Army

There are teenagers who don't know what they'll be doing tomorrow, let alone next week or next year, which makes Angel Santiago's attempt to map out his life through 2020 so extraordinary. It comes with the territory after his decision last week to play quarterback for Army. A senior at Etiwanda, Santiago didn't just commit to playing college football. He committed to a minimum five-year military career. "I'm looking forward to serving my country as an officer and a leader," he said.

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 Almanzas slowed down as they drove their black pickup past what they believed to be an army checkpoint in violent northeastern Mexico. They rolled down their windows, they say, so the soldiers could see they were a family. But the masked men in uniform instead opened fire, and two Almanza children, aged 9 and 5, were killed. Fifteen days earlier and just 100 miles away, two promising university students were killed at the gates of their school during an army battle with drug traffickers.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said goodbye to the Army on Friday in a poignant ceremony that paid tribute to his three decades of military service and barely mentioned his firing by President Obama for insubordination. It was McChrystal who alluded most directly to his own precipitous fall, standing at the podium and looking out at formations of soldiers and former comrades. "Service in this business is tough and often dangerous, and it extracts a price for participation, and that price can be high," McChrystal said.

Even though Army of Two: The 40th Day improves on its predecessor in nearly every way, this action war game won't make anyone put down Modern Warfare 2 any time soon. In the first outing, released in 2008, the great concept of playing as part of a tandem of mercenaries out to get rich by killing enemies was ruined by the lousy artificial intelligence your partner had. Any place you wanted to be, he would stand, ratcheting up the frustration levels. Add that to a forgettable story and mediocre controls and you wonder why the game was such a success and a sequel was even considered.

On a chilly Saturday morning this month, the future soldiers of the U.S. Army huffed and puffed through push-ups, sit-ups and stretches in Whittier Narrows Regional Park in South El Monte. There was the gangly white kid with the blond buzz cut and the buffed-out Latino dude, head draped in a black bandanna. And then there was Jennifer Ren, small, slight and bespectacled, an immigrant from China who gamely kept up with the guys and sees the Army as a ticket to U.S. citizenship and a job in accounting and finance.

The Army acknowledged today that 12 Bradley Fighting Vehicles have sunk during amphibious testing, nearly double the number previously reported, but it denied a congressman's assertion that the combat personnel carrier "leaks like a sieve." As recently as last week, the Army said there had been only seven sinkings of the armored vehicles. But Army Under Secretary James R.

The army struck back at Hutu insurgents in northwestern Rwanda, killing as many as 350 people in a series of attacks, aid workers and residents said. The military operations were intended to flush out Hutu militants accused of slaying 50 people, including three Spanish aid workers.

A military court Tuesday acquitted an army major of charges that he took part in an attempt to overthrow the government of Philippine President Corazon Aquino in 1987. The five-member military tribunal said the prosecution failed to produce evidence that Maj. Horacio Lactao disregarded lawful orders from a superior officer.

A government-run human rights commission accused soldiers of rape and torture, and recommended that the army be removed from Mexico's nationwide drug war. Military officials declined to comment on the report by the National Human Rights Commission. President Felipe Calderon's office said it was reviewing the report.