Here are recent headlines about the military in Kansas:Fort Leavenworth(USA Today) An Army colonel’s gamble pays off in Iraq: The Army is training its officers to be more collaborative with non-military types and to be able to work with relief groups and local reporters, says Col. Steve Mains, director of the Center for Army Lessons Learned, an office based at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., that analyzes battlefield tactics and distributes its findings across the Army. As shown by MacFarland, 48, such a pragmatic style can run counter to the traditional image of a hard-charging, swagger stick-carrying Army commander epitomized by Hollywood’s version of Gen. George Patton. It’s also an adjustment for a fighting force that has been armed and organized for conventional wars. “There are big changes coming,” Mains says. “It’s not like we turned into a debating party. : It’s just the way we try to draw in other people to get the other viewpoint.” The military’s new counterinsurgency manual makes clear that firepower is only part of the equation. Mains acknowledges that in the current Army, “not every brigade or battalion commander has gotten that.” He says MacFarland, whose brigade returned to its home base here in Germany in February, “really understood this is an argument between us and the insurgents.”(AP) More US agencies need to be involved in Iraq, legislative leader says: Government agencies outside the U.S. military need to be involved in rebuilding Iraq as the debate over troop withdrawals intensifies, U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton said Thursday. During a speech to officers and faculty at the Army’s Command and General Staff College, Skelton said the U.S. has an interest in making sure Iraq is stable, but the military cannot make it happen alone. As an example, Skelton said the State Department does not have enough resources to help promote reconciliation among Iraq’s battling factions. But the Iraqi leaders have to find the means to start putting the country together again, he added. “I think it’s in our national interest to have a stable Iraq,” Skelton said. “The Iraqis have to solve their own problems. You in the military can’t do it for them.”Kansas National Guard(Salina Journal) Soldiers to return from Iraq: About 220 members of the Kansas National Guard, including soldiers from Salina, will be welcomed home from duty in Iraq during a ceremony at 11 a.m. on Friday at the Landon Arena, Kansas Expocentre. According to a news release from the Adjutant General’s Department, the doors will open to the public at 9:30 a.m. The soldiers are members of the 1st Battalion, 108th Aviation, headquartered in Topeka with companies in Topeka and Salina, Austin, Texas, and Boone, Iowa. It is an air assault helicopter unit, flying UH-60 Black Hawks.