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GET ON THE BUS

The children bounded off the bus and ran excitedly towards a tall fence topped with razor wire.

In the distance, through layers of fencing overlooked by a guard tower, huddled a group of mothers in baggy blue prison-issue clothes, pointing, waving and gasping.

Many had not seen their children in over a year.

Frank Martinez jumped up and down, shrieking with delight. “Stay right there Mommy,” he yelled. “Don’t cry.”

As the children disappeared into a building to be searched and X-rayed, a couple of the mothers began sobbing.

An annual Mother’s Day event, Get On The Bus, provides free transport for hundreds of children to visit their incarcerated moms at California Institute for Women in Chino, and other state prisons. Sixty percent of parents in state prison report being held over 100 miles from their children, and visits are impossible for many.

California locks up more women than any other state in the US — 11,250 in 2007 – and three quarters are mothers. The children left behind with family or in foster care often feel abandoned and some don’t see their moms for years.

Regular prison visits lower rates of recidivism for the parent, and make the child better emotionally adjusted and less likely to become delinquent, according to The Center for Resorative Justice Works, the non profit organization that runs the Get on the Bus program.

Reuters reporter Mary Slosson and I choked back tears as we walked into a large room packed with mothers throwing their arms around their kids, spinning them round in tight hugs. A shriek rose above the cacophony of voices and laughter every time a new child was escorted in.

“You’ve grown!” “Your feet are as big as mine!” “I’ve missed you,” came the cries.

Outside, Norma Ortiz, 31, cooed and fed her eleven-month-old son Axel with a bottle of milk for the first time since he was taken away after she gave birth to him in the prison.

Her mother Olga, 55, and her three sons surrounded her protectively. I asked Norma how it felt to see her baby. “I can’t talk about that,” she said, nodding towards her sons. “I need to be strong for them”.

Other mothers chased their children around the climbing bars, and down the slide in a small playground, as a burly prison guard paced the perimeter.

Most quietly chatted, or played board games during the few hours they had together.

Children stood on tiptoes to push the coins they had brought into vending machines, which were off limits to the inmates. They carried back bags of chips and soda gifts for their moms.

“I know how to do side flips,” boasted seven-year-old Levell Jones to his mother Shonta Montgomery, 28, who said she was serving time for involuntary manslaughter. It was the first time he had seen her in seventeen months.

Montgomery clasped his face, sat him down, and began tying his shoe lace. “When you go home, wash your laces just like we used to do,” she told him.

“No-one wants to see their relative behind bars,” said Christal Huerta, 22, who was visiting her mother Sonia Huerta, 36, with her 12-year-old sister Breeanna Huerta. Their father was deported to Mexico three years ago, and now Christal takes care of her two sisters at their grandmother’s home.

“It’s kind of sad, because you expect to have both parents with you, teaching you how to become an adult and how to become responsible,” she said. “But they’ve taught me enough to teach my other sisters.

“You need to have a lot of strength and patience to deal with things that come. I’m just glad my parents are still alive, and I could see them. Others aren’t so lucky. I’m just very happy for the things I do have. I always try to stay positive.”

As the afternoon slipped away, and the guards began to call for children to board buses back to different cities in California, a quiet settled over the yard.

Lakisha Perry, 29, cradled her daughter Stephanie with her arms and kissed her forehead as they both stared into the distance. “I want to stay here with you,” Stephanie said.

A few children cried as they touched their mothers’ hands across a line of tape on the floor, marked with “Do Not Cross,” as they were ushered out of the room by a prison guard. Most shuffled out in stunned silence.

Back on the bus, the children hugged cuddly toy animals they had been given and stared trance-like out of the window at the receding prison fence. A couple of girls curled up in the fetal position under blankets on the seats and fell into a deep sleep. The bus carried them back to Los Angeles to resume serving their own time.

Several policemen stood in the South LA street behind their car doors with their guns pointed at a white minivan.

“Put your hands up where we can see them,” an officer commanded. “Get out of the car. Put your hands behind your head. On your knees. Lie down.”

I edged tentatively towards the scene, not wanting to startle officers who had their guns trained on the suspect.

In seconds, they moved in and handcuffed the man, suspected of stealing his girlfriend’s car.

I was accompanying police on the streets of the 77th Division, one of the most dangerous in Los Angeles, where the LA Riots erupted twenty years ago after four white cops were acquitted of beating black motorist Rodney King.

On April 29, 1992, at the corner of Florence and Normandie, a mostly black mob beat white truck driver Reginald Denny almost to death, heralding six days of destruction that left 53 dead.

Today, the crossroads remains a scrubby intersection of gas stations and liquor stores, but much has changed around it, including a police force that took a brunt of criticism at the time for racial prejudice, hardball tactics and for abandoning the neighborhood as it burned.

The LAPD has become more racially mixed – in 1992 59% of officers were white, today only 37% are. They’ve also gone from what some complained was an occupying force to getting to know the people and developing relationships.

There are fewer gang shootings in the 77th Division than there were in 1992, when 162 people were murdered. Last year there were 33. Still an incredibly high number for an area of 11.2 square miles.

Signs of crime and the 34 gangs – many now Hispanic — that plague the area abound: street memorials to shooting victims, graffiti-smeared walls and fast-food restaurant cashiers are protected by bullet-proof glass.

“It’s a very tough area to work,” says Gomez, 42, “we respond to a lot of assaults, domestic violence, and shootings – it’s a very violent division.”

Problems extend beyond crime. Unemployment is around 20% in the neighborhood. More than a quarter of high school students drop out.

There’s a dearth of supermarkets, restaurants, stores and parks. Businesses shy away from investing there and creating jobs for local young people.

“If only people would realize they’re sitting on prime Los Angeles real estate,” Senior Lead Officer Martin Martinez said.

I went to a rally the following day for slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and other young black men killed by violence. The pastor asked people to stand up if they knew someone who had been shot. Around two thirds rose in the packed church. Then he asked if anyone knew someone who was in prison. Nearly everyone was on their feet.

Many of the speakers referred to a common experience of being stopped by police because of the color of their skin.

I followed Martinez as he went door to door chatting to store owners. Meeting with community leaders to head off problems before they escalate has become part of policing strategy.

Later we came across two officers who had lined some men up against a wall after finding them drinking on the street.

One swore under his breath, and the officer quickly ushered him into the squad car. A crowd gathered, and the officers kept telling them to keep their distance. They searched the men and lifted the shirt of one to look for gang tattoos. An officer asked him why his belt and shoes were in gang colors.

One of the residents asked me why I was taking photos, and why the media didn’t ever focus on the good things in his community. I explained I was doing a story about policing, but I didn’t feel that adequately answered his question.

The police let the men go, and a woman ran up to one of them. “Get your ass on home,” she said as he smiled sheepishly.

Photographing Olympic athletes can be less than glamorous.

It’s an enviable front row seat to the largest sporting spectacle on earth, but there’s not much opportunity for photographers to chat to athletes, or to find many unique shooting vantage points.

So when the opportunity came to photograph Olympic athletes training in and around LA last week, with Reuters TV, as part of our coverage of the build-up to the 2012 Games in London, I jumped right in, literally.

First stop found me bobbing in a pool as platform diver Haley Ishimatsu plunged 10 meters and barely made a splash next to me.

My waterproof camera housing gave me the freedom to get close to Ishimatsu, but it was so buoyant I had a hard time staying at the bottom of the diving pit.

I’d only ever used the housing weighted at the bottom of a swimming pool during races. I wore fins, but without scuba gear and diving weights, I had to anticipate when she was about to make her dive, take a deep breath, and paddle to the bottom of the pool.

It was surprisingly hard. I would push down to submerge the air-filled box, and kick my legs furiously. I only had a couple of seconds when I hit the bottom to turn around and compose the shot before I came floating to the surface, gasping for air. I was using a 15mm fisheye lens on a Canon Mark IV, so I had to swim close to where she was likely to land without getting hit.

I asked Ishimatsu if I could mount a remote camera on the diving board, and she said I could shoot from there. The 10 meter platform was wide, and she always stepped towards one side, so I lay on my stomach hanging over the edge on the opposite side.

I practiced holding my breath again, swimming beneath Janet Evans, who won three gold medals in the 1988 Seoul Olympics as a 17-year-old prodigy, and is looking to qualify for the London Olympics as a 40-year-old mother of two. Like all the athletes I photographed, she was so intensely focused during her workout, she seemed to barely notice me struggling to stay under water with my floating camera.

After the swimming and diving, I imagined I would be well prepared for shooting water polo. But when I jumped in with the US men’s water polo team, I realized why they were so much more muscular than other aquatic athletes.

Keeping up with them as they scrimmaged was less about lung capacity, and more about constantly pedaling my legs to stay in place in the deep water, and then kicking them harder to rise out of the water to take a photo.

It was an exhausting leg workout, and I would have been sunk without fins. I swam in the pool for short periods and then photographed them from the deck, mounting a GoPro HD camera on the top of the goal with a magic arm at one point to shoot stills at 2 second intervals. I also set it to shoot a short clip of video for Sandra for Reuters TV.

The team kept on kicking, tackling, and powering shots at the goal for two hours without appearing tired.

Back on land, seeing track star Allyson Felix run around a track with recreational joggers plodding around the oval, was like watching a cheetah overtake a herd of wildebeest.

She exploded out of the starting block, head down, arms powering furiously. Then after this initial spurt, she looked up and let her graceful, lengthy stride take over.

“Clear lane 4, clear lane 4,” coach Bobby Kersee yelled at a struggling jogger, who looked over his shoulder as if he were about to be hit by a speeding motorbike.

After 200 meters Felix pulled up and then walked very slowly in the lane back to the starting block. The joggers huffed and puffed their way past, until she repeated her extreme interval drill.

When she sat to stretch the serene precision of her workout gave way to a chatty, warm personality. She said she’d been listening to Jay-Z during her warmup run, and explained how she used a softball to massage her hip flexors.

Sprint track cyclist Kevin Mansker played to our photographers’ worst instincts in letting us get really close to the action. “Lay in the middle of the track if you like,” he encouraged TV cameraperson Sandra and me. “I’ll just ride around you.” Mansker moved faster than the others, circling the oval and blazing just inches from our lenses.

Southern California’s temperate climate is a big draw for athletes training, and nothing conjures up a picture of the state better than a sandy beach.

The pristine sand in Manhattan Beach is a big draw for beach volleyball players. I went to photograph US Olympic gold medalists Kerri Walsh and Misty May, and found them sparring with the Chinese and German teams.

I lay on the sand under the net and watched them dive and lunge with an intensity that began to draw a crowd.

According to the sports adage, training is 90% physical, 10% mental whereas racing is 10% physical, 90% mental. Medals aren’t won solely on race day in front of the huge Olympic crowd, but during the lonely hours upon hours of training.

It was a privilege to witness a small part of that process.

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SCHOOL ON WHEELS (if you would like to donate money to help homeless children in the LA area)

• About 1 in 45 children is homeless in U.S. – report
• Homeless children suffer anxiety, depression – expert
• A typical day is filled with many ups and downs

By Lucy Nicholson

LOS ANGELES, March 9 (Reuters) – On her second day of camping near the coast northwest of Los Angeles, Benita Guzman lit a match, threw it on a pile of logs, and poured gasoline on top.

As flames engulfed her hand and foot, her niece, Angelica Cervantes, rushed to throw sand over her. Benita thrust her burning hand into a pile of mud, and took a deep breath.

Camping’s not easy. It’s a whole lot rougher when you’re a pair of homeless single mothers trying to keep seven children fed, clothed, washed and in school while living in a tent. A typical day is filled with ups and downs, disappointments and learning to relish in simple things, like a hot cup of coffee or a snack for your kids.

“It’s scary, especially at night,” Guzman told Reuters about her new life. “I’ve always been spoiled. I have a large family and when we went on camping trips, I was the princess.”

Guzman said she now lives “moment by moment, day by day.” If she does break down, she tries to hide it from her kids.

“They tell me, ‘If you crack, we all crack. If you break Mom, we all break, because you’re the one who holds us together.’ So that’s what keeps me going.”

A tear rolls slowly down her cheek.

Guzman, 40, and two of her children are living with Cervantes, 36, and five of her kids. The two banded together in an effort to keep their families together.

Three of Guzman’s children and one of Cervantes’ are already staying with relatives, and neither wants their other kids taken away and placed in foster homes.

They all are part of a disturbing trend in the United States. One in 45 children, totaling 1.6 million, is homeless, the highest number in U.S. history, according to a 2011 report from the National Center on Family Homelessness.

“Homeless children have far more chronic and acute medical issues,” said the organization’s president Dr. Ellen Bassuk. “While in school it’s hard for homeless kids to pay attention. Many of them come in tired and hungry.

“Psychologically, homeless kids tend to be much more stressed,” she said. “Many have been exposed to a high level of violence, so many have a lot of anxiety and depression.”

A DAY OF HIGHS AND LOWS

After three weeks of sleeping at a campsite, the family can no longer afford the rental van to ferry the kids to school, so at dawn the two women load the children into the minivan and leave the tents at the campground.

They shuttle between schools, drop off the kids, then find a public restroom to clean up. Guzman struggles to douse her thick curly hair with drops of cold water from the tiny sink. Both women slip into stalls to change clothes.

They stop at a café for coffee. Guzman’s hair is wet and she shivers as she cradles her hot cup. They had been trying to cook meals on the campfire, but it was difficult keeping their bellies full. At one point recently, Cervantes said, her weight had dropped from 180 to 152 lbs.

After coffee, they drive to a shelter that they hope will take Cervantes with all her children and not reject the teenage boy. But they are too late and are told to return the next morning.

Cervantes became homeless after a series of problems that included her husband going to jail and her kids being put in foster homes. She struggled to hold down low-paying jobs, but owed more money to the foster care system than she was making.

“I barely had any income,” she said. “I didn’t have food stamps, so I was taking money I saved for rent to feed my kids.”

After being evicted, she and her children moved in with Guzman, who had been living alone with her kids since her husband moved out five years ago.

But Guzman’s son Richard fought at school, and she missed her annual appointment for housing benefits to attend his probation hearing. She called to reschedule, but twice was sent letters with an appointment only to find the dates had already passed because she had received the letters too late.

She was evicted this past Christmas.

“In some states there are prevention services so that low income families who are on the edge don’t end up being evicted,” said Bassuk. “Because once homeless, it’s very hard to get back into the community and find permanent housing.”

Affordable, permanent housing isn’t all that’s needed. Bassuk said transportation and child services are also necessary so single moms can go to work and know that their kids are being well cared for.

FIRST BED IN WEEKS

The women, who get by on government subsidies and welfare programs, decide to find a cheap motel room for the night so the children can walk to school in the morning.

By the time they check in that evening, Cervantes can’t stop clutching her aching head. Guzman carries only a box of snacks – carrots, oranges, chips – and a cooler of sodas.

The children rush excitedly toward the first bed they’ve seen in weeks and begin bouncing on it while trying to work the television remote control.

“Let’s see in the drawers, if they have clothes for us,” said 6-year-old Tomas Cervantes.

His 9-year-old sister, Veronica, lay down on the bed and pulled out a wobbly tooth.

“The tooth fairy’s not going to come,” taunted Tomas.

The children become hungrier as the night wears on, as they wait for Guzman to return with dinner.

Preciosa Cervantes, 8, climbs from the refrigerator onto a high shelf where the snacks are stored. Her mother tells her to get down. By the time Guzman returns with a bucket of fried chicken, a couple of the kids are already sleeping.

Tomas drowsily bites into piece after piece. He burrows under the covers in the only remaining space at the foot of the bed and falls asleep with a bag of chips in his hand.

His brother Francisco Gona, 15, tries to do his homework, but looks up occasionally at “The Dukes of Hazzard” on TV.

“I’ve taught them all – you finish school,” said Guzman. “I think it’s going to help them grow,” she says. “When they get older and they end up in a situation, they will have skills that a lot of kids don’t have. They’re going to learn unity.”

Nina Watson maneuvered her silver Cadillac into the drive-thru and pulled up to a big plate glass window.

She stopped and rolled down the passenger window so her mother, Flo Watson, could get a better look at the lifeless body of her late co-worker, Robert Sanders, who lay in a casket behind the glass.

Nina stepped out to snap a cell phone photo. Then she settled back in the driver seat, and put her foot to the pedal.

She left the scent of fumes, not flowers, in her wake.

In a culture dominated by cars, there are few things you can’t do on four wheels in Southern California. Add grieving to the list of conveniences more commonly associated with ordering burgers or doing banking.

The Robert L. Adams Mortuary in Compton lays claim to being the state’s only drive-thru funeral parlor.

Adams, who created the business in 1970s, was fittingly displayed in the drive-thru window when he died in 2005.

His wife Peggy Scott Adams, a Grammy-nominated gospel singer, continues to run the mortuary. She sings at funerals, when asked by grieving families.

“Some people don’t like the drive-thru, they think it’s not private enough,” says office manager Denise Knowles-Bragg. But she says others are happy to be offered the service, and welcome not having to look for parking.

“Older people don’t have to get out and come in to the mortuary. People who go to work, don’t have to miss work. It’s good for people don’t want their loved ones to be touched,” she says. “It also helps for dignitaries who have a lot of people coming to see them — the people can just drive through, and keep the procession going.”

The drive-thru became popular in the 1980s when shootouts were a danger at gang funerals. Now it’s only used a few times a year, with most people requesting viewings inside.

On the day I visited, Sanders’ family gathered around the casket inside the funeral home in the traditional way even as people motored up to mourn outside.

Clemetene Sanders, 75, touched her son, then burst into tears and left the room.

“I had to walk out because I know this is the last day I will see him, and I can’t stand that,” she said.

Sanders, like many of the drive-thru occupants, requested this type of viewing before he died at age 58 from kidney failure and other health problems.

“You never know how much people really like you … ‘til you’re gone,” mused Virgie Douglas, 60, as she stood over her younger brother.

I sit in the pink-carpeted reception area, on a Louis XIV-style chair covered in protective plastic, and wait for cars to pull up to the casket.

In the background, others are making arrangements for their own loved ones’ wakes.

A couple drops off a dress for their baby daughter’s viewing. Knowles-Bragg suggests another woman bring a long-sleeved dress to cover possible intravenous marks on her late sister’s arms.

Some kids walk past the exit to the drive-thru and gasp as they catch a glimpse of Sanders’ body under the chandeliers.

Every so often the sound of a car heralds another visitor.

Peter Taylor, 55, gets out of his white SUV and gazes motionless through the glass at his friend of 40 years.

“Man, could he tell stories,” he said. “We used to laugh, dance, tell stories. He was the entertainer.”

With no cars behind him, Taylor reflected alone for a while at the drive-thru. Then he signed the guest book, climbed into his car and took whatever grief he had down the road.

Photographing Super Bowl XLVI

Celtics v Lakers, Borg v McEnroe, India v Pakistan, Ali v Frazier, Red Sox v Yankees.

There are sports matches and there are match-ups that up the ante because of a bitter rivalry.

There’s nothing fiercer than a Boston-New York contest.

For decades, Boston played the underdog while the ghost of Babe Ruth conspired with latter day Big Apple legends like Bucky Dent and Mookie Wilson to leave New England in tears.

After the Patriots won their first Super Bowl in 2001, the Red Sox finally snapped their NY curse. Championships seemed to flow to the region (three Super Bowls, two World Series championships) until heavily favored New England met the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII in 2008.

The spoiler was New York Giants receiver David Tyree, who leapt into the air and snagged the ball with one hand and pinned it against his helmet in a remarkable 32 yard reception from quarterback Eli Manning in the final two minutes to set up a win for the underdog Giants.

On Sunday I’ll be photographing the teams again as they meet for a rematch in Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis.

With apologies to another of those Bronx Bomber legends, it’s déjà vu all over again. Once again the Giants and Manning are the underdogs. Once again they reached the Super Bowl with a game-winning kick from Lawrence Tynes.

It’s always more exciting to shoot sports when the stakes are high, or there is some kind of historical significance.

New England quarterback Tom Brady has movie star looks, and is married to Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen. He has already announced plans for a victory party, and if he leads the team to a win, they will have won four out of five Super Bowls in 11 years.

Reuters photographers Jim Young and Jeff Haynes are already in Indianapolis to capture the immense build-up to the most-watched sporting event on the North American calendar.

The rest of the Reuters team will join them later in the week, hoping for a close-fought game and photos that transcend the hype.

Photo: Gary Hershorn (L-R), Jeff Haynes and me lying in confetti after Super Bowl XLVI (thanks to Doug Mills of NY Times for the photo)

Reuters Global Editor for Sports Pictures Gary Hershorn will be leading the coverage. We’ll once again be using our successful Reuters proprietary software, Paneikon, to transmit our photos around the world within minutes.

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Lilly Earp changes the diaper on her 5-week-old baby sister Emily with the confidence another child would have cradling a doll. She’s only 8, but she already shows the street smarts of an older child as she helps her mother. It helps to be resourceful when you’re homeless.

Her mother, Doreen Earp, 38, who is originally from Germany, and her three children ended up on the street after her relationship with Emily’s father fell apart. They stayed in a hotel for a month, then with people from their church and eventually ended up with no roof over their heads.

Today, they’re lucky to be among the 150 or so other homeless women and children living at Hope Gardens on the outskirts of LA. It’s a place where those at the end of the line are given a life line.

The shelter for families is an oasis compared to where most of LA’s massive street population lives on a grim patch of downtown’s Skid Row. While homeless services are concentrated downtown, it’s no place for a child.

The number of homeless children is at an all time in the United States. One in 45 children, totaling 1.6 million, is currently homeless, according to a 2011 study by the National Center on Family Homelessness. California is ranked the fifth highest state in the nation for its percentage of homeless children. An increasing number of children are dependent on poverty-stricken single moms.

The Earps are amongst 45 mothers, 96 children, and 24 elderly women being helped by Hope Gardens, a homeless shelter for women and children, run by Union Rescue Mission on 77 acres (0.31 square km) of countryside on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

The mothers are given therapy, and classes in life skills, parenting, financial planning, and encouraged to apply for further education, so they can get more than minimum wage jobs. They can stay at the center for up to three years if they’re in college.

All the children attend after-school classes, and the teenagers are taught about domestic violence, job interviews, how to have healthy relationships, and how to communicate better.

Kids grow up fast when they lose the safety and comforts of home.

Earp’s 10-year-old daughter Lindzy overhears a woman telling her mother that she is going to an NA (Narcotics Anonymous) meeting. Lindzy persists in quizzing her mother about what that means. After hearing her explain it as simply a class, the girl retorts: “I know what NA is, I just wanted to see what you would say.”

These moments of maturity are eclipsed by the normal trappings of childhood at the shelter – the games and toys that replace those the children lost with their homes.

Doreen nurses her newborn as her older daughters run and shriek in the playground with other children. Birds chirp in the surrounding pine trees. A stream gurgles into a koi pond.

“They’re able to be kids here,” she says.

The United States became the 23rd of 26 NATO countries to allow military service by openly gay people last week. An estimated 66,000 lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals are serving in the US military, according to a recent study by UCLA’s Williams Institute. Many are still afraid to come out. I visited a gay military family to hear the story they are now able to tell.

A week ago, Luz Bautista, 30, and her fiancée Alejandra Schwartz, 24, both Navy petty officers, were celebrating the end of the U.S. ban on openly gay service members.

This week, they’re being forced to live apart.

Bautista headed to Illinois Monday, away from Schwartz and their daughter Destiny, 6, for a three year posting that could be extended.

“The emotional toll. You can’t even describe it. It has been tearing us apart for the last couple of months,” says Bautista.

While the repeal of the 18-year-old “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy marked a major advancement for gay rights, it doesn’t address many of the practical effects it has for gay troops, and exposes the challenges remaining for the military to accommodate couples.

Bautista, a petty officer 1st Class and Schwartz, petty officer 2nd class, who has served as an Arabic translator in Iraq, are good examples of the inequities that exist for gay service members.

Same-sex couples do not have the same spousal benefits or protection from being stationed separately that heterosexual married couples in the military have.

Coming out to her colleagues — and on national television — last week was one of Bautista’s proudest moments. While it ended an era of having to live in secrecy, it does little to change the situation she’s in with a committed partner who is also committed to a Navy career.

The timing of the change almost seems cruel in light of how difficult her life is getting. In addition to having to leave Schwartz, she’s pregnant with a second child.

“It’s going to be difficult for me,” says Bautista. “I’m going to be by myself for the first time in 12 years. … I’m scared.”

Even if the couple could travel to one of the few US states where gay marriage is legal, the marriage would not be acknowledged by the military or by the state of California. Under the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the term “spouse” only refers to opposite-sex married couples.

“As a result, a service member in a same-sex relationship with another service member is not eligible for co-location consideration,” says Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith. “Gay, lesbian or bisexual service members in a committed same-sex relationship like their unmarried heterosexual counterparts can make individual hardship-based requests for accommodation in assignment.”

Bautista did make a hardship claim, but at the time she couldn’t reveal that she had a partner. Instead, she relied on the other struggles she faced: as a pregnant, single mom, caring for her own disabled mother and having to raise a child and pay a mortgage and bills on a house she owns in San Diego.

It was not hardship enough.

“Unfortunately I got orders right before the repeal happened,” says Bautista. “So I couldn’t say, I’m gay and I have a fiancée, can you guys help me out please? But I think that even if I had said it, it still wouldn’t have mattered because the rules are the rules. This marriage is not real to the Navy.”

Her family tells her she should leave the Navy. But she and both children would lose their health insurance, unable to be considered as Schwartz’s family dependents.

Six-year-old Destiny knows her mother is about to leave, and follows her everywhere. She has an infectious giggle and a wobbly front tooth. She reads in English and Spanish, and speaks a few words of Arabic that Schwartz has taught her.

“What am I going to do if I get out?” says Bautista. “I love the military. I want to keep serving. I want to help out this country. I want to still go on deployments, and I want to go back on a ship.”

If some changes don’t happen in the next three years, she and Schwartz, could even be deployed on a ship at the same time — away from their children.

“Her shore duty ends in 2013, and she goes to a ship,” Bautista said. “Because it’s a rotation – you go from shore to sea. I don’t get transferred till 2014 to a ship, so by that time, both of us are going to be on a ship, and we’re going to have two kids.”

“If we had spouse co-location, and the Navy recognized it legally, that wouldn’t happen. It’s one person on ship, and one person on shore because one person always has to take care of the kids. We’re not getting any of that because we’re not recognized as married.”

Bautista sees the next three years as a difficult test.

She and Schwartz plan to trade three-month stints with their baby. “I think it’s ridiculous to have to do that. But I’m thinking more of the bonding that has to be done. Alejandra’s never had a baby before, so she’s more excited about this baby than I am.”

Bautista, who works as a counselor, has no idea when it may be possible for them to live together as a family again.

“I think I’m doing a very good job in the military, helping out sailors. That’s my job; that’s what I do,” she said. “And I think it’s time that somebody helped me out, because I’ve been helping out everybody. So why can’t the favor be returned?”

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Holocaust survivor Betty Stein, 92, takes off her cardigan. She squares up to the table, bat in hand, deep in concentration. Her eyes dart rhythmically in time with the clack, clack of the ping pong ball.

At the next table, Eli Boyer, 91, sings a love song in Spanish as he plays. The retired accountant speaks four languages, and flits between Russian and English with his coach Elie Zainabudinova. As long as the ping pong ball ricochets back and forth, their absorption is total. Flashes of their former lives creep across their faces – laughter, determination, a mischievous grin.

Only when they sit down do their eyes give it away. The tell-tale existential terror of Alzheimer’s. The confusion. The forgetting of who they are.

Stein and Boyer are among one hundred participants in a ping pong therapy program for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia at the Arthur Gilbert Table Tennis Center in Los Angeles.

Founder Mikhail Zaretsky says the sport does not cure, or even slow down the disease, but helps the 100 participants by raising their heart rate and the blood flow to their brains, and exercising them mentally as well as physically. He says it helps their depression, improves their balance, and makes them more alert.

Alzheimer’s erases memories and robs the brain of its ability to learn. A 1997 Japanese study touted the benefits of table tennis for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.

Betty has been playing ping pong weekly for almost a year now. When she arrived she could barely keep a rally going for three or four strokes; now she’s hitting 20 or 30, says Zaretsky. “After she started playing ping pong, she was telling her caregiver stories that she hadn’t ever told before,” he says. “She told her more details on how she survived the Holocaust – how she had to hide for a few days behind a stove.”

“This was amazing, and some doctors suggested maybe she was depressed, and when she started playing ping pong maybe the depression went away a little bit. We don’t know exactly.”

Zaretsky also takes the program to seven nursing homes in the Los Angeles area. He hopes to use the program as part of a U.S. study on the benefits of table tennis for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.

Boyer’s wife Michele, who has been married to him for 50 years, noticed his dementia starting five years ago. “On the days he plays he’s more alert, he’s happier, he walks faster and his comprehension is a little more in memory for that day. It’s a little surprising, but you can really see it. And it gives him a sense of pride in himself.”

“I’m holding it right, I’m holding it right, that’s what I’m going to do,” chants Boyer repeatedly to the rhythm of the ping pong ball. “You’re gripping the racquet like the Chinese,” reassures his coach. “Chinese players do that.”

She asks him to sing a song in Russian. Boyer breaks into “Besame Mucho,” a Spanish love song. In his clear voice the lyrics continue to roll as he keeps the ball in play to a different beat.

No tight or revealing clothing, no blue jeans, no blue shirts, no orange clothing, no jewelry, no cell phones.

For the first time, I thought of the possible mental condition of the people I was visiting, and how little some of them would have to lose.

I had been in a car crash (not serious) the day before. I wasn’t expecting anything bad to happen to me inside the prison. But imagined that if it did it would be much the same kind of sudden violence coming out of nowhere.

I realized all my trousers that weren’t jeans were dressy. I thought of the absurdity of buying new clothes to visit a prison, and found a pair of (tight) brown corduroys. I dug in my boyfriend’s wardrobe and found an old black t-shirt that was long and baggy on me.

I asked him how I looked. He said brown and black was a bad color combination, but that I looked suitably dressed for the reception area for new prisoners.

I was visiting the California Institution for Men state prison in Chino, with Reuters television cameraman Krystian Orlinski and producer Dave Adhicary.

The U.S. Supreme Court has just ordered California to release more than 30,000 inmates over the next two years or take other steps to ease overcrowding in its prisons to prevent “needless suffering and death.” California’s 33 adult prisons were designed to hold about 80,000 inmates and now have about 145,000.

The U.S. has more than 2 million people in state and local prisons. It has long had the highest incarceration rate in the world.

The prison houses 5,982 inmates on a patch of arid farmland east of Los Angeles. As we stepped out into the parking lot we saw what looked like barracks behind a triple layer electric fence, topped with razor wire.

A crackle of machine gun fire broke the silence. Then another. I looked at Krystian and raised an eyebrow. “Yes those were automatic weapons,” he answered.

We met the press officer, who told us there was a firing range inside the prison, so the officers could stay sharp. He began our tour.

First stop was the sensitive-needs exercise yard. Our guide explained that this was where they kept sex offenders, gang members who owed money, and other inmates who wouldn’t be safe living with other prisoners.

Most were walking slowly around the perimeter fence. Some waited in line to use the parallel bars in the center. One sunbathed on a bench.

I saw a prisoner with red hair and tattoos of Celtic knot patterns and shamrocks. The harsh midday sun beat down on his pale skin. I wondered why he didn’t wear a t-shirt. I thought of how much I relied on sun block, sunglasses and a hat, living in California. I noted that I’d never seen so many people with multiple tattoos in one place.

I shot the inmates walking with a 70-200mm. I manually focused to compensate for the many layers of mesh fence. Some made gang signs, some smiled, some glared, some shouted out questions about who I was working for.

A rhythmic shouting cadence came from a building next to the exercise yard.

Our guide explained that gang members in jail viewed themselves as soldiers. They trained to be ready to fight at any time – with prison officers, other prisoners, upon their eventual release.

Even when they weren’t allowed out to exercise, they would work out together in their cells. One guy would shout through his cell bars, out to the echoing hallways, to set the pace as the other inmates would do pushups in their tiny cells.

The prison officers all looked as if they were onto that game, and had built their upper body strength to match the prisoners pound for pound.

Prisoners sitting in small cages were our first sight as we walked inside. They are kept in the cages while waiting for medical or counseling appointments, or for permanent housing. A couple of women walked down the corridor, wearing bulletproof vests.

First we visited a two-person cell, where prisoners are typically housed.

Anthony Turner, 46, showed us around the tiny living quarters he shares with Daniel King, 25. When they both lie down in their bunk beds there is barely an inch of vertical space between them. A toilet and small basin are next to the beds. The only possessions in the cell were a few basic toiletries, some greetings cards, a photo of a pregnant woman, and a poignant handmade card from a child.

“We miss you. xoxoxxoo. p.s. come visit soon!” it said, next to a drawing of a king.

Turner said he was given a 25 years to life sentence under the three strikes law. He is unlikely to be visiting anyone soon.

We visit a recreation room, and then a huge gymnasium, which are being used to house prisoners, due to the overcrowding.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the gym, I imagined walking in here as a new prisoner and taking in the 202 people I would be spending years in this room with. They were a scary-looking bunch.

A heavy-set guy with tattoos all over his body and neck started shouting that he didn’t want to be on camera.

We walked up the stairs onto the platform where a female prison officer was sitting. I wondered how she could deal with working every day in this room full of aggressive men.

Another guard had the whole room in his gun sight through a window in the top left corner of the room.

One of the prison officers accompanying us said he had been spat at, bitten, and stabbed during the time he had worked there. Another remarked that the sleeping quarters in the gym were not much different from the ones he had experienced in the U.S. Navy.

There are no rehabilitation programs inside the prison, and inmates have nothing constructive to do all day except for the brief periods when they can go outside to work out.

Some were sleeping, some reading, some playing cards or dice, one group was playing a dungeons and dragons game, one guy was sketching tattoo designs, another crowd was watching music videos on a small television. Most were wandering around or chatting.

I photographed inmates on the right side of the room, while checking out the belligerent prisoner with my left eye. He was staring at me.

Krystian and Dave started filming a group of prisoners, and very quickly the guy who didn’t want to be filmed, was in front and center of the camera.

I walked down and started photographing them with a wide angle lens. A lot of them were staring into the camera and all trying to simultaneously start conversations with me.

I decided I wanted to walk among the beds to take more natural looking photos. I asked a guard to follow me to watch my back, and he stood right behind me every time I stopped walking, aware of the remote possibility that I could be grabbed as a hostage. We moved fast, and before long were called back by the press officer.

On the drive home, I asked about the prison tattoos and Krystian talked about how prisoners who didn’t join gangs for protection were vulnerable to being raped in the bathroom at the back of the gym.

I recalled the inmates’ faces I’d seen with their varying degrees of resignation or defiance.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I had to go into a place like that,” said Krystian. “No-one ever really knows until they’re in that situation.”

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