My Life and Times

[18:28 PST, Dec. 9, 2004]

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Rummy reality check, part 2Today the Drudge Report is trumpeting a "purported" email memo from an embedded reporter claiming that he in fact "coached" the soldier who gave Defense Secretary Rumsfeld an earful on Wednesday regarding the lack of armor for U.S. troops operating in Iraq.
At this point we'll try to reserve judgment as to the alleged email's authenticity (maybe the righty watchdogs who broke "CBS-gate" are jumping all over it?), but for starters, the tenor of it comes off just a wee bit funky: "I just had one of my best days as a journalist today. As luck would have it, our journey North was delayed just long enough see I could attend a visit today here by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. I was told yesterday that only soldiers could ask questions so I brought two of them along with me as my escorts."
Uh huh... As luck would have it, we happen to think that whoever's idea it was to grill Rummy on why the troops are still under-equipped nearly two years into the war isn't really the issue here. It's Rumsfeld's response. For anyone focused on Drudge's little red herring, Slate's Fred Kaplan offers some coaching on the issue:
"Rumsfeld's answer was, first, unforgivably glib, reminiscent of his shrugged line about the looting in the days after Saddam's fall ('Stuff happens'), but more shocking because here he was addressing American soldiers who are still fighting and dying, 20 months after Baghdad's fall, as a result of Rumsfeld's decisions.
"More than that, his answer was wrong. If you're attacked by surprise, you go to war with the army you have. But if you've planned the war a year in advance and you initiate the attack, you have the opportunity -- and obligation -- to equip your soldiers with what they'll need. Yes, some soldiers will get killed no matter the precautions, but the idea is to heighten their odds -- or at least not diminish them -- as they're thrust into battle."
-- Mark Follman

Posted on Thu, Dec. 09, 2004
Marino: On touchdown record, his futureBY ARMANDO SALGUEROasalguero@herald.com
Dan Marino is on the phone line, and an assembly of international media is listening to him talk about Peyton Manning's assault on his touchdown record, a possible return to the Dolphins front office and exchanging a Hall of Fame bust for a Super Bowl ring.
The quarterback who threw 48 touchdown passes for the Dolphins in 1984 watches the Indianapolis Colts quarterback now and has accepted that one of his most cherished records likely will fall.
And Marino is not exactly loving the idea.
''I wouldn't be human if I told you that I want to see someone else beat it,'' Marino said of the record. ``If anybody is going to do it, you'd like to see a guy like Peyton because of what he's done and the type of person that he is.''
Manning has 44 touchdowns through 12 games, and Marino expects many more.
''I definitely think he's going to throw more than 48,'' Marino said. ``How many that is, it all depends on the kind of games he's playing in. Of late, he's had to play some games where he's had to score a lot of points because the other teams would score on him, but I think he's going to get well into his 50s.''
CAREER CHANGE?
Marino has interviewed Manning as part of his work for CBS and HBO, and Wednesday he was asked whether he's pondering a career change soon. He worked as a Dolphins senior vice president for 22 days early this year, and Marino would not rule out returning to work for the franchise sometime in the future.
''You know what, that stuff never gets out of your blood,'' Marino said. ``I don't care what kind of football player or person you are, you always want to think you want to be back involved. I guess that's something right now I haven't been thinking about that much.
``But maybe someday I will think about it.''
A report published this week quoted unnamed sources stating Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga offered Marino a chance to rejoin the team this year in an executive role. But Marino and Huizenga haven't talked in months, and the Dolphins deny the report.
Dolphins president Eddie Jones also said he and Marino did not discuss a front-office job when Marino visited the team's training facility last week.
Marino was even angered by the report because he was worried Huizenga would take offense to the idea he is turning down yet another opportunity to work for the Dolphins -- although that opportunity hasn't been officially tendered.
Marino vented some of his anger when asked Wednesday whether he had been offered a Miami job recently.
''Why don't you get the NFL source that put that out there to answer that question,'' Marino growled.
Later, Marino released a statement saying, ``I love the Dolphins, and I said I might be interested in a position with the team down the road. But right now, I'm happy working in television.''
A NICE GIG
The reasons Marino won't return to the Dolphins now are not too complex.
He works four days per week as a studio analyst for the NFL Today pregame show and for Inside the NFL on HBO. Marino works on those shows about six months out of the year.
Marino also does endorsements for Maroone auto dealerships, a jewelry store and soon will take on pitchman duties for a mattress company.
All those jobs bring in approximately $4 million per year.
Next month, Marino likely will be voted into the Hall of Fame. He said he wouldn't trade the day he's inducted for the one prize that eluded him: a Super Bowl ring.
''For me to say that winning a Super Bowl, play three years in the NFL and have two Super Bowl rings, I would not trade that for 17 years playing with the Dolphins,'' he said.
© 2004 Herald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.http://www.miami.com

December 9, 2004
Pain of War Draws Bead on New York RegionBy ALAN FEUER
he carpenter from Brooklyn died in a Humvee crash.
The Wall Street analyst was killed by small-arms fire.
The former high school running back from western New York State was blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade.
An unknown gunman killed the firefighter from New Jersey.
The Connecticut wrestler was shot while on patrol, looking for roadside bombs.
At times in the Iraq war, it has seemed that different parts of this country have borne their share of the casualties, and the distribution of deaths has spread across the map. Since Nov. 7, 19 servicemen from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have been killed in Iraq, making it the deadliest term for soldiers from the region since the start of the war. The main assault on Falluja began on Nov. 8, and the Pentagon has said that 136 American soldiers were killed in Iraq in November, the most of any month since the war began last year. They came from Brooklyn, like Joseph Behnke, the carpenter whose Humvee crashed, and from the towers of Manhattan, where Dimitrios Gavriel worked analyzing stocks before he went to war.
They ranged in age from 20 to 45. They had names as varied as the places they left behind: Engeldrum, Baker, Gasiewicz, Freeman, Behnke, Ryan, Calderon.
"I can tell you that when I got the phone call that he was killed, I got a knot in my stomach," said Leonard Dolan, the fire chief in Cranford, N.J., referring to Stephen C. Benish, one of his firefighters, who died on Nov. 28 while on patrol in Ramadi.
"Given that we've had a lot of casualties in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region recently, I'm sure it's had the same impact on others," Chief Dolan said.
With 14 deaths this month and last, New York alone has much to mourn. Only two states have suffered more since November: California, with 21 dead, and Texas, with 17. There has been no sharp increase in the percentage of those being dispatched to Iraq from the New York area. The spate of deaths is, rather, one of the vagaries of a war in which a handful of deaths on a given day - in a Humvee, by the side of the road, in a firefight - can skew statistics.
The sting will be felt anew this morning when thousands of firefighters from across the country are expected to gather for the funeral of Sgt. Christian Engeldrum at St. Benedict's Church in the Bronx. Sergeant Engeldrum, a New York City firefighter serving with the New York National Guard, was the first city employee to die while fighting in this war. He left behind a pregnant wife and two sons when he shipped out from the Bronx to Baghdad on Nov. 2. On Nov. 29, he was killed by a roadside bomb near Baghdad.
"Nobody could talk him out of going," said Lt. Brian Horton, an officer at Ladder Company 61 in Co-op City in the Bronx. "Nobody would talk him out of going. It's what he wanted to do."
Sergeant Engeldrum, 39, was described by his co-workers as a firefighter's firefighter, the kind of man you wanted at your side. He drove the rig, they said. He made his peers feel safe. His big voice filled the firehouse. He even cooked - burritos were his specialty. He was known around the house as Drum.
Pfc. Wilfredo F. Urbina, 29, a fellow member of the New York Guard and a volunteer firefighter in Baldwin, on Long Island, was killed in the same attack.
Sgt. James Matteson, 23, was known around the football fields of Celoron, N.Y., as J.C. In high school, he had been a sprightly running back scouted by college coaches from across western New York.
But Mr. Matteson had a different plan and, in 1998, enlisted in the Army.
"I said, 'Well, what about college, son?' " his father, James L. Matteson, a 45-year-old disabled truck driver, recalled. "And he said, 'Dad, I don't want to lose my legs because of injury, and I want to carry on the tradition.' "
The military tradition could not be stronger for the family. The Mattesons are from a long line of military men, dating to the Revolutionary War. Mr. Matteson's great-great-great-grandfather Thomas Calvin Matteson lost his left hand fighting in the Civil War, James L. Matteson said, but returned to the fray when the wound had healed.
James Matteson's sister Hope Freedom Matteson served in Iraq for a year as a mechanic for the Army but went home after breaking her foot last year. She has since re-enlisted. "Honestly, I don't think my heart could take it again," James L. Matteson said, describing his fears about his daughter's safety.
James Matteson was killed in Falluja when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his Humvee on Nov. 12.
Kevin Dempsey of Monroe, Conn., would have turned 24 today. But he was killed on Nov. 13 when his Marine reconnaissance battalion was attacked in Anbar Province in Iraq.
Corporal Dempsey - who, as a baby, was nicknamed Jack, after the boxer - joined the Marines in March 2002 and rose through an elite training course that included diving and survival school, said his mother, Barbara Dempsey. A wrestler, he was 18 when he entered basic training. He called the recruiter on Sept. 11, 2001, moments after watching on television as the towers crumbled.
He was the self-appointed guardian of the family, his mother said. "Jack always felt he had to look out for his sister and me," she said.
Corporal Dempsey's protective streak extended to farm animals and stray dogs. Members of his unit in Iraq sent Mrs. Dempsey pictures of her son freeing cows tethered on short leads without adequate drinking water. He vowed that when he returned from Iraq, he would smuggle home an orphaned puppy and buy a house on the beach in North Carolina, not far from where he trained.
Mrs. Dempsey said that when he died, her son was doing what he wanted. The thought is a comfort, but it does not blunt her grief.
"I can't describe how I feel other than to say my heart hurts," she said. "He was so full of life."
A roadside bomb killed Specialist David Mahlenbrock on Dec. 3. He was 20; his wife, Melissa, is 19. Their daughter, Kadence, is 10 months old. When Specialist Mahlenbrock was home on leave from the Army two months ago in Maple Shade, N.J., he took the infant everywhere, Mrs. Mahlenbrock said. They went to the movies, to the zoo and out to dinner. "He wanted to make sure he got in as much stuff with her as he could."
Specialist Mahlenbrock made videos of their adventures and asked his wife to play them for the child. "It was very important to him to make these for her," she said. "He wanted her to listen to his voice."
Mrs. Mahlenbrock listened, too, in the frequent calls she received from Iraq. "In every call," she said, "he promised me he'd come home."
The last call she received from her husband came on Thursday, Dec. 2. He made the promise, same as always, but he could not keep it. It was the day before he died.
Staff Sgt. Henry Irizarry was supposed to go home on Dec. 15 for a two-week leave in time for Christmas. Instead, he died in Taji, Iraq, on Dec. 3. His Humvee was struck by a roadside bomb.
Born in Puerto Rico, Sergeant Irizarry moved to the Bronx with his family as a teenager and graduated from William H. Taft High School. He was 38 and was a member of the 69th Infantry of the New York National Guard.
He had served with the Guard for 20 years. His wife, Jessica, said that while he loved the military, he had his eye on retirement and never expected to be sent to Iraq.
"Still, he would write and say that everything is fine," Mrs. Irizarry, 25, said. "He didn't want me to worry."
She said her husband was a religious man who spent time at Aposento Alto, a Pentecostal church in Waterbury, Conn., where the couple moved in 1997. News of his death has sent a steady stream of church members to the Irizarrys' home.
The last time they spoke, Sergeant Irizarry, who always liked to travel, told his wife he would take the family to Puerto Rico for Christmas.
Their 5-year-old son has had nightmares since he learned about his father's death. The boy writes postcards and insists that his mother send them overseas.
" 'This is for Papi,' he says, even though I've told him his father is gone," Mrs. Irizarry said.
"He doesn't understand."
Lisa W. Foderaro, Robert Hanley and Stacey Stowe contributed reporting for this article.
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The Other Football Wednesday December 08, 2004 6:00PM PT
David Beckham Forget the BCS and NFL, we're talking about the footy the rest of the world is crazy for. The super European professional leagues such as England's Premier League and Spain's La Liga are in full swing. But the contintent-wide non-league competition, the UEFA Champions League (+322%), is what's really heating up around the world and sparking searches in anticipation of each big game. This week's big match between Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid and Roman Serie A Club AS Roma will be played in an empty stadium as punishment for fans throwing objects at referees in a previous game. (Maybe NBA Commissioner David Stern should ponder staging the Christmas Day rematch between the Pacers and Pistons in a barren gym.
The FIFA World Cup doesn't kick off until the summer of 2006, but searches continue to rise as qualifying takes place throughout the footy-mad world. Even the normally soccer-apathetic U.S. is waking up a bit as the college soccer season comes to an end. Searches are climbing on "NCAA soccer" (+58%) and "college soccer" (+55%).
Top Team Searches:
Arsenal FC
Inter Milan
AC Milan
Liverpool FC
Manchester United Top Player Searches:
Mia Hamm
Maradona
David Beckham
Ronaldinho
Ronaldo