Boise to be test target for Marine snoops
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=30032002-024315-8298r
From the National Desk
Published 3/30/2002 3:33 PM
BOISE, Idaho, March 30 (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."
