By Scott Foster, NBC News Pentagon Producer

As security continues to improve in Iraq and the U.S. plots the eventual drawdown of American combat troops, a former top military commander said Tuesday that the U.S. faces the "new challenge" of restoring neglected diplomatic relations with allies in the Persian Gulf.

Retired Naval commander Admiral William "Fox" Fallon says the U.S. now must "rebuild relationships that have been pushed aside during the war effort."

That pointed critique of American foreign policy over the course of the Iraq war comes from the former top commander of the U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, whose resignation earlier this year sparked a firestorm over a perceived schism in the Bush administration's Iran policy.

Fallon added that as the current $3 billion a week being spent in Iraq winds down, the U.S.should redirect some of that money to other initiatives in the region.

Speaking to an audience of national security analysts from various think-tanks in Washington, Fallon acknowledged that while many American allies in the Persian Gulf will continue to look to the United States for leadership, we should focus on greater security cooperation amongst regional partners.

Drawdown in Iraq presents 'opportunity'
In March of this year, Fallon resigned from his command after an Esquire Magazine profile of him suggested his anti-war stance with Iran was "brazenly challenging" President Bush.

During his one year tenure at U.S. Central Command, Fallon had been outspoken in his attempts to tamp down the heated rhetoric over a possible conflict between the U.S. and Iran, going so far as to call any potential military operation with Iran "ill-advised."

Fallon was careful not to re-ignite that debate Tuesday as he politely declined a chance to offer his take on that highly publicized policy dispute.

Still, it's clear Fallon favors a greater reliance on security cooperation and diplomacy in the Persian Gulf, as he said he believes that the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement in Iraq provides the "opportunity" to renew ties with partners, as well as "form new alliances" in the region.

Now a scholar at MIT's Center for International Studies, the former four-star admiral joked that he's still getting adjusted to his post-military service life. 

Accustomed to the secret service motorcades afforded to senior U.S. military officials, Fallon opened his remarks saying he wasn't sure he'd make it on time to the event - because he didn't know where to park.

WASHINGTON – Marine Sgt. Michael Strank received his citizenship papers Tuesday, 63 years after he helped raise the American flag over Mount Suribachi and was later killed in the battle of Iwo Jima.

His certificate of citizenship was presented to his sister at a brief ceremony in the shadows of the Iwo Jima Memorial overlooking the nation's capital.

USCIS

Sgt. Michael Strank, USMC.

"I am just so honored and proud to be here today to accept this citizenship in honor of my brother," Mary Pero, 75, of Pittsburgh, said.

Strank, four other Marines and a Navy corpsman are depicted on the huge bronze memorial hoisting the flag over the volcanic island on Feb. 23, 1945.

"He wouldn't have wanted the fame," Pero said after the ceremony. "He was there, and he did his job."

Michael Strank's journey to Iwo Jima began in 1919 in Jarabenia, Czechoslovakia, where he was born. He came to America at the age of 3 and grew up playing baseball and the French horn in western Pennsylvania.

"He was the oldest child in the family, and I was the youngest," Pero said. "He was very caring."

Strank automatically became a citizen when his father was naturalized in 1935, but Strank never received his citizenship papers. This oversight was only recently discovered by a gunnery sergeant assigned to a Marine security detachment in Bratislava, Slovak Republic.

"I was so overwhelmed," Pero said.

Strank had joined the Marines in 1939 and fought in some of World War II's bloodiest battles against Japan. He landed on Iwo Jima on Feb. 19, 1945, and helped raise the flag four days later.

"Those who served alongside him have said he had a way of setting them at ease, making them feel that he could help them survive the war," said Jonathan Scharfen, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

On March 1, 1945, while attacking Japanese positions in northern Iwo Jima, Strank was fatally wounded by enemy artillery fire.

"When we had a memorial service, the newspaper called us, and they informed my parents that he was one of the boys that raised the flag," Pero said. "That's how we found out."

Strank was buried on Iwo Jima and later reinterred in Section 12 of Arlington National Cemetery, just a short distance from Tuesday's ceremony in his honor.

 WASHINGTON – Ruth Huzzard, 104, likes to tell the story of how she came to the rescue of a familiar face while going to the store in Princeton, N.J., in the late 1940s.

"As I came along, I said, 'Boy, there's a man down in a manhole,' and I went closer and I discovered it was [Albert] Einstein," she said in a recent interview. "He was walking along the street, and he stepped into this manhole. I helped him out, brushed him off, and took him back to his home."

Huzzard, who had never met the famous scientist before, said Einstein was shaken but not hurt in the mishap.

"No wonder he fell in the hole," she quipped. "He always had his head in the clouds."

Huzzard is one of several centenarians featured by Willard Scott on NBC's "Today" show who've had encounters with famous people over the past century.

A photo of John Handler as a young man in New York.

Future pres as a boss
One hundred-year-old John Handler's first boss in the early 1920s was a pleasant, fun-loving fellow who went on to become the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

"Everyone liked him," Handler remembers. "He liked a good joke. You could hear him laughing. Not dirty jokes. He was very upright."

At the time FDR was in charge of Fidelity & Deposit Co. of Maryland's New York office. Handler went to work for the company after dropping out of school and brought bonds to Roosevelt for his signature.

"He was a nice man, very nice," Handler said. "He was very generous, too. When Christmas came, he gave me a Christmas present. It was money. It was about five or 10 dollars. I only made $12 a week there. Five dollars was a lot of money."

Another centenarian, 100-year-old Albert DeSerio, a retired New York diamond setter, lucked into a date with Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous burlesque dancer, back about 1940.

"I went to her show, and I wanted to see her with the fan dancing," DeSerio remembers. "So I said, 'Are you going to take the fan off?' She smiled at me, and I went behind the stage, you know, and she took a liking to me, and I gave her my telephone number, and she said she'd call me, and she called me. That's it." 

APÂ

U.S. actress and burlesque entertainer Gypsy Rose Lee is seen dressing for her role as one of the "Floradora Girls" on July 19, 1939.Â

Well, not quite.

"I took her out to dinner," he said. "I took her to the [Grand Central] Oyster Bar, you know, and we had a drink over there, and then we went around to a restaurant and walked around. She wanted to see New York, you know, and I showed her all around New York."

And?

"She was a wonderful person, you know," DeSerio said. "She had a good personality, that's all I know. She was a very fine woman, very, very nice woman, that's all. Very nice to speak to her, you know, and that was it. I think she went to New Orleans after that."

DeSerio never saw her again.

If you know of a centenarian who's had a brush with history over the past century, please tell us a little bit about it in the comments section below and be sure to fill in your return e-mail address so we can get back to you for more details.

 ISLAMORADA, Fla. – At sunrise, a daily ritual begins at charter boat docks throughout the Florida Keys. 

In the fresh morning breeze, captains prepare their big fishing boats for another day in the Gulf Stream. Mates rig the rods, store the bait and fill the coolers with ice. Paying clients then step aboard and settle in for an exciting, but increasingly expensive, day on the water chasing billfish, mahi mahi, kingfish, snapper and other species.

Charter fishing is an integral and historic part of South Florida and other coastal areas around the United States. Here in the Keys, the lore of the sport features colorful and famous anglers, among them novelists Ernest Hemingway and Zane Grey.

Watch video

Offshore angling is also important to the region's economy, luring sportsmen and tourists from around the world. Not only do they charter the big fishing boats, they also book rooms in local motels, dine in the restaurants and spend money in clothing and tackle shops.

The problem, though, is that those visitors have begun to thin out, partly because of their own economic troubles these days, but also due to an increase in charter prices largely blamed on soaring fuel costs.

"I'm actually worried, fearful that this could literally lead to the extinction, so to speak, of the charter industry as we know it," said Richard Stanczyk, the owner-operator of Bud and Mary's Marina in Islamorada. "I mean like the dinosaurs, it might just become non-existent."

Five years ago, a day-long offshore charter trip cost $900 here, but it now costs $1,400, plus tip – an increase of more than 50 percent. In other coastal regions of the country the day-rate is even higher, because the captains have to run way off-shore to find fish, pushing up their fuel costs.

The price of diesel fuel is one of the main reason for the rise in charter rates. A year ago, diesel fuel at the boat docks cost about $3.00 a gallon; now it's more than $5.00. For a captain burning 100 to 150 gallons a day, that price increase is substantial.

Stephanie Himango/ NBC News

Catch of the day in Islamorada, Florida

Without raising their charter rates, the $500 to $750 per day fuel costs could easily drain away all or most all of their profits. (The costs of bait, ice, mate fees and maintenance to their boats are additional expenses.)

"We think of fuel every day," said Capt. Bill Basset standing next to his boat, the "Sachem," which had just returned from a successful search for marlin and mahi-mahi. "It cuts into profits of the day. I mean, we all have families and we're just trying to survive."

Captains said they've suffered a 15 to 40 percent drop off in charter bookings this year. The wealthier clients are still calling, but increasingly the average person in Miami or Ft. Lauderdale hoping for a fun day on the water with his buddies can no longer afford it. "We're just not getting the big families like we would normally," said Bassett.

Greg Eklund, the captain of the "Cloud Nine," bemoaned a two-fold problem."We're losing our profit margin and we're losing the number of customers that we have."

The danger facing these captains is they could price themselves completely out of business while trying to cover fuel costs. "If you pass on the entire amount of the fuel increase over the last 12 months, even the last 24 months, to your customer, you're not going to have any customers left," said Eklund.  "Nobody will be able to afford to go."

What that means, captains said, is that profits are shrinking, sometimes to the point of barely covering operating and living expenses. "The profit margin is gone," said Eklund.  "We're just feeding the families and paying the bills."

VIDEO: Charter fishermen discuss rising fuel costsÂ

Saving fuel on the water
To save fuel and lower costs, charter boat captains have had to alter some of their traditional methods. "You're watching your fuel now. You're going out a little bit slower and you're coming home a little bit slower," said Steve Leopold, captain of the "Yabba Dabba Doo" and president of the Islamorada Charter Boat Association.

Leopold also replaced his boat engines with more fuel-efficient ones. "The new technology for the new motors is definitely a plus," he said. "We're probably burning 40 to 50 percent less than we did burn. It's still a lot of fuel, but it's better." 

When they are able, captains also try to find fish closer to shore. "Five years ago, you might just pick up and run 30 miles. Well, we don't do that anymore. You'll start looking a little sooner," said Leopold. 

Many times, however, long trips just can't be avoided. With paying clients eagerly awaiting a big catch, it all still depends on where the fish are, despite the soaring fuel costs threatening this storied industry.

By Courtney Kube, NBC News Pentagon producer

WASHINGTON – The Navy uniform is going retro.

About 100 U.S. sailors around the world are testing out the Navy's new service dress khaki uniform.  

The look isn't really new though – it is actually a throwback to the old World War II-style uniform which was worn through the Vietnam era – and includes a black tie worn with a khaki coat that has large black shoulder boards. 

U.S. Navy/ Chad J. McNeeleyÂ

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sports the "new" Navy look at a press conference at the Pentagon on July 2.Â

The dress khakis, which are worn for events ranging from business meetings and promotion ceremonies to meetings at the White House and testimony on Capitol Hill, can be worn year round.

While the new uniform will add to the larger collections of uniforms rather than replacing one, Navy officers and Chiefs will ultimately be allowed to wear it in place of three other existing uniforms – the less formal service khakis, the formal dress blues, and the formal whites.  

Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the chief of naval operations in the early 1970's, discarded the look, arguing that it forced sailors to carry too many uniforms in their sea bags when deployed. 

Navy officials today argue the opposite, saying it will actually decrease the number of uniforms a sailor will have to carry on deployment: officers and chiefs can wear the long-sleeved khaki shirt and tie for formal work situations and then easily change to a formal dress uniform by putting on the jacket.

The officer who is bringing back the look is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, who was the chief of naval operations before taking on his current post.

Mullen believes the new dress khakis distinguish the officers from the enlisted sailors, and he is proving it by wearing the uniform during the trial period. 

The testing began in June, runs through the end of the summer, and includes sailors at the Pentagon, in Norfolk, Virginia, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and even as far away as Yokosuka, Japan. At the end of the summer, the testers will evaluate the uniform in focus groups and online. 

So far, the sailors wearing the uniform in the Pentagon are raving about it.  A few civilian Pentagon staffers have less praise for the attire, though, saying it looks "too old-fashioned."  The large shoulder boards take the most criticism, with one civilian reporter at the Pentagon calling them "big and awkward."

Admiral Mullen debuted the new uniform at a White House event last month, where the president reportedly gave the look a thumbs-up. 

Asked how he likes the uniform after a recent press conference, Mullen said with a laugh, "Actually, I love it! What do you think?" 

Baseball's All-Star Game was played Tuesday night at New York's Yankee Stadium, "The House that Ruth Built," but the last living teammate of the legendary Babe Ruth wasn't watching the game on television, not on your life.

"No, I haven't seen a ball game in four or five years," 100-year-old Bill Werber, the oldest living former major league baseball player, said in an interview. "I don't like the appearance of a lot of the players. The hair's too long. Their beards are too evident. They're a grubby-looking bunch of caterwaulers."

AP

Bill Werber smiles as he talks about his days in Major League Baseball at his retirement home in Charlotte, N.C., June 6, 2008.

Werber played baseball in a bygone era when games were half as long and twice as fun. In his first game as a Yankee, on June 25, 1930, Werber walked and Ruth swatted one of his 714 home runs.

"I said to myself, 'Well, I'll show these Yankees how I can run,'" Werber said. "So I ran around second base at high speed – I knew it was a home run – and I ran around third base, and when Babe came in, he patted me on the head and he said, 'You don't need to run fast like that when The Babe hits one.'"

When Ruth wasn't playing baseball, he was playing .. bridge.

"When the train began to roll out of Chicago for St. Louis," Werber said, "Babe would holler, 'Cut the cards,' and we'd play cards on the Green Diamond Express until Babe would give Lou [Gehrig] false bids, and Gehrig was no dummy, he'd recognize what was going on, and he'd throw the cards in the middle of the table and say, 'Add it up, let us know what we owe ya,' and they'd owe us $3, $3.50, not much."

Werber liked Ruth a lot and Gehrig not so much.

"Ruth was convivial, friendly, and Gehrig was aloof and unfriendly," Werber said. "Ruth would stop at the gates and sign autographs for an hour. Gehrig would scatter kids everywhere and get in his car and drive off."

Courtesy Werber family

Bill Werber's baseball card, circa 1938, when he was a player for the Philadelphia A's.

Werber made one critical mistake in his own baseball career, "the most stupid thing I ever did in my life."

"I got teed off at myself one day and drop kicked the [water] bucket and fractured my big toe," he said. "I played for seven more years in pain. The stupid thing cost me dearly."

Despite this, Werber managed to carve out a .271 batting average over 11 seasons with five different ball clubs. He led the American League three times in stolen bases and hit .370 in the 1940 World Series.

Werber retired from baseball in 1942 and went into the insurance business, making more money, he said, than Ruth made hitting home runs. Werber lives today in a retirement community in North Carolina, still alert and outspoken and not about to kick the bucket.

Gail "Hal" Halvorsen was among a special group of Americans who changed the course of history 60 years ago this summer.

Halvorsen was a U.S. Air Force pilot who flew food and supplies into Berlin in 1948 and helped break the Soviet blockade of the beleaguered German capital.

"If the airlift had failed, those people would have been speaking Russian in West Berlin, and West Germany was next," the 87-year-old Halvorsen said in an interview.

AFP/Getty Images

Gail "Hal" Halvorsen gives a thumbs at the U.S. military airbase in Frankfurt, Germany, in October 2005.   Â

Germany after World War II was divided between the Allied forces – the United States, Great Britain and France - in the West, and the Soviet Union in the East. Berlin, located in the eastern, Soviet half of the country, was divided into four sectors, with West Berlin occupied by the Allies and East Berlin occupied by the Soviets.

In one of the first major international crises of the Cold War, on June 24, 1948, Soviet forces began blocking highway and railroad access to West Berlin. The Soviets hoped to force the Western powers out of Berlin and seize control of the city for themselves.  

The Allies responded by launching the Airlift. 

On July 12, less than two weeks into the blockade, Halvorsen made his initial cargo flight into Berlin.

"It was like a moonscape," he said. "Below my wings were splintered buildings, gaping to the sky with open roofs. I just couldn't understand how over 2 million people could live in rubble like that."

Getty Images file

Children on a tree near the Brandenburg Gate watch a U.S. four-engined cargo airplane arrive during the Berlin Airlift in 1948.Â

What's more, he said, there were still hard feelings from the war between American occupation forces and the German people.

"Germany was a conquered nation, and they still had the wounds of war pretty deep in them, and of course our guys had the same feelings about them," Halvorsen said.

All of that changed with the Airlift and a brainstorm Halvorsen had one day to drop candy in tiny parachutes to German children watching the planes land at Berlin's Tempelhof Airport.

"That's the smartest decision I made in my life," he said, "and it had a lifelong impact."

Hundreds of letters of gratitude came pouring in from Berliners, both young and old. One little girl insisted on giving Halvorsen her only surviving possession, a well-worn teddy bear.

"'I want you to have it to keep you and the other fliers safe on your trips to Berlin,'" she told him. "I tried to refuse it, but her mother said words to the effect that I must accept it."

Halvorsen still has the teddy bear.

The "Candy Bomber" captured the hearts of the Berliners, and the airlift saved them from the Soviets.

In the end, the Allied Forces delivered over 2.3 million tons of goods on 277, 569 flights to Berlin. At the height of the Airlift, planes were taking off and landing in West Berlin every 90 seconds, delivering everything from food and powdered milk to fuel and medicine.

"People were hungry for food and for freedom," Halvorsen said. "We were giving them both, and they were most grateful."

On May 12, 1949, the Soviets finally backed down and lifted the blockade, allowing land access once again into Berlin.

Today Berlin is the capital of a free and unified Germany, allied with America and the other Western democracies, thanks in large part to Gail Halvorsen and his fellow pilots of the Berlin Airlift.

 WASHINGTON – Desmond Doss seems like an unlikely person to have a building named after him on a military post.

A Seventh-Day Adventist, Doss was a conscientious objector during World War II who refused to train on Saturdays or carry a rifle.

Courtesy Doss family

Desmond Doss is awarded the Medal of Honor by President Harry Truman on Oct. 12, 1945.

"He always put God first in his life," his 86-year-old widow, Frances, said in an interview.

But the gentle, lanky Doss was also a war hero, and for his heroics on the island of Okinawa in 1945 the guest house at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was renamed Doss Memorial Hall Wednesday morning.

"Doss was a uniquely American soldier and a uniquely American story, and yet unique in all of American history," Col. Gordon Roberts, a friend, said at the dedication ceremony.

Doss grew up in Lynchburg, Va., and enlisted as a conscientious objector in 1942. He served as a combat medic on Guam, the Philippines and Okinawa.

On May 5, 1945, under heavy Japanese fire, he saved the lives of 75 sick and wounded soldiers by lowering them, one by one, down a 400-foot cliff on Okinawa. For this and other acts of courage, Doss was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Harry S Truman.

"Through his outstanding bravery and unflinching determination in the face of desperately dangerous conditions, Pfc. Doss saved the lives of many soldiers," his Medal of Honor citation read.

(The only other conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor was Cpl. Thomas Bennett, an Army medic killed in Vietnam in 1970 while tending to wounded soldiers.)

Courtesy Doss Family

Medal of Honor winner Desmond Doss with his wife, Frances, in 1998.

Doss' widow said he would have been honored by today's ceremony, just as he was by his Medal of Honor, but she said he would have taken it all in stride.

"He was very loyal to his country," she said, "but he wasn't the kind that stuck out his chest and said, 'Look at me.' No, he wasn't that kind. He wasn't puffed up."

War wounds to Doss' legs and arm took their toll on his health. He spent five years in hospitals after the war, suffered from tuberculosis and was nearly deaf. But he lived out his life devoted to his faith, his family and his country.

Desmond Doss died in 2006 at the age of 87.

"He was just a wonderful person, that's all there is to it," Frances said. "He was so kind and his whole attitude was being so kind and wonderful to people."

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dawid Pietrek emigrated from Poland to the United States three years ago with dreams of a college education and a career as a police officer.

He arrived with a green card and worked as a caregiver for several elderly families in the Chicago area.

"Dawid was the best," one of his employers told the Daily Herald newspaper. "He was smart and kind and worked so hard."

Daily Herald

U.S. Marine Dawid Pietrek was killed in Afghanistan on June 14, 2008.

Pietrek, 24, joined the Marines last year in hopes of becoming one of 40,000 foreign nationals since 9/11 to expedite their U.S. citizenship by serving in the armed forces. He was among 69,000 active duty service members born outside the United States, about 5 percent of our total military force.

Pietrek deployed to Afghanistan two months ago with the 1st Marine Division and was initially assigned to Kandahar.

"It's hot over here, about 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit)," he wrote his mother and sister back home in Police, Poland. "Our first week here, our base was attacked by rocket fire. No one was hurt."

Pietrek told his family not to worry about him, but just in case, he wrote, "If something should happen to me, remember – this was my decision."

On June 14, a roadside bomb tore through Pietrek's Humvee in southwestern Afghanistan, killing him and three other Marines in the single worst attack this year on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Pietrek was buried Tuesday morning at Arlington National Cemetery. His mother and sister traveled from his native Poland to lay him to rest in his adopted America.

Marine Pfc. Dawid Pietrek was the 489th casualty of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to be buried at Arlington.

John Rutherford is an NBC News Producer based out of the Washington, D.C. bureau and is a decorated Vietnam veteran. He also posts stories on the military at www.dailynightly.msnbc.com (click on "John Rutherford" under "categories").

DALLAS – Just in time for back-to-school shopping: authentic polygamist prairie dresses.

Apparently, all the publicity surrounding the ongoing investigation into alleged underage marriage among members of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) on a Texas ranch has created some serious demand for prairie dresses.

So much so that the FLDS has launched an online store where members of the general public can purchase the dresses, long underwear, and other ranch-wear "as seen on TV."  

The home page for the FLDS Dress Clothing StoreÂ

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the Web site FLDSdress.com, was initially created to give Texas authorities a place to purchase the clothing, so children in state custody could maintain their traditional clothing. 

The children have been reunited with their families, but the Web site now serves another purpose. The FLDS hopes to raise money through sale of the clothing to help support families from the Yearning For Zion ranch who now live in rental homes in cities like San Antonio and Austin. Some families have returned to the ranch, but many have not.

The Web site sells a wide array of clothing for children, from the "Teen Princess Dress" for $60.65 to the "Baby Dress With Bloomers" for $48.07. Both items, along with most others for girls, are available in a rainbow of pastels from pink to yellow or lavender. Items for boys include denim overalls for $65.93 and cotton-polyester shirts for $23.69.

The Web site said the clothes are made to meet the "FLDS standards for modesty and neatness." And all of the clothes are hand-made "with joy and care" by the FLDS women.

The legal troubles for parents from the YFZ ranch haven't ended.  A grand jury met last month in Eldorado, Texas, to consider possible criminal indictments in the case.  It will meet again later this month.

In the meantime, FLDS women are sewing and selling their way to financial independence.  

And who knows?  It's fashion week in Paris. We may soon hear rumblings from the catwalks that "pastel is the new black." After all of the strange twists and turns of the FLDS drama, it wouldn't surprise me at all.