A select group of students have signed up for the opportunity to serve in the nation?s armed forces. President Barack Obama recently announced his plan to deploy 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan. For thousands of American families, including some that are part of the Marshall community, this means a loved one will be sent to war.

Senior Theresa Hackett?s father, Colonel Robert D. Hackett, was deployed to Afghanistan for six months in 2006, when Theresa was in the eighth grade.

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During a trip to the mall during the holidays, I sat in a long line of cars waiting to enter Tyson?s Corner Mall. After circling the each floor of a parking garage, I reached the top level, only to realize that there were no more parking spaces. I figured the rush was simply due to the holidays and that it would die down in a few weeks. However, it didn?t. Even subfreezing temperatures and snow couldn?t keep hordes of shoppers from backing up the exits from 495 to the mall.

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Every year since elementary school, we?ve heard teachers telling us that our entire academic careers serve the purpose of building up to college. Getting into college, going to college, succeeding in college – everything we seniors have done for the past twelve years builds up to that fat acceptance letterContinue Reading

‘Don’t ask, don?t tell? is basically against the American political ideals of honesty and transparency, by asking someone who devotes their life to serving our country to lie about who they are from the day they begin to serve. Not only is it morally wrong to force a soldier to lie, but it is detrimental to the armed forces to limit who can serve to people who fit the extraordinarily limited ?traditional? definition of who should serve be allowed in the military.

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Shrouded mysteries, harrowing challenges and shocking revelations are three of the components that make a psychological thriller, a film so involved that it nearly always requires a second screening. Shutter Island, the latest from renowned director Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, The Departed), attempts to fit neatly into this complex genre. However, the result is something not worthy of the inevitable comparisons to mind-bending classics such as The Sixth Sense or Fight Club, two of the works that inspired the original novel and screenplay.

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