Posted on 02/19/2009 6:19:27 AM PST by iowamark
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."
"The primary phase will be done Saturday, April 4, when convoys will be deployed from Carroll to Arcadia. Pictures of a suspected arms dealer will be shown in Arcadia, and soldiers will go door to door asking if residents have seen the suspect. ... The drill will culminate in the apprehension of the suspected arms dealer."
WTF?
Just the beginning folks.
It looks like the future is going to hold a lot of “spontaneous patriot syndrome”.
“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.”
Uh Huh.
They need practice in recruiting informers.
Good grief. Let’s put this in perspective. SE Afghanistan is absolutely crawling with backyard arms makers. More and more, our troops are finding themselves in urban environments around the world fighting the “Three Block War.”
Everything described in that article is stuff that our troops have had to deal with in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And what happens to the list of people who refuse to participate in this little exercise? Who don’t want a bunch of strangers pawing through their personal effects and taking video of their homes?
Passed on to local LEOs for further scrutiny? I’d be willing to bet on it.
“WTF?”
Just getting ready for the coming weapons ban/confiscation. Anyone still think it isn’t going to happen?
bump
I also recall learning something about “The Law of Effect,” too.
I also recall learning that it is unethical to use human subjects in any test, trial, or experiment without their knowledge and “informed consent,” and then only after they have volunteered to participate, with the understanding by all parties concerned that said “subjects: may at their discretion and without explanation leave the test, trial, or experiment at any time.
There was something else about this thing called the “Scientific Method,” too.
“Gosh, Wally, when I read the article, and then I think about all this, it sounds just like someone is setting up some sort of psychology experiment or something. You know, like in that book they have in the library. It's like maybe if somebody put plywood over the windows in Dad's office at work, and Dad would be real mad about that at first, but if they just leave it there long enough, pretty soon he'll just get used to it being like that, and gee, he'll even forget what it was like before they covered up his windows and then after a while he stops complaining about it, and after a longer while he doesn't even care. Hey! It's like he gets so used to it being like that that he doesn't even seem to notice.”
“Knock it off, will ya, Beave? Gee, everyone knows that that psychology stuff is just some kind of crazy science. Besides, ‘In science, if it only happens once, it never happened.’ I mean, take a chill pill, will ya? It isn't like this has happened before or is happening anywhere else . . . is it? Beave?”
(Mmmm-hmmmm. . . .)
Now that's not saying that the skills couldn't be used domestically. Our Founding Fathers had a healthy fear of standing armies.
are the residents allowed to role play resistance?
that could be a very interesting training excercise- give a dozen or so residents paintball guns and let them shoot back, and see how long the military lasts.
They aren’t even hiding it. Well, the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.
I’m trying to see your point. I’ve been a Guardsman and appreciate the need for realisitic MOUT traininig. Maybe I’ve grown more cynical but the described template makes me suspicious. Why an “arms dealer,” and not, say, a terrorist secreting a nuclear device? Trying hard to be P.C. is my guess.
I’ll keep an open mind but will also be watching closely.
I absolutely agree. Add to that the fact that we have muslim terrorist cells all over the place on our own soil!
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