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...

With the wide-eyed wonder of a 10-year-old, Timothy Miranda entered the hallowed, dimly lit church of the Alamo. It was in the venerated shrine that his great-great-great-great-grandfather, then a 13-year-old and named Juan Losoya, is said to have watched his older brother, José Toribio Losoya, die fighting for Texas independence in 1836. "I saw a bunch of cool stuff here," Timothy said, reflecting on his first visit to the Alamo. It was a well-timed adventure. Timothy has been studying Texas history in his fourth-grade class in Houston and found out just last year that he had ancestors at the Alamo....