Army U S

The lanky 19-year-old from South Korea has lived in the Southland since he was 9 years old. He is as comfortable speaking English as his native Korean. And he desperately wants to join the Army. Late last week, the teenager walked into a recruiting office in an Eagle Rock mall wearing a pendant shaped like a dog tag around his neck. Until recently, local recruiters would have had to turn him away. His student visa would not have qualified him to enlist.

You cannot buy your way into the U.S. military, Army officials reminded the public Monday, trying to clear up confusion in the Chinese American community after an El Monte man was arrested last week in connection with charging immigrants to join what authorities said was a phony military force. "No legitimate U.S. Army recruiter will ever ask an applicant for money in order to serve in the military," said Capt. Patrick Caukin, commander of a U.S. Army recruiting office based in West Covina.

Eric Miller's career as an Army Ranger wasn't ended by a battlefield wound, but his DNA. Lurking in his genes was a mutation that made him vulnerable to uncontrolled tumor growth. After suffering back pain during a tour in Afghanistan, he underwent three surgeries to remove tumors from his brain and spine that left him with numbness throughout the left side of his body. So began his journey into a dreaded scenario of the genetic age.

Doctors supervising Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's medical training at Walter Reed Army Medical Center frequently discussed concerns about the Muslim psychiatrist's behavior, including his aggressive proselytizing of patients, a Defense Department official said Wednesday. The problems led the doctors to question Hasan's fitness for military service, but no action was taken in the months before he was transferred from Washington to Ft. Hood, Texas, where he is suspected of opening fire last week on military and civilian personnel, killing 13 and wounding dozens.

A U.S. Army sergeant who decapitated his wife's lover and brought the head to her hospital bedside was found guilty of premeditated murder by a military court Friday. A jury of four officers and three non-commissioned officers deliberated less than two hours before reaching the guilty verdict on Sgt. Stephen Schap, 26, of Baltimore. Schap, who faces a mandatory life sentence under U.S. military justice, sat ramrod straight and showed little emotion as the court martial's verdict was read.

Most people thinking of stealth aircraft probably think about the B-2 Stealth bomber: invisible to radar, fast, sleek, with an estimated price tag of $500 million or more. Not Carter Ward. When his thoughts turn to stealth aircraft, Ward thinks about something stubby, with a top speed of 28 m.p.h. and costing only about $195,000. The stealth blimp.

It would make a great plot for a movie: A former Army sergeant, a onetime Army Reserve captain and their Army-wannabe buddy find post-military success as stuntmen, technical advisors and owners of a thriving movie-prop business. Except that this one might have a bad ending.

Inside a futuristic-looking dome that rises from the sandy wasteland of the high Mojave Desert, soldiers in plywood cubicles work at computers powered by solar panels and a towering wind turbine. Plug-in cars shuttle the troops across the vast expanses here at Ft. Irwin in San Bernardino County. At night, tents lined with insulating foam provide a cool retreat at the end of a 100-degree day.

Under a federal program to transform government facilities into models of energy efficiency, Honeywell International Inc. came calling on Army commanders here with a deal to replace the base's decades-old steam power plant. The company proposed installing millions of dollars in new heating equipment and hooking the base to the local power grid -- all free in exchange for the company getting the bulk of future energy savings. It was precisely the kind of deal that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington were pushing at facilities across the country -- modernizing aging machinery without the government spending any money of its own. But today, the Ft. Richardson deal, one of the largest among hundreds of similar contracts, has sunk into a morass of accounting disputes and allegations of misconduct.

Before soldiers leave on missions in Iraq or Afghanistan, they often are ordered to do everything in their power to bring their buddies back. "Leave no man behind" is the motto. But does that military ethos apply to soldiers heading out for a rowdy weekend in the United States? That question is being raised at an unusual court-martial on this massive Army base, where a young paratrooper who struggled to bring a combative, drunk soldier back to the barracks has been accused of causing his death.

When an Army psychiatrist allegedly fired upon soldiers preparing to deploy to war, the highest victim toll was exacted from his peers in the counseling realm -- members of the Wisconsin-based 467th Medical Detachment. Three members of the 43-soldier unit were killed and several more injured before the suspected gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was brought down by two civilian police officers. A week later, the 467th embodies Ft Hood's struggle to return to normalcy. Its members are wrestling with the grief and trauma of the attack even as they prepare to leave for Afghanistan, where they will counsel soldiers struggling to deal with the stresses of the battlefield.

The radical cleric contacted by accused Ft. Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan has such unmistakable connections to past terrorist plots that his e-mail exchanges with the American should have triggered an all-out investigation, a number of officials and experts now believe. Anwar al Awlaki is an extremist whose sermons have helped radicalize terrorists from Atlanta to New Jersey to London, including cases in which the U.S. military was targeted. A well-spoken Yemeni American, Awlaki has emerged as the leading ideologue for a homegrown generation of young militants who conspire over the Internet.

For days, retired Army Col. John Galligan tracked each wrenching update about the shooting rampage at Ft. Hood, the place where he had spent the final months of a 30-year military career. As a former military lawyer, he ran through his mind the legal issues in a possible case against Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the man accused in the shootings, including whether Hasan could get a fair trial there. Then, the phone rang at his limestone office on this town's main street: Hasan's family wanted to hire him. Within 24 hours, Galligan was introducing himself to the soldier whose picture he had seen in newspapers and on national television.

The 13 killed CAPT. JOHN GAFFANEY 56, San Diego Gaffaney was a psychiatric nurse who worked for San Diego County for more than 20 years, and on the day before the shooting he had arrived at Ft. Hood to prepare for deployment to Iraq. Gaffaney, born in Williston, N.D., had served in the Navy and the California National Guard, his family said. After Sept. 11, he tried to sign up again for military service. Although the Army Reserves at first declined, he got the call about two years ago asking him to rejoin, said his co-worker Stephanie Powell: "He wanted to help the boys in Iraq and Afghanistan deal with the trauma of what they were seeing."

The news made Nihad Awad sick to his stomach. Like the rest of the nation, Awad, who heads the Council on American-Islamic Relations, learned this week that it allegedly was a Muslim who opened fire at a U.S. Army base in Texas, killing 13 people and injuring many more. According to witnesses, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan issued the great, exalting cry of his faith before opening fire: " Allahu akbar !" God is great. Hearing the story, Awad too would invoke his maker -- but with a weary lament that is echoing coast to coast among American Muslims.

Under a federal program to transform government facilities into models of energy efficiency, Honeywell International Inc. came calling on Army commanders here with a deal to replace the base's decades-old steam power plant. The company proposed installing millions of dollars in new heating equipment and hooking the base to the local power grid -- all free in exchange for the company getting the bulk of future energy savings. It was precisely the kind of deal that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington were pushing at facilities across the country -- modernizing aging machinery without the government spending any money of its own. But today, the Ft. Richardson deal, one of the largest among hundreds of similar contracts, has sunk into a morass of accounting disputes and allegations of misconduct.

THE soldier stands in his living room eyeing all the cool soldier stuff he never got to use in a real fight. Like the helmet with not a single ding and the sleek body armor with not a scuff. The gear piles high on the carpet. First Lt. Ehren Watada is giving it all back and, out of courtesy, packing it up. The Army had treated him with the utmost respect until the moment it decided to court-martial him. It was nothing personal. The Army does what it has to do.

Timothy B. Hennis, a quiet father and grandfather retired from the Army after service in the first Gulf War and Somalia, has long been portrayed as an innocent victim of a biased, incompetent criminal justice system. Hennis was tried twice for a grisly triple murder of a military family, and acquitted after 2 1/2 years on death row. No.

Before soldiers leave on missions in Iraq or Afghanistan, they often are ordered to do everything in their power to bring their buddies back. "Leave no man behind" is the motto. But does that military ethos apply to soldiers heading out for a rowdy weekend in the United States? That question is being raised at an unusual court-martial on this massive Army base, where a young paratrooper who struggled to bring a combative, drunk soldier back to the barracks has been accused of causing his death.

The Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between the United States and Iraq that would bring all American troops home by 2012, the top U.S. Army officer said Tuesday. Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, said the world remains dangerous, and the Pentagon must plan for extended U.S. combat and stability operations in two wars. "Global trends are pushing in the wrong direction," Casey said.