Stars and Stripes Daily Headlines

January 14, 2017     Marines going back to old battlefield in Helmand When about 300 Marines deploy to Helmand this spring, they will be returning to a province where hundreds of U.S. servicemembers died over more than a decade to subdue the Taliban. Now the situation has deteriorated so significantly there are fears the province could fall to the Taliban.   Ethnic tensions escalating in Bosnia, where US troops once kept the peace Over the past year, the leader of the Bosnian Serb entity, Milorad Dodik, has repeatedly questioned the need to keep Bosnia united under the formula established under the 1995 Dayton Agreement.   Back on the Mekong Delta, John Kerry finds a man who once tried to kill him As a young Navy lieutenant, he commanded a Swift boat along a stretch of Vietnam's Bay Hap River, where he leapt ashore after an ambush to pursue a fleeing Viet Cong with a grenade launcher and shot him dead. It could have been 1969 again as Secretary of State John Kerry, who received a Silver Star for his heroics, revisited the site Saturday and came face to face with a Viet Cong soldier who had taken part in the ambush.   Security force for Trump’s inauguration contemplates truck attacks, dirty bombs Braced for protests by 99 groups and a new “global terrorist environment,” security officials plan to protect the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump with buses, dump trucks and heavy vehicles loaded with cement to thwart anyone who might try to plow vehicles through the crowds.   'We waited for decades': Polish government welcomes US troops Polish leaders welcomed U.S. troops to their country Saturday, with the defense minister expressing gratitude for their arrival and calling it the fulfillment of a dream Poles have had for decades.   Obama had wanted to sow peace, but conflicts became a constant Before he took office in 2008, Barack Obama vowed to end America’s conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. During his second term, he pledged to take the country off what he called a permanent war footing. But Obama leaves a very different legacy as he prepares to hand his commander-in-chief responsibilities to Donald Trump.   Trump unleashes Twitter attack against congressional critic Donald Trump tore into civil rights legend John Lewis for questioning the legitimacy of the Republican billionaire's White House victory, intensifying a feud with the black congressman days before the national holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. and as the first African-American president prepares to leave office.   An invite to Syria talks is first sign of enhanced US-Russia relations under Trump Russia has invited the incoming Trump administration to Syrian peace talks it is sponsoring later this month with Turkey and Iran, part of a process from which President Barack Obama's administration pointedly has been excluded.   Military's shift away from oil clashes with Trump's promises At a renewable energy demonstration at Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base, a Marine recharged his radio's batteries simply by walking, while others examined a rocket artillery system and a drone — both powered by the sun. Many such events have taken place at military bases across the country as part of the Defense Department's shift away from fossil