Military Recruiting

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.

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.

If you're looking for Michael March, he's probably in the basement, slogging on the treadmill. Or he may be doing push-ups in front of the TV. At 38, he wants to be prepared when he begins Army basic training later this week. "I know I'm going to get picked on as the old guy in boot camp," he said. "I don't want to be last." Traditionally the Army has attracted the young, many of them fresh out of high school. They join for the promise of adventure, the chance to be part of something bigger, and a free college education.

There is no evidence that radicalized Somali American youths who have disappeared over the last two years are being trained abroad to attack the United States, intelligence and law enforcement officials told members of a Senate panel Wednesday. Although worrisome, their apparent recruitment by the Shabab , a militant group linked to Al Qaeda, is more likely to signify that they are motivated to help their country fight against Ethiopians, who invaded the country in 2006.

The three boys in black hoods and green T-shirts hold Kalashnikov assault rifles as the youngest shouts to the camera in a pre-pubescent voice, "Fight them and God will torture them through your hands." The videotape, found during a U.S. military raid Dec. 4 in Diyala province, also shows about 20 boys in dark blue sports jerseys jumping walls and storming houses.

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.

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.

The search for a bicyclist who bombed the Times Square military recruiting office expanded quickly Thursday as the probe's focus turned to photos of the attack site that were sent to Capitol Hill and possible connections to previous attacks on two consulate buildings in the city. The early morning bombing at perhaps the armed forces' most visible presence in the nation's largest city rattled windows and nerves but caused little damage.

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.

Troubled by military recruiting at Los Angeles high schools, activists are seeking equal access to students on campus to provide what they say is unvarnished information about the armed forces and information about nonmilitary careers.