- BOISE, Idaho (UPI) - In a
bid for a more realistic training experience, Marine Corps reconnaissance
teams will attempt to evade nosey neighbors and noisy dogs as they prowl
the streets of Boise in a mock infiltration exercise this spring.
-
- The city and the Marines announced Friday that about
two-dozen leathernecks would attempt to infiltrate Boise during practice
intelligence-gathering missions sometime between May 6 and 10.
-
- Although the Marines routinely practice their craft in
mock urban settings on military bases, some skills can only be honed in
a genuine city.
-
- "What happens in these urban training facilities
is we don't have dogs; we don't have garbage trucks driving down the street
and we don't have the rhythms that you would see in your day-to-day
life,"
Maj. Chandler Hirsch told a news conference.
-
- The scenario of the exercise conducted by the Marine
Corps Warfighting Laboratory calls for 24 reconnaissance-team members to
fly to a National Guard training facility outside Boise in late April.
The Marines will then attempt to slip into the city, spy on specific
targets
and then get out of town unnoticed; other Marines will act as enemy
sentries
guarding the target buildings.
-
- Hirsch said the Marines would be wearing military-style
clothing and would not be carrying loaded weapons. They will also not go
on to private property. The goal is for the Marines to carry out their
missions without being noticed by Boise's 186,000 citizens.
-
- A Marine will be assigned to the Ada County 911 center
to monitor any calls from suspicious residents, and a Boise police officer
will serve as an escort for each team in the event a civilian who didn't
get the word attempts to intervene.
-
- Such exercises by the military are not unusual. A similar
larger-scale exercise last month in North Little Rock, Arkansas frightened
some residents who came upon armed troops skulking around their
neighborhoods.
-
- An Army Special Forces soldier was shot to death and
another was wounded Feb. 23 during such a surreptitious exercise when they
jumped a Bragg County, North Carolina deputy sheriff whom they thought
was a role-playing actor in an exercise.
-
- Despite the chance of running into a citizen with a
shotgun
or a snarling 100-pound Rottweiler, urban exercises are seen as an
important
training tool, particularly as the U.S. military finds itself increasingly
involved in chasing guerilla forces such as al Qaida.
-
- "We are looking at the urban environment because
we know no military can beat the U.S. military in an open battle
space,"
said Jenny Holbert, spokeswoman for the Marine Corps Warfighting
Laboratory.
"We proved that in Desert Storm, but now there is an increased
likelihood
our enemies will fight us in foreign cities. Cities are complex, difficult
environments where our techniques may not be as effective."
-
- Reported by Hil Anderson, Los Angeles
|
