Al's Morning Meeting

The highest ranking servicewoman to die so far in the Iraq War died last week.

Maj. Megan McClung, 34, a Camp Pendleton public affairs officer who was serving with the I Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, was killed Wednesday in the insurgent hotbed Anbar province in a roadside bomb explosion in the city of Ramadi.

According to the paper, McClung was helping a journalist with a story when she was killed. Lawrence Kaplan, a senior editor for The New Republic who once worked with McClung in Iraq, posted a memorial to her on a TNR blog Sunday. He called McClung his "guardian angel."

The newspaper also says:

According to icasualties.org, a nonmilitary database that tracks U.S. casualties, McClung is the highest-ranking woman to have been killed. A Marine Corps spokesman confirmed Monday afternoon that she is the highest-ranking female to be killed [in the war].

Sixty-four U.S. [servicewomen] have been killed since the 2003 invasion, and McClung is the fourth female Marine to die.

Under U.S. military rules, women are prohibited from combat assignments. Those [women who] have been killed have largely died as a result of accidents, attacks on convoys from small arms fire, roadside bombs or suicide bombers.

Search your state's fatality list here.

Here is a site dedicated to honoring women who have died in service to their country, going back as far as the Civil War. I didn't know that 16 servicewomen died in Desert Storm. At the bottom of the page, you will see photos and bios of most of the women who have died while serving in Iraq.

War Zone Chaplains

The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times says there is a big shortage of military chaplains.

The story says:

Florida's [Army National] Guard has space for 20 chaplains. Nine now cover the entire state. By spring, because of retirements and transfers, that number will fall to seven, leaving the Guard at 35 percent of full strength.

Similar shortages have played out across the country. Nationwide, the Army National Guard has authorization for 767 chaplains. Nearly half those spots remain vacant.

The Army Reserve hasn't fared much better. Of 639 chaplain positions, more than a third sit unfilled.

While the number of chaplains lags, the needs of soldiers and their families never cease.

The story continues:

For those who pass the scrutiny, a trying and sometimes dangerous job awaits.

At home, chaplains help military families through an array of problems. They counsel them on domestic issues. They prepare them for long deployments and the challenges of homecomings. They work on improving communication skills.

When a solider dies, a chaplain always comes along for the dreaded knock on the door.

Overseas, chaplains minister to soldiers, listen to their problems, pray with them. They hold memorial services when someone dies in combat, and they help others in the unit deal with their grief. They do all this, unarmed, in a combat zone.

Asked what a new chaplain must be prepared for, Finch laughed: "Just about anything."

Road Hazards

The Dallas Morning News just completed an investigative series on trucking.

The paper says:

Reporters for The Dallas Morning News have spent a year investigating safety problems involving 18-wheelers in Texas. Their reporting is based on federal, state and local accident and inspection reports and databases, court records, criminal public records databases and interviews with truckers, company owners, law enforcement, lawyers, academicians and other safety experts. This series focuses on the use of felons as drivers, the harsh working conditions truckers face and the industry's political influence in shaping laws and regulations. [...]

[Sunday]: The national shortage of truck drivers is prompting many companies to tap into a captive audience.

Monday: Hundreds of truckers die on the job every year, among the highest death tolls for U.S. workers.

Tuesday: Even though states must comply with federal truck safety laws, Texas has created a crazy quilt of exceptions to satisfy special interests.

Thieves Steal Downed Powerlines

I have never heard of such a thing, but here is a story that you should keep in mind in the aftermath of your next big storm:

Emboldened by high copper prices, scrap metal thieves pounced on thousands of feet of downed power lines following snowstorms last month[,] despite the risk of electrocution, utility officials said. 

Parents Fight for Cupcakes

Soon school classrooms will be filled with little holiday parties and, if teachers follow federal mandates, the events will not feature any sweets. But wait. Parents are fighting back.

The Washington Post follows up on the cupcake controversy I told you about when school started this year:

At the same time they're being booted from classrooms, cupcakes have become the latest hipster chic food. Entire blogs are dedicated to cupcake culture. Expensive Johnny Cupcakes "Make Cupcakes Not War" T-shirts are in demand. Cupcakes were raved about on "Sex in the City" and rapped about on "Saturday Night Live."

Just last week, the bakery, coffee shop and dessert lounge Buzz, decorated with flattened cupcake liners, opened in Alexandria[, Va.], joining a growing number of high-end cupcake-specialty bakeries from Magnolia in New York to Citizen Cupcake in San Francisco.

Why on earth does this little four-ounce treat -- a 19th-century accident of history that was created when a baker poured leftover cake batter into cups -- carry such heavy emotional weight? When Texas tried to ban cupcakes in schools last year, the furor was so deafening that legislators passed the "Safe Cupcake Amendment" to protect the right of parents to tote cupcakes to school. After the vote, one lawmaker remarked, "We didn't realize how important cupcakes were."