living
• https://ykalaska.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/where-is-wasilla-gov-sarah-palins-residence/
• https://ykalaska.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/sarah-palin-content/(This post)
• Where is… Sarah Palin foreign experience (Russia)

revised 2008-08-31 Because Gov. Palin has offered her credentials as commander of the National Guard, here is the category for related posts here– Eskimo Guard For those who have read several news stories quoting the Alaska Business Journal Monthly story, March 2007 (? looking for the original article), the end of 2006, on the Governor’s response to the Iraq surge, may be interested in this post, What impact will Iraq war call-up have from June 2006. State governors don’t usually have much involvement in US wars, and naturally would be more interested in state affairs. But this US war has called up our National Guardsmen.

revised 2008-09-04

“Alaska is on the map” is the recent slogan. Actually, Alaska has always been on the map. In fact, all over the map and maps. Click the category maps to find out where all we’ve been put now.

Other reasonable writings (i.e., respectful and insightful) —
Read Writing Raven on Sarah Palin and Alaska Native Issues

Mudflats on photos of Wasilla, church in Wasilla, global photogs and newsmedia in Wasilla, et al. Sarah Palin’s Preacher Problem. End Times Coming?

Shannyn Moore, also an Alaska woman, daughter of teachers, “Bitter-Proud”? (hard to read theme so use your own style sheet)

Andrew Halcro, Palin for VP: The S.W.O.T Analysis, who keeps up with bailouts of local dairies, “troopergate”, Governor’s gasline to be built by foreigners.

Good grief. I have overlooked the O’Folks off their Rocker much earlier post  over at —

• Gov Sarah Palin call-in KYUK (January 2008)
• Sarah Palin, the elderly, the disabled, older Americans and rural Alaska ( Sept 2, 2008)

This is a good summary, from Slate. The Sarah Palin FAQ Everything you ever wanted to know about the Republican vice presidential nominee. By Derek Thompson Posted Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008, at 5:39 PM ET

2008-09-10 Michael Carey has consistently provided balanced and accurate information. Listen to him at NPR,

• Analysis: Finding The Real Palin In Her Convention Speech
  Sep-07-2008, Weekend Edition – Sunday…as his vice-presidential running mate, details of her career and family life have been scrutinized closely. Anchorage Daily News columnist Michael Carey has been following Palin since…

---

Site Search Tags: Palin, Sarah+Palin, Bristol+Bay, Dillingham, Yup’ik, Nushagak, McCain+Palin, revised

Most popular in 2007, 2008 YKWP (boring post)

Tags

Bumsted, Grassroots Science, YKAlaska

[This is a housekeeping entry.]

I suspect many readers visit for specific posts and others are using feed readers for posts and comments. While the blog format is very flexible for information and discussion it’s technical restrictions are a little challenging for me to keep folks up to date on revisions and to highlight other posts of possible interest.

Index or Contents posts like this one [such as the alphabetical listing or the reverse chronological listing] will be cross-indexed on the Table of Contents page. Because it is a regular post, feed readers will be notified.

“Popular posts” is one such tool provided by WordPress.com. I doubt that it is very accurate for actual readers but the relative rankings provide an alternative way to find items of interest. I wish there was a way to get the full set of data they collect, especially for the referrers (see http://cerebraloddjobs.edublogs.org/2006/09/30/referrers-in-edublogs/), to see what it is that people are looking for. This would help to revise information or add new information [so would reader comments and queries]. Unfortunately,WP.com don’t have a consistent way to present this data to blog administrators (asking for daily referrers gives a very different set of information than getting the weekly or yearly referrers. Same data but the presentation to the human at this end is patchy.) Notice how the titles are truncated, for example.

The ranking for 2007 is given first and then for 2008 (up to July 12)

Alaska Territorial Guard celebrates 60th anniversary

Tags

Bumsted, Grassroots Science, YKAlaska

As our Guard returns from Kuwait, the anniversary of the original “Eskimo Guard”. The Yukon Kuskokwim Delta’s troops are supposed to arrive in BEThel late tonight.

• See previous posts here, Eskimo Guard

The version of the article published in the Anchorage Daily News is a bit more complete and has a different set of photos.

Web posted October 16, 2007
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/101607/sta_20071016015.shtml
RACHEL D’ORO The Associated Press

This year is the 60th anniversary of the disbanding of the civilian force formed to protect Alaska villages from the Japanese during World War II.

ANCHORAGE – Harold Bahr became a man at 11, when he joined a largely Native militia called up to protect the vast territory of Alaska from the threat of Japanese aggression during World War II…

Despite his age, Bahr was eligible to sign up to defend his homeland. This was 17 years before statehood and older recruits would be armed with outmoded World War I Enfield rifles. Some of the younger members, including Bahr, would make do with nonshooting wooden replicas, but it didn’t matter.

…Bahr, 76, is among an estimated 300 members still living from the original 6,600-member unit to be commemorated Thursday, Alaska Territorial Guard day…

Nicknamed Uncle Sam’s Men, the territorial guards were organized by Army Air Corps Maj. Marvin “Muktuk” Marston. A charismatic orator, Marston traveled by dog sled across the frozen tundra, delivering impassioned speeches to recruit boys as young as Bahr or well into their 80s, as well as men of fighting age who were exempt from war duty. Some women who could outshoot the men also joined up…. The guard was disbanded with little fanfare on March 31, 1947, almost two years after the war ended. Some members liked the camaraderie and protective stance so much they kept up their drills. A few units remained active right up to the reorganization of the Alaska National Guard in 1949

---

Site Search Tags: Iraq, Guard, Eskimo+Guard, Kuskokwim, Yukon, Muktuk+Marston, WWII, war, homefront, Kuwait, ADN.com

More on our Guard, returning soon

Tags

Grassroots Science, YKAlaska

This is evidently a press release from the medical company hired by the VA (Veterans Affairs) to assist military returning to civilian life and their families. The release was printed in a Chinese news service which GoogleAlert sent to me.

TriWest and Alaska VA Hosted First-Ever PTSD State-Wide Seminars to Reach Rural Health Care Providers – China
… of returning Alaska National Guard troops throughout the state.
Conferences were presented in six locations including Juneau, Sitka,
Barrow, Bethel, …
http://usstock.jrj.com.cn/news/2007-10-04/000002748897.html

PHOENIX, Oct. 3 /PRNewswire/ — As part of their continuing efforts to address the needs of Alaska National Guard members, TriWest Healthcare Alliance and the Alaska VA Healthcare System partnered to host their first-ever “Combat Stress Conference” throughout the state from Sept. 12-29. The seminars reached nearly 200 community-based health care providers that care for the thousands of returning Alaska National Guard troops throughout the state. […]

I hope more than health care providers were involved. The church groups can be very important in some areas as well as less formal local groups. Schools also need to be involved to assist children.

See earlier–
Briefs 3
More on our Guard, KYUK
More on our Eskimo Guard and Iraq
More on the Eskimo Guard
More on Iraq effects
What impact will Iraq war call-up have

---

Site Search Tags: Iraq, National Guard, Alaska, GoogleAlert, churches, Alaska, Bethel, Kuskokwim, Yukon, Eskimo Guard