title: American Forces Network

text: The first radio station began in Delta Junction, Alaska, on what was then known as Fort Greely. It was called KODK and was operated by on base personnel. In the years just before World War II, there were several radio stations based in American military bases, but none were officially recognized until 1942. The success of these individual radio stations helped pave the way for the AFN. As such, there was no single station that could be called the "first" to sign on as an AFN station. About two months before formal establishment of AFN, however, a station called "PCAN" began regular broadcast information service in the Panama Canal Zone, primarily for troops on jungle bivouac. The station, located at Fort Clayton, was later to become part of AFRS, first simply as "Armed Forces Network" located at Albrook Field.


title: American Forces Network

text: The U.S. Army began broadcasting from London during World War II, using equipment and studio facilities borrowed from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).


title: American Forces Network

text: The first transmission to U.S. troops began at 5:45 p.m. 4 July 1943, and included less than five hours of recorded shows, a BBC News and sports broadcast. That day, Corporal Syl Binkin became the first U.S. military broadcaster heard over the air. The signal was sent from London via telephone lines to five regional transmitters to reach U.S. troops in the United Kingdom as they made preparations for the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe.


title: American Forces Network

text: Fearing competition for civilian audiences, the BBC initially tried to impose restrictions on AFN broadcasts within Britain (transmissions were allowed only from American bases outside London and were limited to 50 watts of transmission power) and a minimum quota of British produced programming had to be carried. Nevertheless, AFN programs were widely enjoyed by the British civilian listeners who could receive them, and once AFN operations transferred to continental Europe (shortly after D-Day) AFN was able to broadcast with little restriction with programs available to civilian audiences across most of Europe, (including Britain), after dark.


title: American Forces Network

text: As D-Day approached, the network joined with the BBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to develop programs especially for the Allied Expeditionary Forces. Mobile stations, complete with personnel, broadcasting equipment and a record library, were deployed to broadcast music and news to troops in the field. The mobile stations reported on front-line activities and fed the news reports back to studio locations in London.


title: American Forces Network

text: Although the network's administrative headquarters remained in London, its operational headquarters soon moved to AFN Paris.


title: American Forces Network

text: As Allied forces continued to push German troops back into their homeland, AFN moved east as well. The liberation of most of Western Europe saw AFN stations serving the forces liberating Biarritz, Cannes, Le Havre, Marseille, Nice, Paris and Reims.


title: American Forces Network

text: During the period between 1943 and 1949 the AFN also broadcast programs developed through a collaboration of the Department of State's Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and the CBS network while supporting America's cultural diplomacy initiatives. Included among the programs was "Viva America" which showcased leading musical talents from both North and South America and was transmitted for the benefit of armed forces throughout Europe and to South America over CBS's short wave network "La Cadena de Las Americas".


title: American Forces Network

text: On 10 July 1945, the first AFN station in occupied Germany started broadcasting, the AFN Munich. Its first broadcast was however incorrect as it began with the sentence "Good morning! This is AFN Munich, the voice of the 7th Army!". General George S. Patton, commander of the 3rd Army, was furious with the opening as his army had taken control over Munich the previous night, and demanded that the responsible person be court-martialed.


title: American Forces Network

text: Soon after AFN Munich signed on the air in the southern part of occupied Germany, in northern Germany, AFN Bremen begin broadcasting a few weeks later with its first radio broadcast occurring on Saturday, 28 July 1945. (In 1949, the station moved from the city of Bremen north to the port city of Bremerhaven and became AFN Bremerhaven.)


title: American Forces Network

text: On 31 December 1945, AFN London signed off the air, and in 1948 AFN closed all its stations in France. This started the cycle of AFN stations where they would be built up during wartime, then torn down or moved after the war was over. Of the 300 stations in operation worldwide in 1945, only 60 remained in 1949.


title: American Forces Network

text: A large number of AFN stations continued broadcasting from American bases in Europe (particularly Germany) after World War II. (Eight remain on the air today. See article on .)


title: American Forces Network

text: During the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949, planes headed for Tempelhof in West Berlin tuned their radios to AFN-Berlin because the station's transmission tower was in the glide path to the airfield and was not jammed by the Soviets.


title: American Forces Network

text: During the 1950s and 1960s, AFN had large civilian audiences in Europe, as European radio stations rarely played American music. In Communist countries, all radio stations were state-operated, and never played American music. Despite the language barrier, the people in those countries saw AFN as an alternative connection to the West. Also, unlike stations such as Radio Free Europe, which broadcast in Eastern European languages, AFN was not jammed by the Soviets.


title: American Forces Network

text: Especially popular was "Music in the Air", which aired on the full European network at 19:00 CET. The host was AFN Frankfurt (civilian) manager John Vrotsos, who had an especially warm baritone voice. He began each program by saying (after an introductory piano phrase from the program's theme music) "Listen ... [pause for more piano] ... there's music in the air". The theme was "Music Everywhere" in an arrangement by Victor Young. Later in the 1950s, Leroy Anderson's "Belle of the ball" was used. The program was popular throughout Northern Europe, especially in the liberated countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, France (the northern part), Luxembourg and, to a lesser extent, Denmark. Many Dutch households switched to the program, also because of their positive experiences with the American liberators.


title: American Forces Network

text: Also featured were live performances of classical music and jazz by Samuel Hans Adler's Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra in support of America's cultural diplomacy initiatives in the post war period.


title: American Forces Network

text: In France, about a dozen AFN stations operated, with AFN Orléans as the studio control station. The network broadcast music, shows, and news relayed from AFN Frankfurt, locally produced shows, and other features aimed at the American soldiers and their families stationed in France. In particular, a whole team of reporters and technicians was sent to cover the 24-hour auto race at Le Mans, at a time when Ford was doing its best to beat the Ferraris, and finally succeeded. AFN France broadcast with 50 watt FM transmitters made by French manufacturer TRT, type OZ 305. The network employed a technical director, a program director, several military American broadcast professionals, and some French studio operators, record librarians, secretaries and maintenance technicians. The Frankfurt network programming was received, then re-fed from AFN Orléans studios to another studio-equipped affiliate, AFN Poitiers and its repeater transmitters via modulation lines rented from the French postal service. AFN Poitiers, based at Aboville Caserne, Poitiers, France, home of an Army logistical command and a major Communication Zone Signal Corps agency, served Army depots and installations in Southwestern France with locally originated programs and network feeds from AFN Orléans via Frankfurt, Germany. It was the only other studio station affiliate of AFN Orléans because of the large American military presence and its resident Department of Defense dorm school for children of American military and civilian families assigned to Poitiers, and the American installations located throughout Southwestern France. Children living in outlying American military installations and communities commuted to Poitiers once a week for daily classes and departed for home by bus and train. AFN France was dismantled in 1967, when U.S. forces left France due to the French government's decision of President (General) Charles de Gaulle to withdraw its forces from NATO's military command. The French employees were dismissed but were granted a severance pay (in French francs and taxable) of one month per year of service, paid by the U.S. Army to the French government, in dollars (all the French employees were managed by a specially created service: le Bureau d'Aide aux Armées Alliées or AAA).


title: American Forces Network

text: When war broke out in Korea, Army broadcasters set up in Seoul in the Banto Hotel (the old American Embassy Hotel). When the Chinese entered Seoul in December 1950, the crew moved to a mobile unit that was just completed and retreated to Daegu. Due to the large number of American troops in Korea, a number of stations were started. Mobile units followed combat units to provide news and entertainment on the radio. By the time the 1953 armistice was signed, these mobile units became buildings with transmitters, and a network, American Forces Korea Network, was born.


title: American Forces Network

text: Canadian and American television personality Jim Perry began his broadcasting career fresh out of high school with the Armed Forces Korea Network, under his birthname of Jim Dooley, spending one year in Korea before attending the University of Pennsylvania to further his education.


title: American Forces Network

text: An AFRTS radio station became operational in Tehran, Iran in 1959. This was followed by a television station in 1960, known as AFTV. It broadcast a radio service on 1555 kHz and a television service on Channel 7 in Tehran and the surrounding area from its studios in the city.


title: American Forces Network

text: Its listeners (and viewers) were American military personnel stationed in Iran as part of ARMISH (the US Army mission) and Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) programs. AFTV was also popular with Iranian viewers, particularly children.


title: American Forces Network

text: As the TV service only had a power of 1000 watts, it was only on air for a few hours each day, whereas the radio service operated for around 18 hours a day. In deference to Iranian sensitivities, AFRTS avoided carrying programming that might be construed as offensive on political or religious grounds, instead carrying cowboy or detective movies.


title: American Forces Network

text: Following the nationalization of the privately owned Television Iran network in 1969, AFTV was the only television service not in the Iranian government's hands. However, in 1976, it was decided by the Iranian government that AFRTS should close down its radio and TV services, which it did on 25 October of that year, the day before the Shah's 57th birthday.


title: American Forces Network

text: Radio 1555 closed with presenter Air Force Staff Sergeant Barry Cantor playing Roger Whittaker's "Durham Town (The Leavin')". This was followed by a closing announcement by Chief Master Sergeant and Station Manager Bob Woodruff, ending with the U.S. national anthem:


title: American Forces Network

text: Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm Chief Master Sergeant Bob Woodruff Station Manager of the American Forces Radio and Television Service in Tehran. After 22 years of radio broadcasting and 17 years of telecasting in Tehran, AFRTS Radio 1555 and TV Channel 7 cease all operations in this country at this time. I bid you all goodbye and thank you for letting us serve you. And now the national anthem of the United States of America."


title: American Forces Network

text: The following day, AFRTS radio and television services in Iran were replaced by those operated by the state broadcaster National Iranian Radio and Television (NIRT), which were similar in content, appealing to the 60 000 U.S. Army and civilian personnel then stationed in Iran, as well as the wider population of foreign nationals resident in the country.


title: American Forces Network

text: As the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam increased, AFRTS opened radio and later television stations there.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFRTS stations in Vietnam were initially known by the name "AFRS" (Armed Forces Radio Saigon), but as the number of stations quickly expanded throughout South Vietnam became known as "AFVN" (American Forces Vietnam Network) and had several stations, including Qui Nhơn, Nha Trang, Pleiku, Da Nang and Huế, the latter being overrun by the People's Army of Vietnam during the Battle of Hue in January/February 1968 and replaced by a station in Quảng Trị. AFVN's headquarters station was located in Saigon.


title: American Forces Network

text: In Vietnam, AFVN had a number of war-related casualties. After a fierce fire fight that killed two soldiers and a civilian contractor, the remaining AFVN station staff at Huế was captured and spent five years as prisoners of war. At the height of American involvement in the war, Armed Forces Vietnam Network served more than 500,000 fighting men and women at one time. AFVN developed a program along the lines of "GI Jive" from World War II. A number of local disc jockeys helped make hourlong music programs for broadcast. Perhaps the best-known program became the morning "Dawn Buster" program, (the brainchild of Chief Petty Officer Bryant Arbuckle in 1962) thanks to the popularity of the sign-on slogan "Gooooood Morning, Vietnam" (which was initiated by Adrian Cronauer and later became the basis for the film "Good Morning, Vietnam" starring Robin Williams). Among the notable people who were AFVN disc jockeys were Don L. "Scotty" Brink, Lee Hansen, Les Coleman and Pat Sajak, Chris Noel and Denny Woytek. Harry Simons hosted the "GO Show" at both AFVN Saigon and Danang in 1968 and 1969. Simons along with broadcaster Mike Bates created and produced a 10-hour radio documentary ("AFVN: The GI's Companion") as a tribute to AFVN and to honor all Vietnam Veterans. It aired and streamed on Veterans Day 2015 on WEBY Radio in Pensacola, Florida. The documentary is archived at Rock Radio Scrapbook: AFVN: The GI's Companion.


title: American Forces Network

text: Beginning in 1971, AFVN began to close some stations in Vietnam. The last station to close was the key station in Saigon in 1973. Broadcasting continued under civilian leadership on FM only and using the name American Radio Service (ARS). The civilian engineers were provided by Pacific Architects and Engineers (PAE). ARS stayed on the air until the Fall of Saigon in April 1975. It was to play Bing Crosby's version of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" as a signal for Americans that the final evacuation of Saigon had begun. The Crosby version of the record could not be found so Tennessee Ernie Ford's record from 1968 was played.


title: American Forces Network

text: In Thailand, the Department of Defense began the planning for the Armed Forces Thailand Network in 1964 with Project Lamplighter and Project Limelight. By late 1966, implementation of the network began by the U.S. Air Force with stations on the air at Korat, U-Tapao, Ubon, Udorn, Takhli and Nahkon Phanom. In addition, there were more than 20 satellite stations that rebroadcast one or more of the primary stations, and that included one or more clandestine locations in Laos.


title: American Forces Network

text: In April 1970, a battle-damaged RF-4C Phantom II #65-0863 returning to Udorn from a reconnaissance mission in northwest Laos, crashed into the AFTN station, killing 9 Air Force broadcasters. Pilot Leaphart and Navigator Bernholz ejected from their battle damaged plane when it went out of control on final approach. Both crewmen were injured but survived. The incident was the single worst catastrophe in the history of military broadcasting killing: TSGT Jack A Hawley, Wakeman, OH; SSGT James A. Howard, Denver, CO; A1C Andrew C. McCartney, Lakewood, OH; SSGT Alfred N. Potter, Forest Grove, OR; SGT John Charles Rose, Bloomfield, NJ; TSGT Frank D. Ryan, Jr., Mercer Island, WA; SSGT Edward W. Strain, Myrtle Beach, SC; TSGT Roy Walker, Albuquerque, NM and A1C Thomas L. Waterman, Roanoke, VA.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFTN became the American Forces Thailand Network in the summer of 1969, and continued operations until the spring of 1976 when the remaining U.S. troops in Thailand were withdrawn at the request of the Thai government. More than 600 broadcasters from the Air Force, Navy and Army had served during the ten years that AFTN operated.


title: American Forces Network

text: Before the United States and the People's Republic of China established diplomatic relations in 1979, the AFN branch in Taiwan was Armed Forces Network Taiwan (AFNT), which had a main station in Yangmingshan American Military Housing, Taipei. After the U.S. armed forces withdrew all its troops stationed in Taiwan (including the United States Taiwan Defense Command) as Washington, D.C., recognizes Beijing and broke ties with Taipei, the station was reorganized under the name of International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT) by the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei and the ROC government. Today, ICRT is the only English-language radio service in Taiwan.


title: American Forces Network

text: Then still known as the American Forces (or Armed Forces) Radio and Television Service, military bases and facilities throughout Puerto Rico received original radio programming from Army studios at Ft. Brooke in San Juan, Air Force studios at Ramey Air Force Base, and radio and television originating from Navy studios at Roosevelt Roads, in addition to local playback of stateside entertainment radio and television shows. This broadcast service was known as AFCN, the American Forces Caribbean Network in the 1970s (later as the Armed Forces Caribbean Network) served military bases and facilities throughout Puerto Rico from transmitters in San Juan (Fort Brooke, Fort Buchanan), Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, and Ramey Air Force Base. Each of these bases also had their own television transmitters or cable systems that played back stateside TV programming delivered to each location in weekly "packages" of 16mm film, kinescope recordings, video tape, and satellite news programming feeds. AFCN Roosevelt Roads also produced live radio programming featuring Navy Journalist/Broadcaster disc jockeys in a Top 40 hits format, combined with programming from AFRTS Hollywood-sourced stateside shows such as American Top 40. Programming broadcast over AFCN broadcast radio and television transmitter antennas also reached some local civilian markets across Puerto Rico, such as San Juan.


title: American Forces Network

text: Radio, and later television, to U.S. troops stationed in the Panama Canal Zone was provided initially by Armed Forces Radio (AFN) at Albrook Field and later as the Caribbean Forces Network at Fort Clayton with translators on the Atlantic side of the Canal Zone. In the early 1960s with reorganization of the command located in the Canal Zone, CFN became the Southern Command Network (SCN). SCN also broadcast to U.S. troops stationed in Honduras starting in 1987. SCN discontinued broadcasting on 1 July 1999 just before the 31 December turnover of the Canal Zone to the Republic of Panama when U.S. troops were removed from that country under the Torrijos-Carter Treaties.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN Honduras, which began in 1987 as SCN Honduras, now broadcasts from Soto Cano Air Base on 106.3 FM, and serves more than 600 American service members stationed at the installation, as well as numerous civilian employees and contractors. The station's primary mission is radio, originating programming including two daily live shows following the "Eagle" format. Personnel also occasionally produce video news packages. As of 15 January 2013, AFN Honduras is one of 18 stations under the operational control of AFN Europe.


title: American Forces Network

text: With the advent of satellite broadcasting, AFRTS has shifted its emphasis away from shortwave. Currently, the U.S. Navy provides the only shortwave single sideband shortwave AFN radio broadcasts via relay sites around the world to provide service to ships, including Diego Garcia, Guam, Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and others.


title: American Forces Network

text: The American Forces Network (AFN) is the operational arm of the American Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS), an office of the Defense Media Activity (DMA). AFN falls under the operational control of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (OASD-PA). Editorial control is by the Department of Defense, whereas the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS), for example, is independent of the Ministry of Defence and the British armed forces.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN employs military broadcasters as well as Defense Department civilians and contractors. Service personnel hold broadcasting occupational specialties for their military branch.


title: American Forces Network

text: Since 1997, all of AFN's military personnel receive primary training at the Defense Information School (DINFOS) at Fort George G. Meade in Maryland. Before 1997, DINFOS was located at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1997, Fort Benjamin Harrison was largely closed as a function of the 1991 Base Closure and Realignment Commission. Additional/Advanced training is also available at Fort George G. Meade.


title: American Forces Network

text: In the 1960s, DINFOS was located at Fort Slocum, NY on a small island just off the harbor at New Rochelle. At its peak in 1965, the Army Chaplain school was also located there. In 1963 the campus operated in a "university" setting with a relaxed military environment. The Army ran the Information School although training was offered to members of all military branches. Radio types took a rather severe audition written by CBS for their network announcers. Those who survived the audition became "Broadcast Specialists" with a 703 MOS and went on to an AFRTS assignment.


title: American Forces Network

text: Some of AFN's broadcasters have previous commercial broadcasting experience before enlisting in the military, but it is not a prerequisite for enlistment in the military as a broadcaster. During their training, the broadcasters are taught to use state-of-the-art audio and visual editing equipment similar to their civilian counterparts.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN management is located at DMA headquarters at Fort Meade. Day-to-day AFN broadcast operations are conducted at the AFN Broadcast Center/Defense Media Center in Riverside, California, from where all global radio and television satellite feeds emanate.


title: American Forces Network

text: Until the early 1970s, U.S. military television service was provided in Central Europe by Air Force Television at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. In the early 1970s, AFN assumed this responsibility for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS).


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN Bremerhaven was the first AFN television station in Europe to broadcast its programming in color. The U.S. European Edition of "Stars and Stripes" ("S&S") reported in its Thursday, 21 August 1975, edition that the AFN-Europe Commander, Lt. Col. Floyd A. McBride, announced that AFN's first color TV broadcast would begin in Bremerhaven on Monday 25 August 1975. As "S&S" reported, because Bremerhaven's TV operation was so small, only a "Class C" operation, and, at the time, served only one area with TV programming, it was easy to establish the color TV broadcast operation without extensive expense or expansion.


title: American Forces Network

text: That next year, "S&S" reported in its Wednesday, 23 June 1976, edition, that "the long-awaited switch to color by AFN-TV could come by the end of the year for viewers in most of West Germany. The only viewers enjoying color right now are those watching the pilot color TV station in Bremerhaven, which went on the air in…1975".


title: American Forces Network

text: Finally, on 28 October 1976, AFN television moved from AFTV's old black-and-white studios at Ramstein to the network's new color television studios in Frankfurt. In the 1980s the network added affiliates with studio capabilities in Würzburg, Germany, and Soesterberg, the Netherlands, expanding the network to 12 affiliate stations serving American military, DOD-employed civilians and their families estimated to be well-above 350,000 stationed in West Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. This was accomplished by a system of 112 microwave transmitters operated and maintained by the Army's 5th Signal Command. Embassies and other entities of the American government without access to AFN TV signals received a 30-plus hour package mailed weekly of AFN and U.S. programming. In April, 1984 AFN began broadcasting live news, information and entertainment programming received through an 11-meter satellite dish downlink at AFN network headquarters, in addition to primetime pre-recorded shows and movies received from the Armed Forces Radio-Television Service broadcast center in Hollywood. For outlying areas, broadcast feeds of live American sports events were frequently provided by European contractors.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN TV was available in West Berlin until 1994. However, it was only available in the American Sector.


title: American Forces Network

text: Over-the-air TV for U.S. Forces in the Pacific is currently provided by AFN-Korea, AFN-Japan and AFN-Kwajalein. All local operations merged under the AFN banner effective 1 January 1998.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN-Korea, formerly American Forces Korea Network (AFKN), was the largest of AFN's Pacific TV operations, although there are also AM and FM operations from military bases around Korea. AFKN began TV operations on 15 September 1957, and consisted of an originating studio at Yongsan Garrison, Seoul, and six relay transmitters throughout the peninsula. AFKN's first live television newscast aired on 4 January 1959. Until December 2007, the channel was widely available to non-military audiences on cable television, but following complaints from U.S. companies trying to sell programs in South Korea, USFK requested that the Korean Broadcasting Commission direct the removal of Pacific Prime from the Korean cable lineups. American Forces Network-Korea discontinued analog over-the-air TV broadcast 1 May 2012, due to request from the South Korean government because many local residents could receive current over-the-air U.S. network programming, resulting in decreased sales of U.S. programs to South Korean stations.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN-Japan, formerly the Far East Network (FEN), had one full-power VHF terrestrial TV outlet – located on Okinawa atop the Rycom Plaza Housing area in the central part of the island, AFN-Okinawa's (U.S. channel 8) TV signal served Marines, Airmen, Sailors, Soldiers, and their families stationed on-island. TV viewers on military bases in the Tokyo and Kanto Plain area of Japan can view AFN via contractor-operated base cable TV services, or through AFN Direct-To-Home (DTH) dish services if they reside off-base.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN-Japan's radio services consist of AM and FM stereo operations at Yokota Air Base (810 AM & cable FM), MCAS Iwakuni (1575 AM), FLTACTS Sasebo (1575 AM), Okinawa (648 AM & 89.1 FM) and Misawa Air Base (1575 AM).


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN-Latin America, formerly the Las CableVision (LCV), has one full-power VHF terrestrial TV outlet. Located on HDTV.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN-Kwajalein at the Reagan Missile Test Range on Kwajalein Atoll is the only civilian-run affiliate in AFN, broadcasting on U.S. channel 13 for military personnel and civilian contractor employees and their families. AFN-Kwajalein's signal is beamed by microwave to the nearby island of Roi-Namur and rebroadcast on channel 8.


title: American Forces Network

text: With the availability of AFN's DTH service, terrestrial over-the-air TV broadcasts at all AFN outlets are slated for deactivation in the near future.


title: American Forces Network

text: In January 1991, the network dispatched news teams and technicians to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. These broadcasters reported to families of soldiers deployed from Europe and staffed a number of the U.S. radio stations making up the Armed Forces Desert Network. The first song on the air after the start of the ground offensive was "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN-Iraq began broadcasting in December 2003 on the FM band shortly after the fall of Saddam. The first song on the air was "Freedom" by Paul McCartney. Within a short time, Freedom Radio was broadcasting on multiple FM channels from as far south as Basra to as far north as Mosul.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN-Iraq, Freedom Radio began as a joint effort between the Air Force, the Marines and the Army. The first unit to operate the station was the 222nd Broadcast Operations Detachment, an Army Reserve unit based in southern California. ""Always There and on the Air"" was the phrase that started it all, even though there were only eight hours of live radio to kick things off.


title: American Forces Network

text: After an introduction from Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of Coalition Ground Forces in Iraq, Air Force Master Sergeant Erik Brazones was the first DJ on the air. When the 222nd BOD took the reins of the radio operations, the first two regular radio shows were "Niki Cage in the Morning" and "Abbey in the Afternoon". AFN-Iraq signed off in 2011.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN Afghanistan operated out of a building on Bagram Air Base. Its radio frequency throughout Afghanistan was 94.1 and 97.1 in Manas and produced live local shows. Its first radio transmission was at 06 o'clock 30 min on Friday, 21 July 2006. Beyond radio, AFN Afghanistan also had television news. It produced a daily five-minute newscast called Freedom Watch Afghanistan, which also aired on the Pentagon Channel.


title: American Forces Network

text: The station was typically staffed with Air Force broadcasters but also slots Army, Navy and Marine broadcasters as well. For support there were usually four-man teams of engineers to handle all transmission, decoder and satellite issues.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN in Germany and SEB (Southern European Broadcasting) in Italy provided broadcasting to U.S. troops in Western Europe throughout the Cold War. The U.S. defense drawdown began in earnest after the Gulf War, and affected AFN stations across Europe, as many stations were consolidated or deactivated with the closing of bases. In Europe, AFN is still on the air from Tuzla, Bosnia, and Taszár, Hungary, to inform and entertain U.S. forces.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN went on the air 29 May with service at the Tirana airport in Albania with satellite decoders and large-screen televisions placed in high traffic areas. At the same time, the AFN also advanced into the Yugoslav province of Kosovo along with NATO.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN viewers abroad witnessed live television coverage of the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001.


title: American Forces Network

text: During military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq AFN provided non-stop coverage of the campaigns. AFN broadcast personnel from Europe deployed with the troops to cover events. Today AFN has a staffed affiliate in Iraq, AFN-Baghdad (launched in 2003).


title: American Forces Network

text: Wherever large numbers of U.S. troops are deployed, the AFN sets up operation, providing news and entertainment from home. Today AFN has several satellites and uses advanced digital compression technology to broadcast TV and radio to 177 countries and territories, as well as on board U.S. Navy vessels.


title: American Forces Network

text: There have been ongoing plans for transitioning AFN TV to HDTV with an estimated completion timeframe between 2015 and 2017. So far, AFN has added one HD channel, with more being planned. However, the conversion to HD is an expensive project, so timelines and actual transition of channels is highly dependent on availability of funds. With the additional Department of Defense budget cuts looming, this project could easily be required to slip. However, AFN is continuing to research more efficient delivery methods in hopes of continuing along the planned path.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN's television service is broadcast in standard North American NTSC format of 525 lines. All programming delivered by satellite is PowerVu encrypted DVB. While programming is provided to AFN by major American TV networks and program syndicators at little to no cost, for copyright and licensing reasons it is intended solely for U.S. forces personnel, authorized Department of Defense civilian employees, State Department diplomatic personnel and their families overseas.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN-TV is available to authorized viewers by "Direct-To-Home" (DTH) service with set-top decoders purchased or leased through military exchanges (similar to a membership store), licensed/contracted commercial cable operators, purchased used from other military members (the cheapest option) or terrestrial signal. The advent of DTH service coincides with the phasing-out of AFN terrestrial TV broadcasts due to reclamation of frequencies by host nations.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN is considered a non-essential service, and programming ceases during government shutdowns. Sports programming to which the AFN has already purchased rights continues to be carried, as the skeleton crew operating AFN for essential programming does not save any money by blacking out the programs.


title: American Forces Network

text: While the audience tunes into AFN to watch their favorite shows or listen to the latest stateside hits, entertainment is the "candy coating" used to attract the military viewer/listener. AFN's primary mission is to provide access for worldwide, regional and local command information (CI) spots, which air during commercial breaks in programming instead of commercial advertisements. These CI spots run the gamut from reminding service members to register to vote, promoting local command-sponsored recreation events and off-duty educational programs, providing health and wellness tips, and listing what's playing at local base movie theaters.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN also inserts public service announcements from the Ad Council. Some of the 35 overseas AFN affiliates have the capability to cover the "worldwide" CI spots placed by the AFN Broadcast Center in California with regional or locally produced CI spots (such as localized messages from senior leadership).


title: American Forces Network

text: Many service members welcome this approach, while others find it troublesome, especially during the airing of the Super Bowl.


title: American Forces Network

text: The network is allowed to broadcast commercial movie promotion trailers provided by the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) and the Navy Motion Picture Service (NMPS) to promote the latest film releases in base theaters worldwide. Previously these were the only true "commercials" authorized for broadcast.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN also offers a variety of radio programming over its various frequencies throughout the world. Not only is there local programming (with military disc jockeys), but there is satellite programming, as well. Music programming spans classic rock, rhythm and blues, Jack FM and country music. Ryan Seacrest's "American Top 40" (AFN The Blend), WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour (AFN Country), Casey Kasem's American Top 40 (AFN's Joe Radio) and the "American Country Countdown" with Kix Brooks (AFN Country) are broadcast weekly over AFN Radio. In addition to music, AFN broadcasts syndicated talk radio programs such as "Car Talk" (NPR AFN), John Tesh (Hot AC), "The Bob and Sheri Show" (AFN Joe Radio), "Le Show" (NPR AFN), "Tech Nation" (AFN The Voice), "Kidd Kraddick in the Morning" (AFN the Blend), "Kim Komando" (AFN The Voice), "The Rush Limbaugh Show" (AFN Power Talk), Delilah (AFN The Blend), "The Motley Fool Radio Show" (AFN The Voice), "A Prairie Home Companion" (NPR AFN), "Doug Stephan" (AFN The Voice),"Titillating Sports with Rick Tittle", "Sports Overnight America" (AFN FANS), "Mr Dad: Positive Parenting" (AFN The Voice), and other programs from a variety of sources. Weekly religious programming is offered to AFN stations via closed-circuit.


title: American Forces Network

text: On 5 December 2005, liberal/progressive Ed Schultz and conservative talk show host Sean Hannity were added to the radio programs provided by the AFN Broadcast Center to its affiliate stations. Liberal Alan Colmes rounds out the political talk lineup on The Voice channel.


title: American Forces Network

text: On 24 April 2006, AFN Europe launched AFN The Eagle, a virtually 24-hour-a-day radio service format initially modeled after "Jack FM" but most recently a "Hot AC" format. This replaced ZFM, which had more of a contemporary hit radio flavor. When the Eagle was launched, AFN Europe took control of what local DJs could play.


title: American Forces Network

text: Altogether, AFN produces ten general-use streams for AFN stations to use. Of these, six are music-based, two are sports-based and three general news/talk channels, including The Voice, which features live play-by-play of American sports (it's also the one heard on shortwave, if the shortwave radio has Single sideband installed). How these stations use these formats is up to them. These formats are:


title: American Forces Network

text: Like its radio counterpart, AFN TV tries to air programming from a variety of sources to replicate programming on a typical U.S. TV channel; sourcing from U.S. commercial networks (including PBS), and program syndicators at little to no cost since AFN does not air commercials and in that regard cannot profit from airing shows like stations in the United States can. In their place, AFN inserts public service announcements on various subjects; these can be civilian "agency spots" created by The Ad Council, nationally recognized religious and public health charities, AFN's own "command information" spots produced by the AFRTS Radio-Television Production Office (RTPO) or announcements by a regional/local AFN affiliate. The most common PSAs shown deal with sexual harassment, public health and safety, force protection/anti-terrorism, pride in service and messages to the troops.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN produces and broadcasts eight core satellite television channels in NTSC color. They are accessible to both military and foreign service personnel abroad. All eight feeds are accessible in core areas, including but not limited to European, Korean and Japanese posts. Much of the rest of the world is limited to a smaller but more widespread naval broadcast.


title: American Forces Network

text: Unless specified, the first telecast of each channel targets the Japan/Korea region, then replayed several hours later for the Central European time zone.


title: American Forces Network

text: In November 2013, the American Forces Network launched Internet radio streams expanding the reach of the military network's radio programming overseas.


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN Go's Internet streams are only made available in countries where AFN has terrestrial stations (i.e., where the U.S. armed forces have established bases) and are not available in North America. AFN Go uses IP address geolocation to determine whether a listener can access the streams. AFN stations can be accessed where it is not available through proxy servers.


title: American Forces Network

text: The AFN transmitters in Germany are operated by different authorities but most are operated directly by the U.S. military. Some are the property of Deutsche Telekom, while others are controlled by German public broadcasting corporations.


title: American Forces Network

text: ["All Freedom Radio–Iraq stations went off the air on 30 September 2011, as a result of the continuing draw-down of U.S. Military personnel. Listing remains to document the coverage of Iraq.]"


title: American Forces Network

text: AFN Italy, has been serving Americans that live on American Bases in Pisa, Vicenza, Aviano, Napoli and Sigonella, since 1983. Many Italians also listen to AFN Radio to hear great music every day.


title: American Forces Network

text: Radio: AFN Soesterberg 1964–1993 (former location at grid 52°7'25"N 5°15'13"E) Transmissions ceased at the dissolution of USAF 32nd TFS


title: American Forces Network

text: The morning "Touch and Go" show from 5–9 am and the afternoon "Afterburner" show from 3–6 pm were live. The rest of the hours was syndicated from AFN Frankfurt.


title: American Forces Network

text: Table of AFN-transmitters in Saudi Arabia. Table may be incorrect and incomplete. Please correct and expand if necessary.


title: American Forces Network

text: NOTE: All over-the-air television broadcasts in South Korea ended in May 2012. The following are previous stations.


title: American Forces Network

text: The last known confirmation of AFN using its shortwave frequencies was in the mid-2010s. Current (2022) bandscans show no signal on any of AFN's frequencies.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: The 2005 ECW One Night Stand was the inaugural One Night Stand professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It took place on June 12, 2005, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York. Although wrestlers from WWE's Raw and SmackDown! brand divisions appeared on the show, the event was primarily produced as a reunion show for wrestlers from the former Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) promotion, which had folded in 2001, after which, WWE acquired ECW's assets in 2003.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: The main event was a tag team match between Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray Dudley and D-Von Dudley) and the team of Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman. Two of the matches on the undercard were Chris Benoit versus Eddie Guerrero, and Mike Awesome versus Masato Tanaka.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: In 2001, the Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) promotion was closed down due to financial issues and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) acquired the former promotion's assets in 2003. With the success of "The Rise and Fall of ECW" (2004) documentary, WWE announced that they would be holding an ECW reunion show on June 12, 2005, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York titled ECW One Night Stand. Although the build-up for the pay-per-view began in the middle of May, plans were in the works behind the scenes for several months in advance. Tommy Dreamer was in charge of organizing the hardcore-based event and getting ECW alumni to participate, which were referred to as ECW Originals in the build to the show. He contacted several people, including The Sandman, Sabu, Justin Credible, and ECW commentator Joey Styles. Reports later stated that Paul Heyman was working with Dreamer to help prepare the event. Other ECW related wrestlers were later added to the pay-per-view. The event was publicly confirmed by WWE through a Dish Network magazine in March 2005. In an interview with SLAM! Sports days before One Night Stand, ECW original Rob Van Dam announced he had asked Vince McMahon about the idea of holding an ECW reunion event. This event was sponsored by "Destroy All Humans!" video game.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: Although many of the individual matches on the One Night Stand card were announced weeks before the pay-per-view occurred, none of them got any build-up on any of WWE's weekly programs, with WWE choosing to focus on an "invasion" angle, with several Raw and SmackDown! superstars feuding against wrestlers from the original ECW.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: The invasion angle began on the May 9 episode of "Raw", when Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff made a statement regarding the pay-per-view, saying that he'd "squash ECW like a bug." The next week on "Raw", Tajiri agreed to an ECW Rules match with Chris Benoit. In the middle of the match, however, Bischoff came out to stop it, and announced anything related to ECW was banned from Raw. He also vowed to "destroy" ECW with the help of the "Raw" superstars chosen to compete at the pay-per-view. Bischoff planned an ECW funeral for the next week's "Raw" but WWE Chairman Vince McMahon interrupted and spoke of his support for the ECW reunion and his financial interest in bringing back the promotion. Paul Heyman then came out and reminded McMahon that, while Heyman did not own ECW, he still had control of it. Heyman also said that he welcomed Bischoff's invasion, claiming, "You may light a fire that you can’t put out." and proceeded to light the funeral wreath ablaze. In a rematch from the last week's "Raw", Benoit defeated Tajiri in an ECW Rules match after locking in the Crippler Crossface. The next week, Bischoff set up a Tables match between Edge and Benoit. During the match, Benoit attempted a diving headbutt with Edge on a table, but failed after Lita moved Edge off it. At that point, Bischoff sent several Raw superstars to the ring to assault Benoit, with Gene Snitsky booting Benoit in the face and Edge powerbombing Benoit through the table for the victory.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: The feud between the Raw superstars and ECW Originals also spread over to "SmackDown!". On the May 26 episode of "SmackDown!", Kurt Angle stated that ECW was a low-class promotion, that he would be part of the WWE invasion of One Night Stand, and that he would take "SmackDown!" volunteers with him. A week later, Angle asked Tazz to join him in the invasion and on the same episode of "SmackDown!", John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL) announced he would be joining Angle in invading the pay-per-view. When Tazz rejected the offer, Angle reacted by assaulting Tazz and leaving him bleeding in the ring.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: On the June 6 episode of "Raw", Benoit defeated Snitsky in an ECW Rules match by performing a diving headbutt and pinning him. The ECW Originals made their debut on WWE programming, as Tommy Dreamer, Rhyno, Balls Mahoney, Axl Rotten, The Sandman, and other ECW Originals attacked Bischoff's Raw invaders, with ECW Originals, Dudley Boyz, hitting a 3D on "Raw" invader Maven. Benoit was drafted to "SmackDown!" on its June 9, 2005 episode, and faced JBL in the main event with the ECW Originals at ringside cheering him on. JBL's Cabinet was also at ringside, as well as Carlito, Matt Morgan and Kurt Angle. After Benoit locked in the Crossface on JBL, Angle interfered and broke the submission hold, resulting in a disqualification and a brawl breaking out between the ECW Originals and WWE Invaders, with ECW coming out on top.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: Before the event aired live on pay-per-view, an episode of "Extreme Heat" aired on Spike TV, showing footage from the build-up to the event. The event started with a speech from ECW commentator Joey Styles, who was greeted with an "ECW" chant. Styles welcomed the fans to One Night Stand before introducing the color commentator for the evening, Mick Foley.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: The first match of the event was Lance Storm versus Chris Jericho. Storm was accompanied to the ring by Dawn Marie. During the match, a "Chris Candido" chant broke out, a reference to the recently deceased wrestler who was a tag team partner of Lance Storm in ECW. Jericho locked in the Walls of Jericho on Storm, but Marie jumped on the ring apron and distracted the referee. Jason and Justin Credible interfered, with Credible hitting Jericho with a kendo stick. Storm got the pinfall on Jericho for the victory, Johnny Candido (brother) of Chris Candido revealed on WSI: Wrestling Shoot Interviews that Chris was originally supposed to face Lance Storm in The opening match


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: A tribute video played next, highlighting the wrestlers from ECW that had died between the promotion's end in 2001 and One Night Stand. A three-way dance was next, with Tajiri facing Little Guido Maritato and Super Crazy. Tajiri was accompanied to the ring by The Sinister Minister and Mikey Whipwreck, and Guido was accompanied by his fellow F.B.I. members. One of the highlights of the match occurred when Super Crazy delivered a moonsault off the balcony onto all the members of the F.B.I. Guido was the first eliminated when Whipwreck delivered a Whipper Snapper while the referee was distracted. Tajiri picked up the three count to eliminate Guido. Super Crazy won the match after performing a moonsault off the top rope onto Tajiri, getting the three-count in the process.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: Next was Psychosis facing "SmackDown!" superstar and ECW Original Rey Mysterio, Jr. Mysterio won the match at the seven-minute mark after delivering a 619, followed by the West Coast Pop. The two later revealed that they were disappointed with the way their match panned out. After the contest, the SmackDown! crusaders entered the Hammerstein Ballroom. They consisted of Kurt Angle, JBL and his Cabinet, Carlito and Matt Morgan. The crowd chanted, "You Suck Dick" and "Fuck You "SmackDown!"" as they entered the arena. Joel Gertner attempted to interview the invaders, but Angle took the microphone out of his hand and JBL pushed him to the ground. JBL and Angle cut a promo, with the crowd continuing to chant, "You Suck Dick", to which Angle replied with "Your MOTHER taught me how". Angle stated, "The last time I was at an ECW event I walked out halfway through because it sucked" (referring to the time Sandman was crucified). The crowd continued to chant, "Shut the Fuck Up", while JBL spoke.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: Rob Van Dam and Bill Alfonso interrupted the promo, with Van Dam stating it had nothing to do with "SmackDown!". Van Dam claimed that WWE deserved no credit, that the interview was a shoot with no scripts, and that missing One Night Stand was worse than missing WrestleMania. The promo was interrupted when Rhyno delivered a Gore. Van Dam's former tag team partner Sabu then appeared following the lights turning off, and had a match with Rhyno. Sabu won the match with Van Dam's help, as Van Dam delivered a Van Daminator on Rhyno before Sabu delivered the Arabian Skullcrusher on Rhyno through a table for the victory.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: The Raw crusaders, which included Eric Bischoff, Jonathan Coachman, Edge, Christian, Tyson Tomko, Snitsky, La Résistance and William Regal, entered the building. Chris Benoit versus Eddie Guerrero followed, with Benoit making Guerrero submit to the Crippler Crossface. During this match, several anti-Lita chants could be heard, including "Lita's Got Herpes" and "I Fucked Lita". After the Benoit versus Guerrero match was over, Gertner again tried to interview the crusaders and begged Bischoff for a job. He was not successful, and Bischoff poured his drink over Gertner, saying, "ECW Sucks".


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: Mike Awesome versus Masato Tanaka followed, and Joey Styles made comments during the match about Awesome regarding Awesome's controversial departure from ECW in April 2000. At one point during the match, after Awesome delivered a suicide dive, Styles said, "And it's a shame he didn't succeed in taking his own life." 20 months after the match, Awesome committed suicide by hanging himself on February 17, 2007. Styles has confirmed that this comment, as well as several other comments he made, were actually shoots. He said if the Original ECW was ending he was "going to say whatever the hell I wanted."<ref name="Tweet, 3/25/11"></ref> The match was also notable for the large number of unprotected chair shots that both men took, as well as several risky bumps. Awesome won the match after powerbombing Tanaka through a table on the outside of the ring and followed it with a Suicide Dive, getting the pinfall.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: ECW booker Paul Heyman then cut a promo in the ring, with the crowd chanting, "Thank You Paul" and rising for a standing ovation. After thanking several people, including Tod Gordon, Heyman turned his attention to the Raw and SmackDown! invaders. He first spoke to Eric Bischoff, stating that Bischoff was in "our (ECW's) house". Heyman turned to Edge and said, "Hide your wives, it's Edge", with Heyman also saying that he had two words for Edge "Matt 'Freaking' Hardy", both references to Edge's real life affair with Matt Hardy's long-term girlfriend, Lita. At the time of One Night Stand, Hardy was not employed by WWE, having been fired as a result of his internet rants against Edge and Lita, but Hardy was soon hired back. A huge "We Want Matt" broke out in the Hammerstein Ballroom following Heyman's comments. Heyman then commented that the only reason JBL was WWE Champion for a year was because Triple H did not want to work Tuesdays (a reference to the day "SmackDown!" is taped).


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: The Dudley Boyz then faced Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman in the main event. The Sandman entered the Hammerstein Ballroom through the crowd as Enter Sandman by Metallica played in full, with the fans enthusiastically singing along. As the match was about to begin, the bWo, a stable consisting of Hollywood Nova, Stevie Richards and The Blue Meanie entered the ring. Kid Kash interfered, and Balls Mahoney and Axl Rotten then came to the ring with steel chairs and took out the bWo. They attacked all three members of the bWo before hitting Nova with a steel chair twice. Styles made a reference to Simon Dean, the character Nova played with WWE, by stating "That's more painful than being Simon Dean on national TV." When the match eventually started, it involved trash cans, cheese graters and street signs. The Impact Players interfered, attacking Dreamer and Sandman. Francine, Dreamer's former manager, entered the ring and delivered a low blow to Dreamer. Dreamer's other valet and real life wife, Beulah McGillicutty, returned to wrestling for the first time in over seven years, sparking a catfight with Francine. The Dudley Boyz eventually won with the help of Spike Dudley, who had just turned heel. They sent Dreamer through a flaming table with a Powerbomb to get the victory. The Dudleyz attempted to attack McGillicutty before Sandman attacked them with a Singapore cane. Sandman shouted for a beer repeatedly. Stone Cold Steve Austin then made his way to the ring, with the ECW Originals coming out moments later. Austin referenced his time in ECW and then asked the crusaders to come to the ring. A huge brawl occurred, with the Originals fighting the Crusaders. The crowd chanted "We Want Tazz", which brought Tazz to the ring and he then locked Kurt Angle in the Tazzmission. During the brawl, JBL legitimately attacked Blue Meanie, causing him to bleed. The Originals came out on top, as The Dudley Boyz performed a 3D on Bischoff, Benoit delivered a diving headbutt to Bischoff and Mysterio performed a 619 on Bischoff. Austin asked for Bischoff's thoughts on the event while on the ground, and Bischoff replied, "Fuck ECW". Austin then executed the Stone Cold Stunner on Bischoff to end the show.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: After the show went off the air, the ECW wrestlers left the ring one at a time, but Dreamer stayed in the ring. He bowed to the ECW logo as the crowd chanted, "Thank You Tommy". The Dudley Boyz came back to the ring and hugged Dreamer, with Bubba Ray saying to Dreamer, "This is all for you".


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: According to reports, many people backstage were very happy with the way One Night Stand went and many former ECW wrestlers that had worked the pay-per-view described it as a "fun" event. 325,000 people bought the event on pay-per-view. Many tried to order it through WWE's official website, but the website was shut down because not enough bandwidth was available.


title: ECW One Night Stand (2005)

text: WWE adopted One Night Stand as an annual pay-per-view event and continued the theme of featuring hardcore-based matches on the show. The event returned to the Hammerstein Ballroom for ECW One Night Stand 2006. Just prior to this 2006 event, WWE established a third brand dubbed ECW for former wrestlers of the original promotion, as well as newer talent, to compete on. One Night Stand would continue for another two years (dropping the "ECW" name in 2007 and just being promoted as WWE), until it was replaced by Extreme Rules in 2009. One Night Stand was originally just renamed to Extreme Rules for 2009, but in 2010, WWE declared that Extreme Rules was its own chronology, one that was no longer part of the One Night Stand chronology. Extreme Rules, however, continued the hardcore-based theme.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: The Sixties Scoop was a period in which a series of policies were enacted in Canada that enabled child welfare authorities to take, or "scoop up," Indigenous children from their families and communities for placement in foster homes, from which they would be adopted by white families. Despite its name referencing the 1960s, the Sixties Scoop began in the mid-to-late 1950s and persisted into the 1980s.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: It is estimated that a total of 20,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and fostered or adopted out primarily to white middle-class families as part of the Sixties Scoop.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Each province had different foster programs and adoption policies; Saskatchewan had the only targeted Indigenous transracial adoption program, the Adopt Indian Métis (AIM) Program. The term "Sixties Scoop" itself was coined in the early 1980s by social workers in the British Columbia Department of Social Welfare to describe their own department's practice of child apprehension. The phrase first appears in print in a 1983 report commissioned by the Canadian Council on Social Development, titled "Native Children and the Child Welfare System", in which researcher Patrick Johnston noted the source for the term and adopted its usage. It is similar to the term "Baby Scoop Era," which refers to the period from the late 1950s to the 1980s in which large numbers of children were taken from unmarried mothers for adoption.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: The government policies that led to the Sixties Scoop were discontinued in the mid-1980s, after Ontario chiefs had passed resolutions against them, and a Manitoba judicial inquiry had harshly condemned them. Associate Chief Judge Edwin C. Kimelman headed the Manitoba inquiry, which resulted in the publication of "No quiet place / Review Committee on Indian and Metis Adoptions and Placements", better known as the "Kimelman Report".


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Multiple lawsuits have since been filed in Canada by former wards of the Sixties Scoop, including a series of class-action lawsuits launched in five provinces, such as the one filed in British Columbia in 2011. Beaverhouse First Nation Chief Marcia Brown Martel was the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit filed in Ontario in 2009. On 14 February 2017, Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba ruled that the government was liable for the harm caused by the Sixties Scoop; and on 6 October 2017, an $800-million settlement was announced for the Martel case. As Métis and non-status First Nations people are currently excluded from the agreement, National Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare Network—a group led by Sixties Scoop survivors based in Ottawa—has advocated for the settlement to be rejected unless it includes all Indigenous people who were taken from their homes and forcibly adopted.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Canada's residential school system was implemented by the federal government and administered by various churches. Its purpose was to remove Aboriginal children from their homes and reserves, so they could teach them Euro-Canadian and Christian values. The Sixties Scoop was an era in Canadian child welfare between the late 1950s to the early 1980s, in which the child welfare system removed Indigenous children from their families and communities in large numbers and placed them in non-Indigenous foster homes or adoptive families, institutions, and residential schools. The Sixties Scoop was further precipitated by the introduction of child welfare services on reserves where social workers argued that Indigenous children were not offered equal services on reserves as non-Indigenous children through provincial social services. The beginning of the Sixties Scoop coincided with Indigenous families dealing with the fall-out of the residential school project which had negative results on their social, economic, and living conditions. The school system was in effect until 1996, when the last school closed. During the Sixties Scoop, children were forcibly apprehended from their Native land and community for an extended period of time, often without knowledge or consent from their families or tribes. Siblings were often intentionally sent to different regions in order to eliminate any form of communication with their families. The policies forbade the children from speaking their own languages, contacting their family, or from acknowledging their culture in any way. These children were not allowed to know of their real nationality, history, or family. When a child wanted to know their cultural identity, they would have to receive consent from their biological parents. Since the government made sure there wasn’t any connection between the children and their biological family, they were never able to actually open their birth records. Thus, the children suspected their cultural heritage, but were unable to confirm or deny it with any evidence. Survivors of the residential schools have come forward and spoken out about physical, spiritual, sexual, and psychological abuse that they experienced at the hand of the residential school staff. The lasting cultural impact on First Nations, Métis, and Inuit families and communities has been widespread and extensive.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: The Canadian government started to close the compulsory residential school system in the 1950s and the 1960s, but the government authorities thought that Aboriginal children would benefit from a better education in the public school system. According to one summary: This transition to provincial services led to a 1951 ["Indian Act"] amendment that enabled the Province to provide services to Aboriginal people where none existed federally. Child protection was one of these areas. In 1951, twenty-nine Aboriginal children were in provincial care in British Columbia; by 1964, that number was 1,466. Aboriginal children, who had comprised only 1 percent of all children in care, came to make up just over 34 percent.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a component of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, was mandated to document the experiences of Indigenous children in residential schools and to share the truth of survivors, families, communities, and others affected with all Canadians. According to the TRC Commission's final report, published in 2015:By the end of the 1970s, the transfer of children from residential schools was nearly complete in Southern Canada, and the impact of the Sixties Scoop was in evidence across the country. First Nations communities responded to the loss of their children and the resulting cultural genocide by repatriating children whose adoptions failed and working to regain control over child welfare practices related to their children, which started in 1973 with the Blackfoot (Siksika) child welfare agreement in Alberta. There are about 125 First Nations Child and Family Service Agencies across Canada, but they operate through a patchwork of agreements that give them authority from the provincial government to provide services and funding from the federal government.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Funded by the Canadian and Saskatchewan governments, the Adopt Indian Métis (AIM) was a program that was started to promote the adoption of First Nations children by middle-class white families in 1967. The project was started by Otto Driedger, who later become Director of Child Welfare for Saskatchewan, and Frank Dornstauder. AIM was the only targeted Indigenous transracial adoption program in Canada.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: CBC News produced a television segment about the AIM after the project's first year, in May 1968. It showed several Indian and Métis children playing as the reporter, Craig Oliver, told viewers that they represented only a few of the hundreds of First Nations children ages six weeks to six years who are in need of homes. He stated that there has been an increase in the number of children from these communities who are up for adoption because of the rise in illegitimate births and marriage breakdowns among Indian and Métis people. The government had been taking in nearly 200 children each year as wards of the state and was having difficulty finding permanent homes for them. The news report portrayed the AIM program as a solution to the problem and focused on its quantifiable results by placing 100 children, including several family groups of children, in its first year.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: When CBC News ran the segment, all of the children remained with their adoptive families. The program advertised the availability of the Indian and the Métis children for adoption by a marketing campaign with radio, television, and newspaper advertising. The large photographs of these children that ran in provincial newspapers with the AIM advertisements were said to be the most effective aspect of its outreach to prospective families. The program also promised fast adoptions, with completion of the process within as few as 10 weeks.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: The original AIM program ran through 1969 and resulted in an increased interest in transracial adoptions. The focus of the program was broadened in 1970 to include all children, but it continued to over-represent First Nations children given the high number that were taken into custody by social workers in Saskatchewan. For example, in 1969, Indian and Métis people represented only 7.5% of the population of Saskatchewan, but their children accounted for 41.9% of all children in foster homes in the province.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: In 1971, the Métis Society in Saskatoon formed a Métis Foster Home Committee, led by Howard Adams, Phyllis Trochie, Nora Thibodeau, and Vicki Raceme. Its purpose was to challenge the AIM program and research the creation of a Métis-controlled foster home program. Those leading the committee saw the AIM program as detrimental to children, parents and the Métis community. They said that the AIM's advertising campaign was racist, specifically because it implied Métis parents were unable to look after their children, portrayed First Nations children as inferior and unwanted, and suggested that any white family could be accepted for adoptions.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: A CBC News segment in 1971 by reporter John Warren stated that 500 children had found permanent homes through the AIM program. An unidentified man representing the AIM that Warren interviewed said that the increased adoptions of Indian and Métis children was caused not by prior prejudice but by the increased awareness of their availability for adoption, adding that 170 children up to 10 were in need of homes. Further, the AIM representative stated that four years earlier, "children of native origin" had represented only one in ten of the children adopted in Saskatchewan and for the past two years had represented one in four of the children adopted in the province. The AIM representative said that though it was not the primary goal of the program, he hoped that the AIM would help people of different races understand each other. In his report, Warren also mentioned that First Nations leaders were criticizing the AIM as an attempt at integration and were drafting complaints about the program to bring to federal and provincial leaders.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: A CBC Radio podcast series, "Missing and Murdered: Finding Cleo", takes an in-depth look at the experience of a Cree girl named Cleopatra (Cleo) Nicotine Semaganis. In 1974, at the age of nine, Cleo was removed from her family in Saskatchewan as part of the AIM program. The family never saw her again and wanted to know what had happened to her. The series website includes images of the AIM newspaper advertisements featuring photographs and personal and health information about the Indian and Métis children available for adoption. It also includes an internal memo, dated 25 September 1973, from AIM director, G.E. Jacob, that recommended as an Award of Merit to a supervisor in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Mrs. D. Wilson, as Salesperson of the Year. That award was to recognize the number of children that she made wards of the province and eligible for adoption.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: In 1977, about 15,500 Indigenous children were in the care of child welfare authorities, an estimate based on data from Indian and Northern Affairs, Health and Welfare Canada, Statistics Canada, and provincial departments of social services. They represented 20% of all Canadian children living in care, even though Indigenous children made up less than 5% of the total child population.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: In 1983, Patrick Johnston, then a program director at the Canadian Council on Social Development, coined the term "Sixties Scoop" in a report on Aboriginal child welfare, titled "Native Children and the Child Welfare System". His research found that Aboriginal children were being disproportionately taken into the child welfare system.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Johnston, in researching his report, collected statistical data from various stakeholders within the community, including different levels of government, Aboriginal organizations, and band councils. He got the idea for the term "Sixties Scoop" from a social worker who disclosed "with tears in her eyes – that it was common practice in BC in the mid-sixties to 'scoop' from their mothers on reserves almost all newly born children. She was crying because she realized – 20 years later – what a mistake that had been."


title: Sixties Scoop

text: The proportion of children in care who were Aboriginal was 40-50% in Alberta; 60-70% in Saskatchewan; and 50-60% in Manitoba. According to the Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission, "Johnston estimated that, across Canada, Aboriginal children were 4.5 times more likely than non-Aboriginal children to be in the care of child welfare authorities." Similar findings have been reported by other experts.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Most of the children who were removed by social workers did not return to their communities. A 1980 study by the Canadian Council on Social Development found that 78% of status First Nations children who were adopted were placed with non-Indigenous families.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Raven Sinclair, an associate professor at the University of Regina and a member of Gordon First Nation, wrote an article titled "Identity lost and found: Lessons from The Sixties Scoop" in which she discusses the broader context of the term:


title: Sixties Scoop

text: A judicial inquiry over the "Sixties Scoop" in Manitoba was headed by Associate Chief Judge Edwin C. Kimelman. The inquiry resulted in the 1985 publication of "No quiet place / Review Committee on Indian and Metis Adoptions and Placements", better known as the "Kimelman Report".


title: Sixties Scoop

text: The Kimelman Report was a strong critique of both the existing child welfare system in Manitoba and the practices of its social workers and agencies:Rather, it is believed that every level of personnel in the child welfare system has been so free of examination for so long that the least attention was viewed as negative criticism. Staff seemed unable to recognize that public examination of the system was long overdue.The Report included the following allegations against child welfare policies in the province:The native people of Manitoba had charged that the interpretation of the term "best interest of the child" had been wrought with cultural bias in a system dominated by white, middle class workers, boards of directors, administrators, lawyers and judges. They also alleged that in application of the legislation, there were many factors which were crucially important to the native people which had been ignored, misinterpreted, or simply not recognized by the child welfare system.It found that Manitoba's non-Indigenous agencies often required single, Indigenous mothers to live on their own, as opposed to in traditional, multi-generational households, to regain custody of their children.This demand goes against the native patterns of child care. In the native tradition, the need of a young mother to be mothered herself is recognized. The grandparents and aunts and uncles expect the demands and rewards of raising the new member of the family. To insist that the mother remove herself from the support of her family when she needs them most is unrealistic and cruel.Membership changes in the new "Indian Act" also prevented single Indigenous mothers from living with their children on reserves and complicated placements with family members. Mothers who chose to remain on reserves with their children had to first prove that the father of their children had First Nations status. Additionally, children of unmarried First Nations mothers often could not be placed with families on reserves due to these same membership stipulations.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: The Kimelman Report included 109 recommendations to address issues that ranged from cultural sensitivity to maintenance of family ties, formal training for professionals, structure of the system, and having records accessible by computer. It went on to refer to the loss of the children as a "cultural genocide." A 1989 follow-up report published in the "Canadian Journal of Native Studies" by the Manitoba Métis Federation indicated that the situation had not improved but in some ways was becoming more problematic for Métis children.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Deanna Reder, a Cree-Métis associate professor in the Departments of First Nations Studies and English at Simon Fraser University, wrote in 2007 that adult adoptees who were affected by these policies have begun to speak out about their losses: loss of their cultural identity, lost contact with their natural families, barred access from medical histories, and for status Indian children, the loss of their status.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) documented the experiences of Indigenous children who were removed from their families and placed in residential schools by the government. TRC Commissioners, who were tasked with sharing this knowledge with all Canadians, focused on child welfare in the first five of 94 calls to action in their final report. Published in 2015, the TRC report addresses the effects of the Sixties Scoop as well that of residential schools on Indigenous communities:The effects of residential schools and the Sixties Scoop on Aboriginal people and their families resulted in generational and historical trauma that negatively affected parenting skills, social values, economic conditions, and future success. This trauma has caused overwhelming rates of suicide, homicide, depression, substance abuse, alcoholism, child abuse, domestic violence, struggles of self-identity, and other social problems. These factors, combined with prejudicial attitudes toward Aboriginal parenting skills and a tendency to see Aboriginal poverty as a symptom of neglect, and self-inflicting rather than as a consequence of failed government policies which have resulted in grossly disproportionate rates of child apprehension among Aboriginal people.According to Shandel Valiquette, “[In] residential schools they learned that adults often exert power and control through abuse. The lessons learned in childhood are often repeated in adulthood with the result that many survivors of the residential school system often inflict abuse on their own children.” Stereotypes about Indigenous people lead child welfare workers to more quickly decide to remove children from contemporary homes. Stereotypes around First Nations addiction are frequently repeated with no discussion of the trauma created by government policies like the Sixties Scoop.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: The negative impact of scooping children away from their families can never be overstated. Such action of kidnapping kids and keeping them away from practicing their cultural values has resulted in the destruction of their social and political structure which was the norm of the Aboriginal communities. This has also resulted in the disruption of the transmission of knowledge that was passed on to the Indigenous children through the telling of stories and values of families, the importance of the elderly, importance of communities over individualism as is the case in the white communities. As a consequence, many children who were placed in homes during the 60’s Scoop have their group identity and cultural knowledge stolen from them.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: The aftereffects of the Sixties Scoop remain an issue in child welfare provision for Aboriginal communities in Canada. Scholar Chris Walmsley notes in "Protecting Aboriginal Children" (2011) that some social workers find themselves in a similar alienated relationship to communities. Walmsley referred to one heavily publicised incident in which 71 children were removed from a community in 1998 (though not all were Aboriginal). One Aboriginal childcare worker said "to me it was very shocking... it reminded me of the Sixties Scoop when kids on-reserve were taken without even their parents being aware of them [being] taken." Walmsley commented that "the condition of victimisation is recreated for the community every time a social worker parachutes into a community, makes a brief assessment, and then leaves with all the children at risk. This form of practice often reactivates the sixties scoop in the minds of the community."


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Walmsley noted, however, that there is a reverse problem of Aboriginal children in care now being often "off-loaded" onto Aboriginal communities that do not have the resources to deal with them, a process that can exacerbate problems in fragile communities by introducing troubled children with no meaningful ties beyond ethnicity.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: A 2011 Statistics Canada study found 14,225, or 3.6%, of all First Nations children aged 14 and under are in foster care, compared with 15,345, or 0.3%, of non-Indigenous children.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Canada's 1.4 million First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people disproportionately experience poor living conditions and substandard schooling, among other issues. A 2016 study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that 51% of First Nations children live in poverty. That increases to 60% for First Nations children who live on reserves, with poverty rates reaching 76% in Manitoba and 69% in Saskatchewan for First Nations children living on reserves. The study found poverty rates of 30% for non-status First Nations children, 25% for Inuit children, and 23% for Métis children. (Canada has an overall child poverty rate of 18%, ranking it 27th in the 34 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.)


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Some foster parents have tried to incorporate the native culture of the children while raising them, but the effects of being physically placed in the foster care systems have continued to negatively impact them. One specific example of how the 60's Scoop affected children throughout their lives is Rose Henry. She was placed into her adoptive parents’ home when she was 8 years old after being apprehended by Canadian government officials in 1966. The foster mother understood the extreme need that Rose had to keep in touch with her biological parents. For the whole of the ten years that she stayed with her foster family, they would make sure that she had some kind of interaction with her biological family. Unfortunately, Rose still ended up homeless due to the everlasting impacts of the Sixties Scoop. She felt torn between her two identities, unsure of where she fits in. She explained that “Going through the Scoop left me wondering which world or culture I belonged in: white Canadian or First Nations community. I was torn between the two. It has had a very damaging effect on me; society told me you’re brown on the outside and white in the middle (as I was brought up in a white home). I was confused and lost, and it was this path that ultimately led me to my life on the streets.”


title: Sixties Scoop

text: In other cases, adoptive or foster parents would lie to the children by telling them they were Italian or French instead. This was another example of disconnecting these children from their culture and the extent they have gone through in order to inflict cultural genocide. This has compounded the struggle of the First Nations people’s self-identity that still affects them up to this day.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Cindy Blackstock, PhD, the executive director of the First Nations Child & Family Caring Society of Canada and a professor in the School of Social Work at McGill University, claims that funding for child and family services on reserves is insufficient. She believes that the Canadian government's funding amounts to discrimination against First Nations children. Canadian government documents support Blackstock's statements and show that Indigenous agencies receive 22-34% less in funding than provincial agencies.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Blackstock's organization and the Assembly of First Nations, a political organization representing all First Nations in Canada, took that concern to the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 2007. Their complaint, which alleged that the Canadian government had a longstanding pattern of providing less government funding for child welfare services to First Nations children on reserves than is provided to non-Indigenous children, was referred to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: The tribunal ruled in January 2016 that the Canadian government's failure to provide equitable and culturally based child welfare services to 165,000 First Nations children amounted to discrimination. The government has spent at least $5 million fighting the complaint and has not acted on that and three subsequent noncompliance orders.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: On August 25, 2017, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) recommended for Canada to end its underfunding of First Nations, Inuit and Métis child and family services; ensure that all children, on and off reserve, have access to all services available to other children in Canada, without discrimination; implement Jordan's Principle fully to ensure access to services is not delayed or denied because of funding disputes between the federal, provincial and territorial governments; and address the root causes of displacement, such as poverty and poor housing, that disproportionately drive Indigenous children into foster care.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Richard Cardinal, a Métis child, was born in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. He entered the foster care system when he was four years old. In the care of Alberta Child Welfare, he had a total of 28 group care and foster placements, secured facilities and shelters. At 17, Richard hanged himself on June 26, 1984. A 1986 film made about his short life, "", was based on his personal diary and interviews with his brother Charlie and his foster parents.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Sydney Dion is an aboriginal man from Manitoba who was adopted by a family in the United States in 1971. The CBC program "8th Fire" features his story about coming back to Canada. Dion saved his money so that he could find his family in Canada. When he arrived at the border, he was turned down: "they are aware that I was born here, but I am not a citizen here." He did not have a Canadian birth certificate, and his name had been changed. Therefore, he had no proof that he is a Canadian citizen. On his second try to get into Canada, he was successful. The border guard acknowledged that he was a minor when he was adopted and did not implicitly consent to becoming a United States resident and so allowed him to enter Canada without a passport.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: In 2011, Taber Gregory, who was baptized Henry Desjarlais, was an aboriginal man from Cold Lake Nation, Alberta, who became the first child placed in the United States as part of the Sixties Scoop to be recognized by Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: In January 2015, via a civil class action suit served on the Federal Government of Canada, Wayne Snellgrove became the first child placed in the United States as part of the Sixties Scoop to be recognized by Canadian courts.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: "The StarPhoenix" journalist Betty Ann Adam collaborated with filmmaker Tasha Hubbard on "Birth of a Family", a National Film Board of Canada documentary about her own separation and reunification with three of her siblings. The film premiered at the 2017 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Adam approached Hubbard to document her story at the urging of a commissioner who served on Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Nakuset, who is Cree from La Ronge, Saskatchewan, was adopted by a Jewish family in Montreal when she was three. She is now the executive director of the Native Women's Shelter of Montréal and draws on her adoptee experience in her work to improve the lives of urban Aboriginals. She sits on the Steering Committee of the Montréal Urban Aboriginal Community Strategy Network. Nakuset produced and hosted the television series "Indigenous Power" and was voted "Woman of the Year 2014" by the Montreal Council of Women.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Carol Rose GoldenEagle, was born, in 1963, in a religious hospital, to a First Nations woman who was an unmarried nurse, so Hospital authorities stripped her from her mother. She wrote "Bearskin Diary", a novel with a strong autobiographical component inspired by this episode of her life.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Gordon Edwin Sanderson, a formerly unidentified Canadian murder victim who was found in a septic tank in 1977 at Lindbrook, Alberta. The investigation into his homicide is ongoing.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: In 2009, Beaverhouse First Nation Chief Marcia Brown Martel filed a class action lawsuit in Ontario on behalf of Indigenous children affected by the Sixties Scoop. Her lawsuit, which claimed that she suffered emotional, physical, and sexual abuse after she was placed in the foster system as a child, was one of a series of class action lawsuits that had been launched in five provinces.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: On February 14, 2017, Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba ruled in favour of the plaintiffs in the case known as "Brown v. Canada (Attorney General)". Justice Belobaba found that Canada had breached its common law duty of care to


title: Sixties Scoop

text: take reasonable steps to prevent on-reserve Indian children in Ontario, who had been placed in the care of non-aboriginal foster or adoptive parents, from losing their aboriginal identity.Justice Belobaba, in his decision, also acknowledged the impact of the Sixties Scoop on survivors:The Sixties Scoop happened and great harm was done... The uncontroverted evidence of the plaintiff's experts is that the loss of their Aboriginal identity left the children fundamentally disoriented, with a reduced ability to lead healthy and fulfilling lives. The loss of Aboriginal identity resulted in psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, unemployment, violence and numerous suicides.Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett, in interviews after the outcome was announced, stated that Canada would not appeal the decision.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: On October 6, 2017, an $800 million settlement was announced. It will provide status First Nations and Inuit who were adopted out of their families and communities as part of the Sixties Scoop, with $25,000 to $50,000 in compensation, depending on the number of claimants who come forward. It will also establish a $50 million endowment for an Indigenous Healing Foundation. Non-status First Nations and Métis will not receive compensation under the settlement.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Jeffery Wilson, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, made this comment about the settlement: Never before in history has a nation recognized, in this way, children's right to their cultural identities, and a government's responsibility to do everything in its power to protect the cultural identity of children in its care.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Hundreds of claims have been rejected, and can be appealed if more proof is found. As part of the Sixties Scoop, Debbie Paul was taken by a nun from the Canadian residential school she attended and placed with a family in the United States, where she attended one school year. Her claim for compensation was rejected with the words "unable to confirm that you were placed in long-term care with non-indigenous parents". After her claim was rejected, with the help of a journalist she travelled to the town in the United States where she had lived, and managed to obtain her school records which she had previously attempted to obtain without success, and which stated as guardian the name of one of the parents of the family she had been placed with. Obtaining the records was an emotional moment for her. It wasn't about the money; it was about being believed. Finally she had proof that her story was true. She was then in a position to file an appeal of her claim. Having a claim rejected adds an emotional burden on top of the original trauma from having been removed from one's family.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: In Australia, a similar policy, which is sometimes referred to as the Stolen Generations, removed Aboriginal children from their families and placed them in orphanages, children's homes, or with non-Aboriginal foster parents.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: In the United States, according to the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA), 25 to 35 percent of Native children nationwide were being removed from their families in 1978. Overarching federal legislation setting standards for child custody proceedings, the "Indian Child Welfare Act" (ICWA), was adopted that year. ICWA mandates that when a Native American child's parent dies, exhaustive efforts must be made to reunite the child with the surviving parent or other relatives. Children are placed with non-Native families only when an Native foster home, preferably one within the child's tribe, cannot be found.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: Also in the United States, a similar term, Baby Scoop Era, refers to a period starting after the end of World War II and ending in 1972 that was characterized by an increased rate of premarital pregnancies, along with a higher rate of forced adoptions.


title: Sixties Scoop

text: In the 1950s, there was another targeted removal of children from their families and communities in Canada. The children of a fringe group of Russian Doukhobors in British Columbia, called the Freedomites or Sons of Freedom, were taken by Canadian authorities.


title: Sha Wujing

text: Sha Wujing () is one of the three disciples of the Buddhist pilgrim Tang Sanzang in the 16th century novel "Journey to the West" written by Wu Cheng'en in the Ming dynasty, although versions of his character predate the Ming novel. In the source novel, his background is the least developed of the pilgrims, and he contributes the least to their efforts.


title: Sha Wujing

text: In English renditions of the story, the character is called "Friar Sand", "Sand Monk", "Sandman", "Sand Fairy", "Sand Orc", "Sand Ogre", "Sand Troll", "Sand Oni", "Sand Demon", "Sand Monster", "Sand Hulk", "Sand", or "Sandy", and is sometimes referred to as a "water buffalo" in reference to his low intelligence. His Buddhist name, "Sha Wujing", given to him by the bodhisattva Guanyin, means "sand aware of purity". His name is rendered in Korean as "Sa Oh Jeong", into Japanese as "Sa Gojō", into Sino-Vietnamese as "Sa Ngộ Tịnh". He is also known as "Monk Sha" (; Sa Tăng in Sino-Vietnamese; "Sua Cheng" in Thai) or Sha Heshang (沙和尚 colloquial Chinese).


title: Sha Wujing

text: Like Zhu Bajie, Wujing was originally a general in Heaven, more specifically a Curtain-Lifting General (卷帘大将 "juǎnlián dàjiàng"). In a fit of rage, he destroyed a valuable vase. Other sources say that he had done this unintentionally, and it was an accident. Nevertheless, he was punished by the Jade Emperor, who had him struck 800 times with a rod and exiled to earth, where he was to be reincarnated as a terrible man-eating sandman, orc, ogre, troll, oni, demon, monster, or hulk. There, he lived in the "Liúshā-hé" (流沙河, "flowing-sand river", or "quicksand-river"). Each day, seven flying swords sent from Heaven would stab him in the chest and then return. He had to live in the river to avoid the punishment.


title: Sha Wujing

text: Wujing's appearance was grisly. He had a red beard and sometimes had blue skin, and he was partially bald and sometimes much more bigger, and stronger than an average human being (reminiscent of the later inspiration for the hulk from Marvel Comics). A necklace consisting of skulls made him look even more terrible. He still carried the weapon he had in Heaven, a magic wooden staff created by Lu Ban. According to one story, an earlier group of nine monks on a pilgrimage west to fetch the scriptures met their end at the hands of Wujing. Heedless of their pleas for mercy, he devoured them, sucked the marrow from their bones, and threw their skulls into the river. Unlike his other victims whose bone sank to the river bottom, the skulls of the monks floated. This fascinated and delighted Wujing, who strung them on a rope and played with them when he was bored.


title: Sha Wujing

text: Later, Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion, and her disciple Prince Moksha came searching for powerful bodyguards in preparation of Tang Sanzang's journey west. She recruited Wujing, in exchange for which, she granted some respite from his suffering. She then converted him to Buddhism and gave him his current name, "Shā Wùjìng". His surname "Shā" ("sand") was taken from his river home, while his new name "Wùjìng" means "awakened to purity" or "aware of purity". Finally, he was instructed to wait for a monk who would call for him. When Wujing does meet Tang Sanzang, he is mistaken for an enemy and attacked by Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie. Guanyin is forced to intervene for the sake of the journey.


title: Sha Wujing

text: After the misunderstanding was cleared up, Wujing became the third disciple of Tang Sanzang, who called him "Shā-héshàng" (, i.e. the "sand priest"; a "héshàng" is a Buddhist monk or priest in charge of a temple; in Japanese, "oshō"). Now, he was clad in a Buddhist pilgrim's robe and his skull-necklace was turned into a bhikkhu's one. During the Journey to the West, his swimming ability was useful. He always carried a small gourd which he could turn into a huge one, in order to cross rivers. Wujing was a kind-hearted and obedient person and loyal to his master, and, compared to his fellow disciples, Wujing serves as a 'Straight man' character. Amongst the trio, he was likely the most polite and the most logical. At the journey's end, Buddha transformed him into an arhat known as the "Golden-bodied Arhat" ().


title: Sha Wujing

text: As the third disciple, even though his fighting skills are not as great as that of Wukong or Bajie, he is still a great warrior protecting Tang Sanzang and can use his intellect as well as his strength to beat the enemy. He knows only 18 forms of transformation and, in the middle of the story, admits as much.


title: Sha Wujing

text: Sha Wujing is the end result of embellishing a supernatural figure mentioned in Monk Hui Li's () 7th-century account of the historical Xuanzang called "Daciensi Sanzang Fashi Zhuan" (, "A Biography of the Tripitaka-master of the Great Ci'en Monastery"). According to the text, Xuanzang spilled his surplus of water while in the deserts near Dunhuang. After several days without liquid, Xuanzang had a dream where a tall spirit wielding a "ji" (halberd) chastised him for sleeping on such an important journey to get scriptures from India. He immediately woke up and got on his horse, which took off in a different direction than what he wanted to go. They finally came to an oasis with green grass and fresh water.