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I ask about drinking in the Army. The room erupts into laughter "Look behind you," Johnson tells me, behind me being a wall of alcohol bottles.

"We all drink." "Religiously." "Excessively." "Guzzle."

Eatman and Smith both said their recruiters encouraged them to lie about their civilian drug use when they enlisted and they did.

"In the states, oh, man, our unit, we had them [urine analysis tests] every other week and they were kicking people out right and left," Eatman says. "We were supposed to go support Panama but we couldn't because we were too high on the drug blotter," meaning there were too many soldiers who had tested positive for drugs.

As for gangs in the military Eatman says, "This is just like home, people trying to go international and get a rep," alternately amused and a bit worried that NFL evolved from fraternity to the quasi gang that it is now. They do tell me that they know a lot of people who were in gangs, joined the military and continue to live the lifestyle.

Eatman offers a few examples, "I was in situations at Fort Carson [Colorado] at a club on post. I had a red R.I.P. T-shirt on and a corporal came up to me wanting to fight, saying this is 111 neighborhood, you know, it's on. He's still claiming his old set. I told him I gave that up a long time ago, I don't bang no more...[In another incident] We were at this club The Step, and these 2 military guys they drew guns on each other outside. One had a silencer on a Mac 10, another had a 9 millimeter."

He says one of those soldiers who pulled a gun was involved in another dispute. "This guy came back with a whole bunch of people, they were all getting out of the car. And with no qualms, my friend just got out, started busting-GOOZH -- just started shooting. And he was Army. They still got that mentality. He didn't hit nobody, he didn't get caught, and he's still boxing at Ft. Carson."

Eatman was recently called in by the Sergeant Major to sign a statement against a 26-year old white soldier who threatened to kill his First Sergeant, the staff in the First Sergeant's office and the Colonel. The soldier first made the threat to Eatman and showed him the knife he was going to use. He's now committed to a psychiatric ward on post.

NFL describe him as "country," and say he always talked about making bombs and was in the historic cavalry in his last unit. They call him McVeigh and laugh.

Although just the other night NFL was involved in a brawl at a club Downrange over soldiers throwing gang signs, in actuality, NFL is less a gang than a group of young men with not a lot to engage them, who are in an environment that lends itself to going Downrange and playing warrior.

The military, however, will most certainly not see it that way. An Air Force training manual on gang activity makes no allowances for the gangster pose as image, warning: "There is no such thing as a wannabe. If a person wants to be a gang member, acts like a gang member and dresses like a gang member he is a gang member and just as dangerous."

And it's likely the archetype of the gang member will be defined as the black male as seen on television. In the Army, where 41% of the enlisted personnel are non-white, the allegiances tend to fall across racial lines. Beside NFL, there are white groups like the Wild Ass Cowboys and the Silver Star Outlaws, Latinos in La Raza and throughout the camp-towns in Korea and on base, the clubs are de facto segregated, racially divided by terms like "hick night" and "R&B night."

Johnson describes one confrontation he had with a white Sergeant, " An E-5, don't even know me, told me `I had your wife last night, that was the best piece of black pussy I ever had.' White guy told me this shit, and I don't even know him, I'm like - - the only thing stoppin' me from bustin' his head, you gotta' understand, I'm just out of basic and AIT, I still got that mentality, he's an E-5, if I hit one I'm gonna' get in trouble... I was a private."

An NFL soldier from Watts says, "I know there's something that goes on behind closed doors. I can hear how white folks talk about Koreans. I could just hear them talking about black people like that. They talk about Koreans like, 'Look at them, look at these people.'"

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