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Post Info TOPIC: Urban Military Training for What?
lundbaek


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Urban Military Training for What?
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Guardsmen to conduct urban training at Arcadia in April
By BUTCH HEMAN
Staff Writer

http://www.carrollspaper.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=7451&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=&S=1


The Carroll National Guard unit will train on urban military operations by holding a four-day exercise at Arcadia.

The purpose of the April 2-5 drill will be to gather intelligence, then search for and apprehend a suspected weapons dealer, according to Sgt. Mike Kots, readiness NCO for Alpha Company.

Citizens, law enforcement, media and other supporters will participate.

Troops will spend Thursday, April 2, staging at a forward operations base at Carroll. The next day company leaders will conduct reconnaissance and begin patrolling the streets of Arcadia to identify possible locations of the weapons dealer.

The primary phase will be done Saturday, April 4, when convoys will be deployed from Carroll to Arcadia. Pictures of the arms dealer will be shown in Arcadia, and soldiers will go door to door asking if residents have seen the suspect.

Soldiers will knock only at households that have agreed to participate in the drill, Kots noted.

"Once credible intelligence has been gathered," said Kots, "portions of the town will be road-blocked and more in-depth searches of homes and vehicles will be conducted in accordance with the residents' wishes.

"One of the techniques we use in today's political environment is cordon and knock," Kots explained. "We ask for the head of the household, get permission to search, then have them open doors and cupboards. The homeowner maintains control. We peer over their shoulder, and the soldier uses the homeowner's body language and position to protect him."

During this phase of the operation, troops will interact with residents and media while implementing crowd-control measures and possibly treating and evacuating injured persons.

The unit will use a Blackhawk helicopter for overhead command and control, and to simulate medevacs.

The drill will culminate in the apprehension of the suspected arms dealer.

Alpha Company will conduct a review of the drill on Sunday, April 5.

A meeting to give residents more information and accept volunteers will be held 7 p.m. Monday, March 2, in the Arcadia American Legion hall.

Kots said the exercise will replace Alpha Company's weekend drill for April.

"We have a lot of extended drills this coming year," he added.

In addition to surveillance, searching and apprehension, the exercise will also give the troops valuable experience in stability, support, patrol, traffic control, vehicle searches and other skills needed for deployment in an urban environment.

"This exercise will improve the real-life operational skills of the unit," said Kots. "And it will hopefully improve the public's understanding of military operations."

The pre-drill work with residents is as important at the drill itself.

"It will be important for us to gain the trust and confidence of the residents of Arcadia," said Kots. "We will need to identify individuals that are willing to assist us in training by allowing us to search their homes and vehicles and to participate in role-playing."

"We really want to get as much information out there as possible, because this operation could be pretty intrusive to the people of Arcadia."

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arbilad


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Yup,this is disquieting. That's not the sort of place I want to live, so let's all hope we can get some righteous people elected. And do our part to make this a more righteous country. Unless we, as a country, repent, we're headed for some troublesome times.

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Fregramis


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Too late my friend.  Decades too late.

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mirkwood


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It shouldn't bother you. Really. The military needs to practice urban combat related skills. This is common around Ft. Benning and only willing participants (civilianwise) are being contacted. I've done training in public too. We had a number of Junior High age kids that stopped to watch me get into a big simunition shootout during a simulated traffic stop. I've done rapid response training in a hospital. Our SWAT does stuff like this semi-regularly too. Our Olympic riot training was done in public etc. While not common, it is probably more common than you realize.


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lundbaek


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I'm not concerned with their practicing urban and city combat techniques.  I am bothered by what it is specifically they are training to do.  It looks to me like they are practicing to raid specific homes in which criminal activity is suspected.  That is not the responsibility of the military.  It is the responsibility of local LEOs: police and sheriff's departments.

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arbilad


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Lundbaek hit it on the head - it's not that it's in public. It's what they're training to do. And you could argue that they're not training to do it in the US (although I wouldn't buy that argument), but the argument is irrelevant anyway. Troops are demonstrably bad at being police officers in foreign lands. Soldiers are bad cops. Cops are bad soldiers. I know that there are a lot of former soldiers who become cops, and I'm sure that many of them are good cops. It's not the person I'm worried about - it's the focus of the organization. The military is focused on killing and destroying. We have a real need sometimes for people who are good at that. Police forces concern themselves with locating and arresting criminals. That's what they're good at. The two functions don't really mix well.
And it's too easy to use military to enforce a totalitarian state.

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