This is only a drill, but an important one.

Across Alameda County, tactical teams from 25 law enforcement agencies are going through 48 hours of simulated disasters, terrorist attacks, riots and jail breaks, from 6 a.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Monday. In all, 1,700 people are involved in making look real a long list of answers to the question: What’s the worst that could happen?

Urban Shield, as the training exercise is known, is in its second year. It builds off law enforcement experience from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and 1991 Oakland hills fire.

“It’s been 17 years since those,” Sgt. JD Nelson of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said. “We have people in our department who were in kindergarten when that happened.”

He added: “Unless you operate all your gear and test all your people, you don’t know how they’ll perform when the real thing happens.”

At Cal State East Bay, deputies from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office are running the dignitary protection scenario. Every agency team will do this, with the same threats, and each team is scored. The overall operation aims to find the best practices, and to make sure every agency knows what worked and what didn’t.

The Santa Clara team has been briefed and is prepared to secure the speaker’s location, but a gas leak forces a last minute venue change. Now, Dr. X, as the stand-in dignitary is known, will speak in the open plaza outside Meiklejohn Hall.

There’s no standard solution to this puzzle. Every agency handles it in a different manner, some better than others. In the first five run-throughs, Dr. X was shot once, in the back. A bystander took another hit by accident. Everything is a lesson here.

When the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office team comes in, there is a smattering of applause and chants of “USA! USA!” A Doobie Brothers’ song is playing. Deputies sweep the area and the speaker approaches the podium.

A flash-bang grenade detonates. Students flatten themselves on the pavement, and members of the tactical team push Dr. X — the pill, as they call her — to the ground. Other deputies branch out as shots erupt from two sides of the plaza.

The flash-bang pulled everyone’s attention away from the two shooters. “Every team is turning around and looking at the bang,” Sgt. Chris Hummel, a tactical evaluator from the Fremont Police Department, will say later in debriefing.

The Santa Clara deputies neutralize the shooter to their left, then the one on the right. Later, the Alameda deputy acting as a would-be assassin will show off the bright-pink splash of paint on his helmet front, where a deputy’s simulated bullet hit him.

As the team backs out of the plaza, with two shooters down and Dr. X still standing, a safety officer ends the exercise. Just before he does so, the right-side shooter flinches and a deputy shouts at him: “Stay down or I’ll put another one in your head.”

The camp is a church event sponsored by the Living Stone Cathedral of Worship, where Hearns serves as bishop.

Maurice Wyre will no longer work with the camp, which ends Friday, Hearns said at a press conference at the park. He was responding to an article published in Sunday’s Valley Press disclosing Wyre’s role in the camp. While Hearns spoke, about 50 children inside the park’s gym listened to a former Olympic athlete instruct them to work hard, persevere and live a balanced life.

Wyre is listed on the state’s Megan’s Law online sex offender registry for continuous sexual abuse of a child. He underwent 90 days of psychiatric evaluation after pleading no contest to molestation — a lesser charge — in 1995 and served five years probation, which would have ended in 2000.

“In hindsight, while all I did was lawful, I must agree this could have been done differently,” Hearns told reporters. “While my intention from the beginning was that his knowledge of sports would be of great help to the church in planning a new recreational program for youth, I should have strongly counseled him against doing anything outside of adult planning.”

The 42-year-old former athlete and scion of a locally renowned sports family helped plan the camp, but Hearns insists that Wyre never would have had contact with children.

“He does not do anything that has anything to do with the kids, except for planning, on paper, with adults,” the clergyman mayor said Friday. At the press conference, Hearns said several times that that fact had not been reported.

Hearns also stressed that Wyre has no “official” position with the church, although he still sings in the adult choir.

Several parents at the camp told a Valley Press reporter they were comfortable having their children participate in the program at Jackie Robinson Park.

About two months ago, Wyre applied to run a summer youth camp at Littlerock High School, with the backing of a local church.

Wyre’s application remains a minor mystery.

Hearns insists he did not send Wyre two months ago and does not know why he went.

The high school’s vice principal of athletics, Peter Getz, turned down Wyre’s request to use campus facilities.

“I was unaware that he took it upon himself to approach a high school or a county park to ask for involvement with youth,” Hearns said Wednesday. “That would be wrong.”

Getz said last week he could not recall which church Wyre represented, and Getz’s secretary could not locate the original application.

Hearns credited “hindsight” with his decision to remove Wyre and offer the mea culpa, but political pressure may have pushed him as well. On Friday, state legislators George and Sharon Runner spoke to the mayor after learning of Wyre’s role in the camp from a reporter.

The Runners are leading proponents of a measure on the November ballot that would tighten restrictions on sex offenders. “Jessica’s Law,” as the initiative is dubbed, would mandate lifetime electronic monitoring of perpetrators and limit where they could live.

Sharon Runner, a Republican in the state Assembly, said she and her husband encouraged Hearns “to make sure he doesn’t have this gentleman working in any kind of relation with children.”

“I think Henry’s desire to help other people maybe gets in the way of his common sense in dealing with the situation at hand,” she added.

State Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, called removing Wyre a “wise move,” adding that “faulty decision making brought (Hearns) into that situation.”

He said the situation won’t hurt the Jessica’s Law campaign.

“People will make individual decisions and choices. It just points out how important it is for people to be fully aware of what’s happening with their children and how our children are always at risk,” Sen. Runner said. “Without Megan’s Law in place, these kind of issues wouldn’t even be visible.”

Political organizer Darren Parker, who heads the Antelope Valley Human Relations Task Force, joined Hearns at the press conference, standing to the mayor’s right and occasionally prompting him with responses to reporters’ inquiries. Parker ran Hearns’ mayoral campaign earlier this year.

Also a member of Living Stone Cathedral of Worship, Parker said he has met Wyre but didn’t know about his past until reading Sunday’s story. Parker described the man as amiable. At one point, the former athlete did some landscaping work at Parker’s house.

“I didn’t feel threatened when he was there at my home,” said Parker, who has five daughters. “I’ve seen change in his behavior, and growth.”

Councilman Ron Smith also admonished Hearns this week. He said the mayor “has a good heart,” but he told Hearns working with Wyre was a bad idea.

“History shows you with people like that. The majority of child molesters, their whole plan is, ‘How can I get to the next kid?’” said Smith, a former deputy sheriff.

Smith proposed a council resolution supporting Jessica’s Law, which was approved unanimously. Council members may soon consider an ordinance creating “predator-free zones” where those convicted of sex crimes cannot live, in addition to areas around schools and parks.

Hearns’ backtracking on Wyre won’t weaken the council’s efforts or credibility when it tries to crack down on sex offenders, Smith said, noting that the mayor’s job isn’t a managerial position, and “the council’s not governed by one person alone.”

“You can’t un-ring the bell,” he added. “But if you make a mistake, you’ve got to do whatever you can to remedy it and fix it.”

In the early 1990s, Hearns helped push through a city ordinance restricting adult-oriented businesses to heavy industrial zones. The law — still on the books — earned Lancaster the moniker of “The City That Banned Sex.” It applies to adult arcades, adult bookstores, novelty stores, video stores, motels, theaters, nude or semi-nude dance clubs, massage parlors, swing clubs, escort agencies and modeling studios.

Hearns more recently spoke out against porn channels offered through a local cable company, fearing that children might access illicit videos and on Wednesday said he “absolutely” backs the “Jessica’s Law” ballot initiative.

Maurice Wyre is listed on the registry for continuous sexual abuse of a child.

He underwent 90 days of psychiatric evaluation after pleading no contest to molestation — a lesser charge — in 1995 and served five years’ probation, which would have ended in 2000.

The 42-year-old former athlete and scion of a locally renowned sports family will not coach or be a counselor at the camp, which starts Monday and runs for a week, according to Hearns. The mayor and clergyman said he is aware of Wyre’s criminal record but that he is unwilling to cast the man out.

“He does not do anything that has anything to do with the kids, except for planning, on paper, with adults,” Hearns told the Valley Press.

The camp, Hearns said, will teach sports and character development to children ages 12 to 18.

About two months ago, Wyre applied to run a summer youth camp at Littlerock High School, with the backing of a local church.

People at the 2,400-student high school east of Palmdale know of Wyre and his family, a vice principal said. School officials were also aware of Wyre’s background as a sex offender.

A campus administrator quickly found Wyre’s name listed on the sex-offender registry.

Littlerock High gets “hundreds of requests” to use its facilities, said Vice Principal Peter Getz, who oversees the activities office.

“Anybody can turn in a request to use a facility,” Getz said. “Of course, my office declined (Wyre’s application) for obvious reasons.”

Getz personally told Wyre the reason that he couldn’t have access to school facilities to run a youth-oriented program, and he said that Wyre understood the school’s position.

Wyre is not permitted on the campus, the vice principal added. “A lot of people know him and know his history,” Getz said.

Wyre refused to comment when reached on his cell phone Saturday. “If you guys are trying to come up with a Megan’s Law story, you do what you’ve got to do, but I’m not going to comment on it,” he said.

The Littlerock High administrator and Wyre last spoke about six weeks ago.

“I never heard another word after that,” Getz said. “In the two years I’ve been sitting in that chair, his name’s only crossed my desk one time.”

Getz said he could not remember what church Wyre said he was representing, and the vice principal’s secretary was unable to locate the original application.

Hearns said he did not send Wyre as an emissary to Littlerock High, and he did not know what church the registered offender represented in seeking to establish a youth program with Littlerock High School as facility support.

“We let him help us to think things out, but he doesn’t bother anything,” Hearns said of Wyre, who is a member of Living Stone Cathedral of Worship.

“I’m not going to throw the man out and cut his head off because he did that. He needs to be a senior part of our church and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Hearns’ support for the Megan’s Law registered offender’s involvement in planning a character development course for youth is at odds with the mayor and clergyman’s career history as an advocate for a socially conservative religious, moral and legal outlook.

In the early 1990s, as a member of the Lancaster City Council, Hearns helped push through a city ordinance restricting adult-oriented businesses. The law earned Lancaster the moniker of “The City That Banned Sex” in national media coverage.

Hearns more recently spoke out against porn channels offered through a local cable TV company, saying he feared children might access illicit videos.

Hearns is a beneficiary of the political support and patronage of state Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster.

The husband-and-wife legislative team also are prominent in socially conservative politics as leaders at Desert Christian Schools, which they founded.

They also are the chief architects and proponents — along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — of the “Jessica’s Law” ballot initiative, which, if passed by voters in November, would be the nation’s toughest sex-offender and child-molester law.

Jessica’s Law would prohibit sex offenders from living near schools or parks, and it would require permanent electronic monitoring of serious perpetrators. The law would add stiffer prison terms as well.

Jessica’s Law would not affect Wyre, since it is not retroactive. It is aimed at sexual offenders who target children, a category with an extraordinarily high occurrence of repeat offenses. Under the law, offenders convicted of offenses such as those for which Wyre is listed would likely be eligible for re-arrest merely by turning up on a school campus.

Apprised that a Megan’s Law offender is participating in a youth-oriented program, Assemblywoman Runner said, “I wouldn’t send my child or grandchild anywhere a registered sex offender was involved.”

“I’m sure Bishop Hearns believes people can change, and I believe that as well,” she continued. “I don’t want to put anybody — adult or child — in that situation.”

Megan’s Law was inspired by the case of 7-year-old Megan Kanka, a New Jersey girl who was raped and killed by a known child molester who moved across the street from the family. The Kanka family fought to have local communities warned about sex offenders in the area. The New Jersey legislature passed Megan’s Law in 1994.

In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed Megan’s Law as an amendment to the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children’s Act. It required every state to develop some procedure for notifying the public when a sex offender is released into their community. Different states have different procedures for making the required disclosures.

Sharon Runner’s husband, state Senator George Runner, who has also served as a mayor of Lancaster, called the decision to allow a Megan’s Law offender to participate with the planning of a youth camp a case of “poor judgment.”

“I believe that once an individual has committed that kind of a crime, the last place we want them is in any kind of activity with children.

“It seems to me it’s pretty hard to justify any kind of activity that could lead to proximity or a relationship with children.”

Both Runners said Hearns has a “big heart.” Hearns also is a supporter of the “Jessica’s Law” initiative.

“I’m sure that Henry feels confident that there isn’t any danger to children,” George Runner said, Even without direct access to children, placing a Megan’s Law offender in a planning capacity in a youth program is problematic, George Runner observed.

“The problem is going to be one of perception and of concern,” the state senator said.

George Runner called Hearns “a loving, kind man who wants to help people,” but added, “I don’t think Henry necessarily thought through the consequences and how people would react to it.”

Sen. Runner said current law requiring sex offenders to register with the Megan’s Law online database doesn’t prevent a former child molester from planning a day camp or having some advisory capacity with a youth program.

“There’s nothing that keeps an individual from being the coach of a soccer team as a registered sex offender,” Sen. Runner said.

Many youth programs conduct their own diligence, and usually, groups such as the Boy Scouts of America and Big Brothers take their own inventory and make their own decisions who may or may not work within their organizations.

As for Hearns’ decision to let Wyre help plan his camp, Runner said: “There’s no law against this. If it’s all out in the open and people are accepting of this, then it’s up to those families involved.”

He added, “It just would not be a judgment I would make.”

LANCASTER — Spc. Eric Huff is ready to be done with the Army. Ten months after an attack by three fellow American soldiers outside his barracks in South Korea that nearly killed him, the stricken soldier has not fully recovered.

Deborah Huff, Eric’s mother, wants her son out of the military, too. “I know my son is not fit to be in the U.S. Army anymore,” she said in an interview at her Lancaster home.

Huff spent a weekend in Lancaster, where he grew up, following the last of his attackers’ courts-martial. He has been stationed at Fort Lewis, Wash., since the attack.

“He’s come a long way, but he’s not like a normal 20-year-old male,” Deborah Huff said. “He can’t do things he’s supposed to be able to do.”

Shortly after midnight on Dec. 10, three soldiers from the 305th Quartermasters Company attacked Huff outside his barracks at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, South Korea.

According to a preliminary report by the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division, the three soldiers knocked Huff to the ground, then punched, kicked and stomped on his face and head, leaving him with a fractured skull.

The next thing Huff remembered was waking up in the base hospital, his parents at his bedside. He had been scheduled to leave South Korea on Dec. 10 after a two-year tour of duty.

Yongsan Garrison, in the South Korean capital, is the headquarters of the 8th Army and U.S. Forces Korea, which have maintained roughly 37,000 troops in South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War. United Nations Command and U.S.-Republic of Korea Combined Forces Command also are based there.

Plans are under way to move Yongsan Garrison out of Seoul and to reduce the American presence on the Korean peninsula. U.S. forces could be reduced by a third by 2008.

All three of the soldiers who attacked Huff in December pleaded guilty to the assault, and each will spend the next decade in a military prison, then leave the Army with a dishonorable discharge. The sentences also carried demotions to the Army’s lowest rank, private.

The last to be convicted, Pfc. Henry Hall, threw the first punch that knocked Huff to the ground. Pfc. Demetry L. Randall and Pvt. Rodney A. Brackens then continued to pummel Huff until he was bleeding and unconscious. The three attackers fled and did not call for medical help for Huff.

During his court-martial, Hall said he wanted to prove to Randall and Brackens that he didn’t “hit like a girl,” according to Stars & Stripes, which covered the trials in South Korea.

In the eyes of Huff’s mother, the scales are far from even.

“It’s never justice,” Deborah Huff said Friday.

“But this we know: He’s never gonna want to ‘be a man’ again,” she added, referring to Hall. “At least no other parents will have to go through what we went through, because somebody wanted to prove he was a man.”

All three attackers apologized to Huff in court. Hall said after his conviction: “I pray every day for him. … I just wish I could change a mistake. I gotta live with it,” according to Stars & Stripes.

Huff and his mother have a hard time forgiving the three soldiers.

“He made the first punch. He started everything,” Huff said of Hall. “I don’t know how he could be sorry for that.”

His mother added, “Maybe if he hadn’t thrown that first punch, maybe nothing would’ve happened.”

Maj. Elizabeth Robbins, an Army spokeswoman at the Defense Department, said the attacks contradicted core Army values. The spokeswoman was not familiar with all the details of Huff’s case, but what she knew left her shocked and disgusted.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this in my 17 years,” she said. “We’re a values-based army. Clearly, physical violence does not meet the standards that we set for ourselves. The Army takes very seriously soldiers who fail to treat people as they should be treated.”

As for Huff’s future in the Army, Robbins said the Army’s first priority in such a situation would be the soldier’s health. Federal law prohibited Robbins from giving specifics about Huff’s case, the spokeswoman said, and she spoke in broad terms.

“We certainly don’t want to move someone out of service too expeditiously,” Robbins said. “You can still help someone when they’re within the family, the embrace.”

Once a soldier’s health stabilizes, a medical review board will decide whether to keep him in the Army or offer a medical discharge. The board also considers the soldier’s abilities and his use to the Army.

“If a soldier was an infantryman, and he badly damaged his ankles and could never run again, he might be able to do honorable service as a clerk or a mechanic, but not as an infantryman,” Robbins said. Decisions apply to the individual on a case-by-case basis.

“The last thing we want to do is endanger the soldier or his colleagues,” Robbins said. “We exist to fight and win the nation’s wars. It’s not a job program.”

In South Korea, Huff worked mostly on radios. He performed maintenance and had started procuring parts for his unit, the 17th Aviation Brigade. He liked the work, he said.

After the Army, Huff planned to go to college and study computers, using money earned from his service.

Now at Fort Lewis near Tacoma, Wash., Huff spends his days doing odd jobs in a unit of injured soldiers. He collects linens for laundry. Sometimes he cleans barracks. Mostly, he sits in his room.

“They come up with little details that the medical unit I’m in has to do, like whatever,” he said.

Huff is still getting physical therapy, including regular ultrasounds on his left hip, which started hurting when the feeling came back into the left side of his body.

Worse, Huff has no transportation, and doesn’t know Washington state well.

“All I do is sit in my room and sit at my computer while they think of something for me to do downstairs,” he said.

Huff could barely walk after the attack, and underwent physical and occupational therapy in a Veterans Affairs hospital in Palo Alto. Now he can drive, although with restrictions.

“I still get headaches,” he said Friday, “but I’m used to that.”

The wounded hip slows him down the most. He has trouble getting in a car.

“I can get the right leg in no problem,” he said, “but I can’t lift my left leg. I have to pull it up with my hands.”

More than anything, Huff is bored, tired of the Army and getting depressed.

“I don’t want to be there. I’ve been there too long already,” he said. Another soldier in his unit has been at Fort Lewis for two years. “I don’t know if I could be there that long.”

Huff’s enlistment runs until August 2006, but he wants out “as soon as possible.”

“I’m tired of waiting and doing nothing,” he said. “I want to be in school, too. That’s one reason I joined the Army, to pay for school.”

Huff suffered brain damage in the attack — his doctors have said he will never remember the incident — and he could have difficulty picking up new skills. But the soldier believes he can recover, and he can live the life he wants.

“It’s most likely going to be a challenge, because my head hurts a lot,” he said. “But I’m gonna try.”

camico@avpress.com

Sharon Millen, who resigned as principal days after the incident, appeared shaken for much of the hearing.

Her alleged assailant, Charlie Bang Sr., appeared without an attorney and said several times that he meant no harm to Millen or anyone else.

Bang faces a criminal charge of battery against a school official in the incident.

“I’m not a violent person,” Bang said. “There was no violence prior, the incident lasted only three or four seconds, and there was no violence after.”

Bang told the judge that his lawyer, who was not present, had advised him against giving details of the exchange with Millen.

Judge Lawrence Hales warned Bang that he would have to waive his Fifth Amendment protection in order to testify. Bang was under oath, the judge told him, and everything he said would be on record.

Bang noted the caution, and agreed to waive his rights.

In Millen’s account of the incident, Bang arrived in her office unannounced on the morning of May 4. He brought his son, who was suspended and should not have been on campus, Millen said.

Bang asked that his son’s suspension be lifted, which Millen refused. Bang next demanded to see student testimonials regarding the suspension.

Millen again refused, asserting then and in court that the files are school property.

On the way out of the meeting, Millen said the son pointed to a stack of papers on the school secretary’s desk, telling his father the student statements were there.

Bang, according to Millen, grabbed for the papers.

“He said, ‘I’m taking these,’ ” Millen recalled, and she put her hand down over the stack of papers.

“He grabbed me by both shoulders and threw me against the wall,” she told the court. “I slid all the way to the floor.”

A student stepped between Millen and Bang, Millen said.

“Don’t you touch her again,” Millen remembers the student shouting.

Bang did not give a full account, as Millen did. He said only that he had come to Vasquez High on May 4 to contest his son’s punishment. He asked to see statements from other students and to speak to a teacher on campus.

Bang continued to insist that he was neither violent in nature nor a threat to Millen.

“I don’t think we need to be here at all, because I’ve shown no desire to do anything to her at all,” he said. “My action was appropriate. It was minimal. It was not extreme.”

Millen told the court in response, “I’m afraid of Mr. Bang.”

Judge Hales said he could not rule on the criminal merits of the case, but decided to establish the restraining order for three years .

“Something happened that put the petitioner (Millen) in fear, and that is enough to grant the restraining order,” Hales said.

Bang must stay 100 yards away from Millen at all times and cannot contact her except through his attorney. If she does return to Vasquez High — she may stay on as a consultant for the district — Bang can drop off his two sons in the school parking lot, but cannot leave his car.

“If you see her on the street, walk in the other direction,” the judge told Bang.

Bang asked to keep a firearm loaned to him by a friend. The gun was not Bang’s and is not in his possession now, Bang said.

Hales told Bang not to get it back from his friend.

“I see no reason for you to have a gun at this time,” Hales said. “Picking up the phone and dialing 911 is usually a better idea than picking up a gun and trying to shoot someone.”

Hales denied a request from Millen’s attorney, Andrew Ward, to make Bang pay Millen’s legal expenses, which are now being paid by the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District.

Bang insisted again that he was not a threat to Millen, even after Hales imposed the restraining order.

“Don’t be afraid of me. I’m not a violent person at all,” Bang told Millen. “If you were in a burning building, I would run in and save you.”

Millen gave no reply, and the judge said it would be the last time Bang would speak to Millen.

Shortly after midnight on Dec. 10, three soldiers from the 305th Quartermasters Company attacked Huff outside his barracks at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, South Korea.

According to a preliminary report by the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division, the three soldiers knocked Huff to the ground, then punched, kicked and stomped on his face and head, leaving him with a fractured skull.

The next thing Huff remembers is waking up in the base hospital, his parents at his bedside. Huff had been scheduled to leave South Korea on Dec. 10 after a two-year tour of duty.

Only a week ago, Huff could only take a few steps on his own. He did not leave his mother’s Lancaster home without a wheelchair. Now, he walks independently through the halls of a Veterans Affairs hospital in Palo Alto.

“I got a little bit better walking, but I still ain’t walking straight,” Huff said. “But my left side is the same. It’s numb and tingly. I’ve got half my arm, half my lip, half my face.”

Physical therapist Beth Pittman helps the young soldier walk up and down stairs, holding a blue fabric belt around his waist in case he loses balance. The attack initially affected Huff’s equilibrium, confining him to the wheelchair.

Using parallel bars for support, Huff practices walking forward and backward, on his toes and on his heels. Pittman sometimes walks right behind Huff, shadowing his movements and gripping the belt on his waist.

Pittman makes Huff stand on an inflated rubber disk, which bobbles and undulates under the soldier’s feet. Huff has a hard time staying upright, even with the bars; then Pittman tells him to close his eyes.

“Now he’s having to rely a lot on his inner ear and on feeling from his feet,” Pittman explained.

Huff’s strength, balance and coordination are returning, but that takes time.

In the hallway, Pittman tells Huff to walk back and forth as fast as he can. His stride is uneven, and his left foot twitches with each step, as if it wants to go in its own direction.

“In physical therapy, we try to challenge you to go beyond what you’re doing now in a safe environment,” Pittman said. “With a brain injury, we just have to see what comes.”

There are some things Huff never will get back, a VA doctor said. He will never remember the attack.

Dr. Harriet Zeiner, a neuropsychologist who has been working with Huff, said there is an up side and down side to this.

“It’s a disadvantage because there’s a part of his life that’s missing,” Zeiner said. “What’s the advantage? He’s not going to have post-traumatic stress disorder, because he doesn’t remember the attack.”

Flashes of time before and after the attack are returning, and more may come.

“He has some events of that day,” Zeiner said. “He knows that he was around some of the people from the group that attacked him in the barracks. He says he knows who was in the group that might have attacked other people.”

Previously, Huff had said he did not remember ever meeting any of his attackers until they knocked on his door.

Most outward signs of the beating are fading. Huff still has cuts and bruises around his eyes, and a large bruise on his left shoulder inhibits arm movement.

When the soldier’s father first saw him in the hospital, there were footprints on Eric’s face and head.

Huff’s movements are still slow, and he pauses for long moments between sentences. He often stares at his palms while talking.

“He is classic for the symptoms of head injury,” Zeiner said. While his outward injuries are healing, the brain damage Huff suffered will probably take 18 to 24 months to heal.

“People who have a gross head injury don’t remember the blow. They remember what people tell them has happened,” Zeiner said. “They don’t remember the event itself, and they also have a very spotty memory for events immediately preceding or leading up to it, and they have very altered or poor memory of events afterward for a period of time.”

The condition after an attack when a victim will have difficulty forming new memories is called post-traumatic amnesia, or PTA. Zeiner said the length of PTA is a strong indicator of how much a person will recover from a brain injury.

“His period of PTA was a couple of weeks, and that’s a pretty good prognosis that, at the end of recovery, he’s going to have a significantly good recovery,” Zeiner said. “Does that mean he’s going to be 100%? No. He’s lost brain cells.”

Depending on how his brain recovers, Huff and those around him may notice changes in his behavior, personality and ability to learn new skills. It likely will be many months before he can perform the complex telecommunications tasks he did as part of the 17th Aviation Brigade in South Korea.

“Many people with brain injury tend to run out of mental energy around 2 o’clock in the afternoon, because everything they’re doing, like tracking or carrying a conversation, they’re doing with conscious effort,” Zeiner said.

Pulling a large, colorful model of a human brain off her shelf, Zeiner used it to point out the frontal and temporal lobes, which were injured in the attack. The frontal lobe allows complex, abstract thoughts, as well as planning and prioritizing. The temporal lobe houses memory.

“The brain itself has the consistency of Jell-O at room temperature,” Zeiner said. “Injuries that occur are not just the blow, it’s the brain sloshing back and forth and injuring itself on the inside of your skull.”

The neuropsychologist added, “What’s amazing is not that people have injuries. What’s amazing is just the opposite. What’s amazing is that people recover.”

Huff will leave the VA hospital Tuesday and spend 30 days on convalescent leave closer to home. He still will receive physical, speech and occupational therapy, but he will not have to stay in a hospital. After that, he will return to active service on light duty.

“He’s going to be able to hold a job,” Zeiner said. “Whether he’s going to be able to achieve what he could have achieved before, that’s the big question.”

Huff’s enlistment in the Army is slated to end in August 2006. He has said that he does not want to re-enlist.

“Chances are that he remembers and knows how to do what he was trained to do, but I’m sure his desire was to translate that into something in the civilian sector,” Zeiner said. “That’s new learning, and that’s going to be impaired right now. I think … at the end of his recovery, he’s going to be able to go through training. But he’s not going to be able to pick it up as fast as he did before. It might take twice as long.”

Huff will need to figure out how to live with his injuries and incorporate any disabilities into his future.

“The job of a person with a brain injury is to re-invent themselves, and to re-invent themselves to include the disabilities and the handicaps that they have, and still feel OK about themselves,” Zeiner said. “They still have to feel they can do something meaningful in the world and they can have what other people have.

“They have to have hope that life can get better. And what’s amazing about most of the people here is that they do that.”

Two other American soldiers stood outside. He walked out and shut the door behind him.

Then came a blow from behind, on the head, and Huff went down. His three assailants punched, kicked and stomped on Huff’s face and head, leaving him with a fractured skull.

The next thing Huff remembers is waking up in the base hospital two days later. His parents, who live in the Antelope Valley, were at his bedside.

They traveled with urgency, fearing their son might not live.

According to a preliminary Army Criminal Investigation Division report, Pvt. Henry Hall, Pfc. Demetry Randall and Pvt. Alan Brackens members of the 305th Quartermaster Company, attacked Huff “for fun.”

After knocking Huff to the ground, the report stated, “Hall, Randall and Brackens continued to repeatedly punch, kick and stomp Huff in the face and head. Hall, Randall and Brackens subsequently fled the scene.”

In the course of the Army’s criminal investigation, Hall and Brackens both reportedly admitted attacking Huff.

Major Kate Johnson, a public affairs officer for the 8th Army in South Korea, insisted that the attack is not part of a pattern.

“I have no indication that this is other than an isolated incident with the individuals in question,” Johnson said. “When allegations like that are made, that is thoroughly investigated. There is no previous indication of previous assaults like we saw on the evening in question.”

She added, “If there is any indication from investigation that there’s a pattern of misconduct or a pattern of activity, that would also be thoroughly investigated.”

Johnson also said she knew of no previous or outstanding charges against Hall, Brackens or Randall.

The preliminary CID report is at some variance to Johnson’s understanding of what happened.

The CID report said, “Brackens said all three of them had assaulted other individuals, both on and off Yongsan Garrison on various occasions in the past, with similar motive.”

Only Randall denied involvement in the attack.

“However, shortly after the incident, Randall and Brackens bragged to other soldiers that they had just assaulted someone,” the CID report said.

“Brackens told the soldiers they did not believe they would get caught because they had assaulted numerous other individuals without consequence.”

Capt. Jack Ko, lead military prosecutor in the case, said no formal charges have been filed against Hall, Brackens or Randall.

The report stated the three were in confinement awaiting a preliminary hearing for potential charges of attempted murder.

Yongsan Garrison, in the South Korean capital of Seoul, is the headquarters of the 8th Army and U.S. Forces Korea, which have maintained roughly 37,000 troops in South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War. United Nations Command and U.S.-Republic of Korea Combined Forces Command also are based there.

Plans are underway to move Yongsan Garrison out of Seoul and to reduce the American presence on the Korean peninsula. U.S. forces could be reduced by a third by 2008.

While preparations are under way to reduce the American troop commitment on the Korean peninsula, the Army is operating at peak capacity to maintain its worldwide mission while as many as 170,000 troops are needed in Iraq and Afghanistan at any time.

Units that once were stable in their base locations now operate in a state of churn.

When the assault happened, Huff, a soldier with the 17th Aviation Brigade, was making preparations to leave Korea. His suspected assailants belonged to the 305th Quartermaster Co.

Huff said he had never met any of his attackers before they knocked on his barracks door.

“I never heard of this stuff,” he said, referring to the assault by attackers who ganged up.

“I remember these guys talking to me. They weren’t really sayin’ nothing. I don’t really know what happened. Then two, three days later I woke up in the hospital.”

Huff, 20, was due to fly home on Dec. 10, after spending nearly two years in South Korea, working in military telecommunications.

His mother, Debra, received a call from Yongsan Garrison around 4 a.m. on Dec. 10. The emergency call came a few hours before she would have left her Lancaster home to pick her son up from the airport.

“I hadn’t seen my son in two years,” Debra Huff said. “I bought a ticket for him to come home, and they say he (wasn’t going to be) coming home.”

She recalled: “They said, ‘Ma’am, he’s been assaulted.’ The first thing I thought was the Koreans.”

Then the official told Debra Huff that her son had been attacked by American soldiers.

“I just dropped,” she said.

Within hours, the Army arranged for Huff and her ex-husband, Eric Huff Sr., to travel to South Korea for the purpose of “assisting with the recovery of Specialist Eric E. Huff Jr.”

The Huffs were not allowed to speak to their son until they arrived at the hospital.

The Huffs believe the only reason they were brought to South Korea was because the Army did not expect Eric to survive.

Huff received multiple head and facial injuries, including the skull fractures.

When the soldier’s father first saw him in the hospital, there were still footprints on Eric’s face and head.

Two weeks later, Huff can walk short distances on his own, although his gait is wobbly. He lost his equilibrium during the attack. The left side of his body tingles and goes numb.

In conversation, Huff stares intently at the floor. His voice is quiet, and there are long pauses between sentences.

“Y’know what the Army told me?” an exasperated Debra Huff said. “He’s young, he’ll rebuild himself. He’s gonna be fine.”

She railed at the Army, which she says has let the base fall into disarray.

She said she told Army officials: “Do you guys understand you got some outta control soldiers over there?”

She added, “I’m scared for other people’s kids over there. The Army’s supposed to be disciplined. They’re out of control.”

Huff enlisted in the Army at 17, after graduating from Lancaster High School. His enlistment is up in August 2006, and Huff said he has no plans to stay in the military.

“I think I’m done with the Army,” Huff said. The attack two weeks ago is “a lot of it, but there’s other stuff, too.”

The 8th Army spokeswoman said, “This situation is a shock to us in the military community. This is not the way soldiers behave.”

“It’s in the family’s interest and our interest, to make sure proper punishment is levied, and that things like this just don’t happen again.”

Johnson reiterated that few details are available to the public during the investigation.

“I think what is important to focus on is that the alleged assailants are in pre-trial confinement,” she said. “We recognize the absolute severity of the crime that was committed.”

Crime is rare on military bases, she said, and especially at Yongsan Garrison.

“It’s a very low incident of crime pertaining to soldiers in military installations,” Johnson said. “If we have a soldier interested in criminal activity, he’s dealt with, and dealt with swiftly. We have very low instance of criminal activity, and certainly not assault of this kind.”

She added, “We had a murder two years ago, where a soldier murdered his wife. And given what I’ve just said about the low incidence of crime, that was a very unusual activity.”