Asian Americans drive Army recruiting boom in L.A.

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.

Down the training line was Christopher Ly, the son of Chinese immigrants from Vietnam who figures that the Army will help pay for a hoped-for Stanford University education and an eventual career as an Army lawyer.

Gery Denniswara, a Diamond Bar high school senior and Jakarta native, sees the Army as a way to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a doctor.

Ren, Ly and Denniswara helped drive the biggest Army recruitment boon for Los Angeles in two decades -- led by an 80% increase in Asian enlistments in the last year. Asians have traditionally joined the military at the lowest rate among all races.

But lured by job security, enhanced tuition aid and, for some immigrants, the chance for U.S. citizenship, Asians this year made up 22% of all active-duty recruits, nearly twice their proportion in the Los Angeles County population.

But this, Ly said, is America. He has enlisted as a signal support systems specialist and will work with computers, satellites and other communications equipment. He plans to make the Army a lifelong career.

"Finally being of age, I can do what I want to do," Ly said, "and I think the Army is right for me."

“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.”
What would prevent the chicoms from putting the screws to Ren through her family that remains in china? Assuming that she has family in china.

Christian Indo`s flee to the USA to escape the oppressive persecutive climate and muslim govt there in Jakarta, only to be faced with a muslim-like Obama- they ask me, “Why did we give up everything and our homeland to come to freedom, to America, only to be faced with the same thing here =Why have you elected this stupid muslim jerk? He is from Jakarta and a muslim family and his friends there. In last 15 years muslims have burned down 300 churches, burned down dozens of christian villages and businesses, bombed the cathedral, raped and killed hundreds of Christian girls in the streets and dragged out of their cars on the road to the airport trying to flee from Indonesia.” The Indo govt even sends undercover agents to spy on christian Indo`s in churches in the US so they can report back to their embassy and consulate offices here in US in order to persecute their relatives in Indonesia and give them a hard time here even though lot of them are naturalized US citizens. I am an eyewitiness to these spies in the chuches here. I worked with the Indo christian community for over 20 years on the West Coast.

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