Free Republic

While hundreds of Mexican soldiers are deserting the army to join drug trafficking gangs, California is facing the opposite problem: A growing number of gang members here have infiltrated the U.S. Armed Forces in order to receive military training. The numbers speak for themselves: In 2003 there were just 16 incidents of gang members in the U.S. Armed Forces, while in 2006 the total was 10,309, according to the study, "Gang-Related Activity in the U.S. Armed Forces Increasing," released in 2007 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Twenty-two official entities, including the Los Angeles Police Department, participated in the...

Edgar Martinez's father borrowed money last year from a friend in Antioch and paid for the 17-year-old to come north from Mexico. The teen worked in Bay Area housing construction, sending money to his mother and brother in Michoacan. But late Sunday night, a gunman wildly sprayed a dozen or more bullets into the small apartment building on West 20th Street where the father and son lived with three or four cousins. One of the rounds passed through the wall and killed Martinez as he slept next to his father, whom neighbors said had cried and begged his son to...