CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 13, 2011 | By Andrew Blankstein, Ching-Ching Ni and Abby Sewell, Los Angeles Times
He called himself the "supreme commander. " From a storefront in Temple City decorated to look like a military recruiting center, David Deng raised an army of more than 100 Chinese nationals and claimed they were members of an elite U.S. special forces unit, authorities said. Together, they marched in local Chinese New Year parades and even received a special military tour in uniform at the USS Midway museum in San Diego. Chinese-language newspapers ran photos of the troops with prominent community leaders.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
December 18, 2010 | By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times
Local governments can't ban military recruitment of minors because that would interfere with legitimate and constitutionally protected activities of the U.S. government, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said ordinances adopted by the Northern California cities of Eureka and Arcata were unconstitutional because they sought to control federal government activities. "The states have no power to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control, the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress to carry into execution the powers vested in the general government," the judges said.
NATIONAL
December 9, 2010 | By Bob Drogin and Richard Serrano, Los Angeles Times
A 21-year-old Baltimore construction worker, who drew federal scrutiny after he boasted on Facebook about his devotion to violent jihad, was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly tried to blow up a U.S. military recruitment center with a dummy car bomb built by the FBI. The dramatic take-down is the second FBI sting since Thanksgiving against an alleged homegrown terrorist trying to detonate a powerful car bomb. It raised fresh concerns about how English-speaking extremists from Al Qaeda and its allies are increasingly able to recruit Americans willing to commit mass violence.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
December 16, 2009 | By Teresa Watanabe
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.
NATIONAL
October 14, 2009 | Washington Post
For the first time in more than 35 years, the U.S. military has met all of its annual recruiting goals, with hundreds of thousands of young people enlisting despite the near-certainty that they will go to war. The Pentagon, which made the announcement Tuesday, said the economic downturn and rising joblessness, as well as bonuses and other factors, had led more qualified youths to enlist. The military has not seen such across-the-board success since the all-volunteer force was established in 1973.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
September 16, 2009 | Alexandra Zavis
Looking more like a student than a soldier, the young Indian in jeans and a T-shirt snapped his heels together and stood at attention in front of an American flag. He raised his right hand and pledged to defend the United States against all enemies. The enlistment ceremony earlier this month at a military center near Los Angeles International Airport took less than five minutes. With that, he became the 101st person in Los Angeles to join the Army under a program that significantly increases the number of immigrants eligible to serve.