Word: deltas
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...decayed, their bark stripped by the wind. The hurricanes are not the culprit. The trees have been dead for a decade or more, victims of man-made canals that carry brackish water from Lake Pontchartrain, poisoning the cypress. Biologists call this a ghost swamp, one of many throughout the delta. When Katrina's winds howled in from the lake, the thinned forest around Bayou LaBranche could do little to buffer the impact on the communities of Norco and Good Hope to the south. Nor could the area's old marshland slow the storm surge that followed; most of the marsh...
...save his sinking state, and he has come up with what he thinks is the only plan ambitious enough to match the size of the problem. His idea: to redirect a branch of the Mississippi through the heart of Terrebonne Parish, the most densely populated in the delta. Shipping lanes would remain routed through New Orleans, but much of the Mississippi would be diverted at Donaldsonville, 90 miles upriver from the city, so sediment-rich waters could revive the ancient riverbeds in the central delta and rebuild marshland long since lost to the Gulf. Many local groups, including the Terrebonne...
...wounded. The surge in violence comes at an inopportune time for the Pentagon, which wants to cut the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and turn over more of the combat burden to NATO, whose role is now limited to peacekeeping. Four days spent with Turner's Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, in the badlands of southern Afghanistan provides a glimpse of how one group of soldiers sustains its morale and mettle while up against an often ghostly enemy. Even as the military struggles to extricate itself from Iraq, it still has a fight...
...ambush on Delta Company was just the start of a mission that illustrates the challenges and frustrations facing U.S. forces today. On the night the troops come under attack, they are headed into the craggy ridges outside Kandahar to join an operation by coalition forces to corner Maulvi Hannan, a Taliban commander with known links to al-Qaeda. But the ambush and the injuries to the five soldiers force Turner to make some split-second decisions. While an Afghan interpreter tries to clear away local onlookers, the captain is busy on the radio. The medevac helicopter for the wounded soldiers...
With the Taliban fleeing through the ravines, Delta Company is told that the operation on the ridge will take "just several hours" and they need to haul only their weapons and ammo onto the Chinooks. But like many missions, this one doesn't go according to plan. The first night, Delta Company's men are spectators. Once special forces pin down the Taliban, A-10 Thunderbolts light up the canyon with a barrage from their Gatling guns and several 500-lb. bombs. At about 2 a.m., an Apache helicopter roars overhead, dumps out a body bag and clatters away...