"He definately knew how to make everyone laugh," wrote a friend of Staff Sgt. Du Hai Tran on an LA Times comment board. Tran, 30, of Reseda was killed Friday by a roadside bomb in Baqubah, Iraq. He is the 501st soldier from California (24th from Los Angeles) to be lost due to the war.......

Boy, it's certainly heartening to see that we're still making good "progress" on the whole "winning hearts and minds" objective: Here at this searing, dusty U.S. military base about four miles west of Baqouba, Iraqis — including interpreters who walk the same foot patrols and sleep in the same tents as U.S. troops — must use segregated bathrooms. Another sign, in a dining hall, warns Iraqis and "third-country nationals" that they have just one......