Marine Corps U S

One in a series of articles about three teenagers and their wartime enlistment in the Marines. -- In the nine months after he graduated from high school, Lance Cpl. Daryl Crookston was trained to close and kill. The proper pursuit of the enemy was pounded into him during boot camp and combat drills. Last month, as his unit prepared to ship out to Afghanistan, some Marines in Crookston's platoon didn't think he was capable of killing a man. He's deeply religious. He had chosen to stop cursing and drinking -- and that, in the Marines' testosterone-stoked world, suggested weakness.

Under pressure to meet combat needs, the Army and Marine Corps brought in significantly more recruits with felony convictions last year than in 2006, including some with manslaughter and sex-crime convictions. Data released by a congressional committee shows the number of soldiers admitted to the Army with felony records jumped from 249 in 2006 to 511 in 2007. And the number of Marines with felonies rose from 208 to 350.

For weeks now, the men in black turbans have been coming. They travel in pairs or small groups, on battered motorbikes or in dusty pickups, materializing out of the desert with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers slung from their shoulders. With the advent of warmer weather, villagers say, Taliban fighters are filtering back from their winter shelters in Pakistan, ensconcing themselves across Afghanistan's wind-swept south.

The Marines from the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion had been warned about the great danger of their assignment in Iraq: to eliminate insurgent strongholds in the desert stretches of the Euphrates River Valley. On the hot, dry early morning of Aug. 2, 2007, they saw why. While patrolling south of the town of Rawah, one platoon was ambushed by a suicide car bomb, machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades. In the first burst, one Marine was killed and another critically wounded.

The Japanese prime minister has described the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl by an American Marine as "unforgivable." The foreign minister declared that Japan has "had enough" of such incidents. And the government's most senior Cabinet official promised that Japan would raise the issue of misconduct with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visits next week.

In a pageant filled with poetry, song, political speeches and a display of the Iraqi security forces' increased firepower, the U.S. Marines on Thursday turned over major responsibility for protecting this Euphrates River valley town to the Iraqi army and police. It was the second such turnover in recent weeks in the western province of Anbar, once a major battleground with Sunni Arab insurgents, with more expected, Marine officials said.

Facing mounting national criticism, the City Council was expected Tuesday night to reverse an earlier declaration that U.S. Marine Corps recruiters were unwelcome. But council members also planned to reaffirm the liberal city's antiwar stance. The council's vote last month to denounce military recruiting tactics ignited a storm of protest. The city received 26,000 calls and e-mails, including several death threats. Most of the feedback was critical.

Under the image of a stern serviceman in uniform, the sign in the window of the U.S. Marine Corps recruiting station extols the traits of America's armed forces: "Smart. Tough. Elite." This famously liberal town recently added its own descriptor: Unwanted.

An Army military police unit that investigated a March attack on a Marine convoy in Afghanistan was not able to conduct a thorough examination of the entire scene because of limited manpower and hostility from civilians, according to testimony at a court of inquiry Monday. Army Lt.

An Army explosives expert testified Friday that a Humvee was hit by small-arms fire after a suicide car bomb attack last March on a Marine convoy whose gunners have been accused of killing as many as 19 Afghan civilians. Sgt. 1st Class Jason Mero offered the first definitive support for testimony by Marines on the convoy, who said their gunners fired because the Marines believed enemies were shooting at them. Attorneys for the Marines have said they fired on gunmen, not civilians.