Afghanistan

A soldier Eyewitness News introduced you to earlier this month is back home. Chris Broadrick had been deployed to Afghanistan since January. He will only be home for two weeks. His family contacted us because the school district would not excuse their daughter from school while Broadrick is home. --------------------------------- Frustrated may best describe Angela Broadrick. “There is no common sense in this deal,” says Broadrick.

The Army says Specialist Garrett Fant died on Sept. 26. He was on patrol in Southern Afghanistan when an improvised explosive device was detonated. Fant joined the Army in March 2009 as an indirect fire infantryman. This was his first deployment. He was currently stationed in Ft. Riley. Fant was 21 and from American Canyon, California.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - Efforts are under way to create memorials to Kansas soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. The planning is only in its beginning stages. The Wichita Eagle reports that organizers are currently recruiting boards of directors, finalizing designs and creating websites. Currently, plans are to build one memorial in Wichita and another in either Leavenworth, Topeka or Junction City. Wichita resident Anita Dixon, whose son died in Iraq in 2005, says she wants to honor the soldiers from across the state with a memorial in Wichita.

A little more than a year after being unfurled following a deployment to Iraq, the colors of the 1st Infantry Division were again cased March 7 during a ceremony on Fort Riley's Cavalry Parade Field. The ceremony symbolized one of the unit's final steps in preparation for its upcoming deployment to Afghanistan. The first of about 700 division staff members and Division Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion Soldiers slated to deploy are set to depart by the end of the month.

The war in Afghanistan takes the life of a Kansas soldier. The Department of Defense says Staff Sgt. Vinson B. Adkinson III died Tuesday in an improvised explosive device attack. He was from Harper. The bombing killed three other soldiers. Adkinson was part of the 173rd Brigade Support Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team based in Bamberg, Germany. He was 26-years-old.

It would be the first of its kind in Kansas -- and it comes from a mother's love for her son. Five years ago this month, Sgt. Evan Parker died from the wounds he received in Iraq. He is one of 64 Kansans who have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And now, there's a movement to build a memorial to all of them in the heart of Wichita's Veterans Memorial Park. This patch of land sits quietly. The grass is touched by sun and shadows, the Arkansas River shimmers just over a hill.

President Barack Obama insisted Friday that the U.S. economy is digging itself out of the deepest recession in decades but conceded that "progress has been painfully slow" and many voters in November's elections may blame him. Facing a rising jobless rate, Obama told a White House news conference: "For all the progress we've made, we're not there yet. And that means the people are frustrated and that means people are angry. " "And since I'm the president and Democrats have controlled the House and the Senate, it's understandable that people are saying, you know, 'What have you done?