THE GANG PLOT THICKENS

The Dragon reads and comments on my blogs and he sent me a heads up on gangs in the military. I thought I had gangs pretty well covered until I got this little goodie typed into Google. Here is one offering from YouTube.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgwfVJIoBNM



The big nugget is that these boys are TRAINING FOR URBAN WARFARE. Why urban warfare? Because they aim to have it out with THE MAN. And the man is in the cities. And the drugs are in the cities.

I got this off of an NBC affiliate out in California:

Gangs Using Military For Training, Experts Say
Military Says Gang Members Weeded Out

POSTED: 7:56 pm PST November 4, 2005

UPDATED: 10:00 pm PST November 4, 2005

SAN DIEGO -- One of the country's leading gang experts says gangs around the country are sending their members to the military to learn urban warfare.

Richard Valdemar, a 30-year-veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, travels the country lecturing and teaching police about military-trained gang members. Valdemar and other gang experts say gangs are encouraging members to join the military for training and access to weapons.

The military's current emphasis on urban warfare plays into the street-fighting mentality of gangs, experts say.

"When individuals go into the military, they are taught how to use weapons, defensive tactics, and the use of a lot of sophisticated techniques," said LaRae Quy, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "They take that back on the streets with them. This is a legitimate concern for law enforcement."

Valdemar cites former Camp Pendleton Marine Sgt. Jesse Quintanilla as just one high-profile example. A military court sentenced Quintanilla to death in 1996 for killing his executive officer and wounding his commanding officer.

When interrogators asked Quintanilla why he committed the crimes, Quintanilla said it was for "his brown brothers," according to Valdemar. Quintanilla showed them a tattoo on his chest with the word "Sureno," a reference to a California gang, according to court documents.

Army recruiting headquarters in Washington, D.C., dismiss the claims as urban myth. An Army spokesman said army background checks are extensive and weed out gang members.

One former Marine who said he knew low-level gang members before they entered the military agrees with the assessment.

"It's very physical; it's very mental," said former Marine Juan Avila. "They'll weed you out. Maybe that was a bad lifestyle you had before, but you change; you change for the better."

Copyright 2005 by NBCSandiego.com.
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Now let us get one thing straight before the people and that is the military is NOT weeding out criminals like they used to do. Recruiting standards have been lowered because the military cannot get enough people to go fight their dirty little war in Iraq. So criminal records are not the problem for the enlistee that they used to be. So that weeding out stuff is bull manure.

And the part about the gang members training for urban warfare is true. The war in Iraq is essentailly an urban war and that is how the troops are trained. They learn to fight in the streets.

So now we find our happy little bunch of criminal gangsters merrily learning to wipe us out via the expertise imparted to them by the Department of Defense. We live in interesting times.

Forewarned is forearmed. Now we are getting a clearer look at what we may have to face in the future. Those who would rob and pillage from us are being trained by our military. Make your defenses very tight. Give no one a break. These guys are pro's.

Stay alive.

Michael

mboone@rtccom.net