COVER STORYSouth Korean police put out warning over fake pro sports jerseysU.S. troops who buy Korean-made counterfeit professional sports jerseys on the cheap and send them home for resale are in effect acting as middlemen in the illegal international distribution of the goods, authorities here say. • Story
‘You can’t drive to this fight. You have to fly.’There are few good roads in southern Afghanistan. The dirt tracks that meander through the desert are easily mined, and by the time U.S. and other NATO troops lumber out in heavily armored convoys to their destination, the insurgents have often melted away. • Story
Helicopter ambulance crews: Making sure everyone makes it homeThe UH-60 Black Hawk medevac helicopter descends into a maelstrom of swirling brown dust and touches down in a field with a bone-jarring thump. • Story
Progress slow on goal of lifelong digital medical recordsArmy veteran Travis Fugate might still be able to see today if a paperwork nightmare hadn’t led his doctors to skip a preventive surgery on his sinuses. • Story
Historians study black vets’ role in civil rightsIn the words of retired Gen. Colin Powell, postwar Germany was “a breath of freedom” for black soldiers, especially those out of the South: “[They could] go where they wanted, eat where they wanted and date whom they wanted, just like other people.” • Story
Next on the horizon: Mixed-gender sub crews?A sailor once asked Lt. Cmdr. Marilisa Elrod where she got the twin dolphins sewn below the U.S. Navy lettering on her uniform. She could understand the sailor’s confusion. He had probably never seen the insignia on a woman before. “I said I borrowed them from • Story
‘Outnumbered and outgunned’The chaos for Gunnery Sgt. Robert J. Blanton continued long after the firefight. "That night, I couldn’t sleep. I was trying to remember everything that happened," the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion Marine said. He also tried to come to grips with losing Sgt. Michael H. Ferschke, 22. He was restless, reliving the battle with insurgents in the Al Jazeera Desert outside Baghdad. • Story
Spouse CallsA weekly column in Stripes' Scene magazine by Terri Barnes, a military wife and mother of three who lives and writes in Germany. • This week's column • Terri Barnes' blog
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