Military Training

Late-night military helicopter flights over downtown Los Angeles this week are part of training exercises to familiarize military personnel with urban settings and prepare them for future assignments overseas, authorities said. The Black Hawk helicopters, which have appeared nightly for almost a week, have attracted the attention of residents as they hovered over downtown landmarks like City Hall, or maneuvered quickly between office skyscrapers on Bunker Hill.

The Navy SEALs who ended the pirate-hostage drama off Somalia with three deadly sniper shots began their training on a strip of the beach known as the Silver Strand. Every aspiring SEAL must pass a grueling six-month regimen at the facility here. Attrition is high: Only a quarter to half make it. Those who do then undergo another six months of advanced training. Given the elite nature of the SEALs, no one here was surprised at the success of the rescue mission, said Capt.

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.

On his fifth Memorial Day holiday as a U.S. soldier, Spc. Erik Oropeza had much to reflect on. Only 22, he has felt the earth shudder from mortar and bomb blasts, faced down enemies who outnumbered and outgunned him, and seen good friends die. While others took Monday off to enjoy picnics with their families, Oropeza's thoughts were with the men who stood with him through the test of combat. "I don't celebrate Memorial Day like other people do," he said. "It's a sad day for me."

The 10 rows of men stood ramrod straight, their right hands saluting in unison, their left arms stiffly at their sides, save for one in a plaster cast and sling. Then, in a burst of collective energy, they raced out the door, crossed a vast field and hurled themselves onto an obstacle course of swinging ropes, muddy ditches, catwalks and towering walls. Welcome to the new Iraqi army, or at least a tiny portion of it that U.S. and Iraqi officials hope will serve as a model for the rest.

Seven years and $4.35 billion since the advent of a massive U.S. aid program, the Colombian military has been transformed from an outmatched "garrison force" that had yielded huge swaths of terrain to leftist guerrillas, to an aggressive force that has won back territory. The transformation, however, has had a dark side. Soldiers and police officers have committed rising numbers of human rights abuses, even as U.S. training intensifies, rights groups charge.

The U.S. military has lost focus on its nuclear-weapons mission and has suffered a sharp decline in nuclear expertise, factors that may have contributed to a mishap last year in which a B-52 bomber unknowingly carried six nuclear warheads across the country, according to two new independent reviews. Both studies found that levels of nuclear training and alertness at the Air Force slipped after the end of the Cold War.

Two top U.S. military commanders said Tuesday that Iran continues to train and direct violent Shiite militias in Iraq and is attempting to permanently weaken the Iraqi government. Iran has become the biggest long-term threat to Iraqi stability and is encouraging radical elements among the Shiite population to continue attacks even as some prominent militia leaders push for cease-fires, said Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T.

The Iraqi colonel's phone rang shortly before the bloodshed began. Shiite militiamen were planning to overrun forces under his command, the callers warned, and his children would be killed if his soldiers fought back. Within hours on the afternoon of March 25, militiamen with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns crossed footpaths spanning a sewage-choked canal that separates a militia stronghold in northwest Baghdad from a neighboring district where Col. Falih Hussein was in charge.

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.