Military Training

Bright rays of sunlight filter through the cracks in the walls, painting the gutted building with soft colors. In a crowded room sits Leo Wan, a 32-year-old hairstylist who has been trained to wash, cut and dry 25 heads of hair a week. By the weekend, Wan is looking for a little excitement in his life, and he is not afraid to break one of his immaculately manicured fingernails in the process.

Army Secretary Louis Caldera signed a five-year, $45-million contract to fund the new Institute for Creative Technologies at USC. The institute, whose creation was announced Tuesday, will combine the expertise of the military and entertainment industries to create realistic simulations for military training by developing technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

Britain's government said it would pay $7 million in compensation to more than 220 Kenyans who say they are victims of explosives left behind by British troops. About 228 members of the Masai and Samburu ethnic groups launched legal action against London last year, saying they have been maimed or had relatives who were killed by munitions from British military exercises. The British army has used military training grounds north of Nairobi, the capital, since World War II.

An investigation has been launched by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the San Diego County Sheriff's Department into the causes of two fires that burned more than 5,500 acres on this sprawling base in the last two weeks, Marine officials announced Thursday. Military training cannot be ruled out as a possible cause of last week's 1,500-acre blaze, called the November fire, officials said. Also being investigated is the 4,000-acre fire that began in the Juliet Training Area on Monday -- Tony Perry

A federal judge in San Juan sentenced civil rights activist Al Sharpton to 90 days in jail and ordered him to pay a $500 fine for trespassing on a Navy bombing range during protests against military training on the island of Vieques. The Rev. Sharpton was arrested May 1 along with Bronx Democratic Party President Roberto Ramirez, New York State Assemblyman Jose Rivera and New York City Councilman Aldofo Carrion. The politicians were sentenced to 40 days in prison and fined $500.

On the third morning of Hell Week, the class of SEAL recruits paddled their rubber dinghies 15 miles. After breakfast, the men swam 400 yards in their uniforms and boots and ran eight miles in the deep sand. Mark Kaldi, a 23-year-old seaman, fainted during the run. "You quit while you passed out," a SEAL instructor told Kaldi, whose face was green. "You know why you passed out? Not enough exercise." Kaldi stared at him blankly and swayed slightly as if he might faint again.

On a Texas spring day during the height of the Vietnam War, a fresh-faced young man about to graduate from Yale University walked into the office of the commander of the Texas Air National Guard. Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt listened to the 21-year-old, who had no military or aviation experience but seemed polite and presentable. "He said he wanted to fly just like his daddy," Staudt recalled.

Christopher Blackman, 19, of Walla Walla, Wash., is cold, hungry, covered with mud, soaked by sweat and chilly rain, and exhausted both mentally and physically. He has never been happier. He has just endured a 54-hour gut-busting ordeal called "the Crucible," the capper to 12 arduous weeks of Marine Corps boot camp--a regimen that a national commission has suggested the other military branches, which have softened their own training, would do well to emulate.