*Bill Ardolino of The Long War Journal takes his readers along on a night patrol with U.S. soldiers and members of a Baghdad neighborhood watch called Sons of Iraq:

According to Ardolino, with a decrease in the number of U.S. troops, the Sons of Iraq have been successful in shouldering the burden of peacekeeping in their own section of Baghdad. While the final goal is integration with the Iraqi police, many in the Sons of Iraq are weary of high infiltration rates within the police by members of the Mahdi Army. See a photo slideshow of the patrol here.

*The Marine Corps Times reports that the Navy plans to expand the number of mobile psychiatric teams embedded within Marine units. A bit of context: the Marine Corps doesn’t have its own medical services, but rather relies on the Navy to provide personnel (the Marine Corps is part of the Department of the Navy). The units, known as Navy Operational Stress Control and Readiness (or OSCAR), should number at 23 within two years. The purpose is to provide initial psychiatric counseling to Marines while they are still serving out in the field:

*One doesn’t see much reporting out of Basra these days, but the New York Times Baghdad Bureau blog has an interesting piece today. An Iraqi member of the Times staff took a four-day reporting trip to Basra to see just what the situation is there. Some selections:

*Military.com recently posted an article taking a look at the rise in per capita income within military communities:

I was shocked when I saw traces of the fight, which was clear on the buildings close to the main streets.

As an Iraqi from the south who knows exactly what was going on, with the militias controlling everything in particular cities or ports, I did not expect that the Iraqi forces – which are majority Shia - would be able to confront the militia influence.

There was a new feeling. I had never seen before the Iraq Army, without hesitation, accusing the Mahdi Army of being involved in all the disorder there.

One of the soldiers told me: “The Mahdi Army are a group of criminals, they will destroy everything if we don’t stop them.”

In the past, I have never seen soldiers dare to say anything about them. I felt the reign of fear is broken, and that is it. Exactly the same feeling as when the Baathist regime fell.

According to the piece, in North Carolina two major military communities ranked first and second in areas of the state with the highest per capita growth. The first of these, the Fort Bragg area, saw personal income rise more than $8,900 over five years. Military towns in Georgia and Tennessee saw these numbers rise by between 35 and 37 percent.