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Makes Very Little Sense:Why are Army Tanks Rolling Down Residential Roads for Training in St. Louis?
The Blaze ^ | June 25, 2012 | Liz Klimas

Posted on 06/25/2012 2:37:32 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY

Late last week and through the weekend, citizens of St. Louis, Mo., were told not to be alarmed should they see military tanks roll by their home. Even with this warning, though, some wondered why the U.S. Army was taking the vehicles off the base and to the streets in the first place.

According to KSDK-TV, Army specialists from Fort Meade came into town for a training exercise for members of the 354 NP company. As the reporter states, this “drivers’ ed.” for tanks will take place on city streets and the highway.

Watch the KSDK report:

As noted in the video, the military is warning onlookers to steer clear of the tanks should they be seen on the road. Still, this caused Brandon Smith from Alt-Market in a guest post for Zero Hedge to wonder why the military is really conducting this training in public at all, saying it “makes very little sense to me.” He poses these questions:

U.S. Army troops all the way from Maryland running open exercises in armored personnel carriers on the busy streets of St. Louis? I know Maryland is a small state, but is there really not enough room at Ft. Detrick to accommodate a tank column and some troops? Are there not entire fake neighborhood and town complexes built with taxpayer dollars on military bases across the country meant to facilitate a realistic urban environment for troops to train in? And why travel hundreds of miles to Missouri?

(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...


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To: ncfool

It’s far worse in STL because the shootings tend to be congregated in a relatively small part of North St. Louis. In Chicago, the shooting is far more wide-spread. Most of St. Louis is totally fine.


41 posted on 06/25/2012 4:41:44 PM PDT by TrueFact
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To: Sarajevo

“When I was in the Army Reserves in the 80’s, we would roadmarch our wheeled vehicles to Ft Campbell of Ft Knox for our annual summer training. It was no biggie back then.”

Then came Waco.


42 posted on 06/25/2012 4:51:06 PM PDT by Psalm 144 ("I'm not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am who I am." - Willard M Romney)
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To: humblegunner

I’m not a great fan of Beck, but he is selling a product and a lot of people are interested in buying that product. Why do you care how others spend their own $$$?


43 posted on 06/25/2012 5:06:14 PM PDT by Pigsley
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To: kaboom
The news report said that MP's were coming from Ft Meade to train the 354th MP company (St Louis based)...

Now that would make sense.
So the question is merely where in the St Louis area they did the training...in a smaller community, with locals fully aware and even participating, it could be a real good thing.

44 posted on 06/25/2012 5:19:59 PM PDT by norton
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To: ncfool

Sorry, but no way is St. Louis worse than Chicago. No way. The reason it looks that way in the lying statistics is that “St. Louis” is the inner city, with a population of about 300,000. The entire metropolitan St. Louis area is close to 3 million. The population of the independent city of St. Louis is about half black and half white. When you hear things like St. Louis is the most dangerous city in the USA, that’s because, unlike most cities, it doesn’t absorb its more peaceful and safer suburbs, which helps other cities to dilute their stats. It would be like using the Boston “combat zone” to represent the entire city of Boston. Most of the crime is in the northern half of the city of St. Louis. There are some cities/suburbs within the St. Louis metro area that have far worse crime rates.

Most readers won’t know that the wealthy cities of Clayton and Ladue are NOT “St. Louis” (They have crime, but mostly of the non-violent type). They’re in another county altogether, confusingly called “St. Louis County.”

The city of St. Louis is NOT within St. Louis County. In any case, what I saw on the news is that these tanks or military vehicles are going to be driven on the highways around north St. Louis. There’s been zero in the newspaper about it. I read on a blog that the National Guard post in St. Louis is only now getting these vehicles and the guys from MD are coming in to train the guys in MO how to drive them.


45 posted on 06/25/2012 5:41:54 PM PDT by bacall
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To: moovova; All

46 posted on 06/25/2012 6:42:18 PM PDT by gura (If Allah is so great, why does he need fat sexually confused fanboys to do his dirty work? -iowahawk)
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To: freedumb2003

The army has no business ‘training’ in American cities... or on city streets. It’s wrong in so many ways.


47 posted on 06/25/2012 6:57:12 PM PDT by GOPJ (The 'doting court eunuchs' of the MSM fail to notice...)
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To: Georgia Girl 2

“The cops are being told that in Oct some horrendous thing is going to happen and they will be fighting the militias etc. and protecting the upper class neighborhoods. Its pretty bizarre.”

Food stamp and welfare assistance checks cease. Walmart better have contingency plans for a sudden decrease in revenue.


48 posted on 06/25/2012 6:57:12 PM PDT by Rebelbase (The most transparent administration ever is clear as mud.)
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To: ameribbean expat
be kind of interesting to see what kind of rules of engagement they’ve got for the homeland, versus the restrictive crap in afghan t.o., etc.

My bet: much less restrictive. See the NDAA.

49 posted on 06/25/2012 8:07:32 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: Georgia Girl 2
The cops are being told that in Oct some horrendous thing is going to happen and they will be fighting the militias etc. and protecting the upper class neighborhoods. Its pretty bizarre.

Interesting.
I wonder if it's in October that the USSC will issue out a ruling holding ObamaCare to be a-ok. That would stir civil discontent.
(Though that's supposed to be ruled-on and released this week.)

Another fun one would be Fast And Furious; if it got out into the general public, with the full understanding of a) just how many government organizations had to be involved, and b) that it is nothing less than state sponsored terrorism. That too could have an effect.

More likely than either of those, I think, is the unveiling of "Surrender your Sovereignty" treaties, or perhaps the seizing of people's 401Ks.

Do you have anything in specific that these police/firemen were told/saying?

50 posted on 06/25/2012 8:14:51 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: Average Al
Send them to Detroit to clear some old houses while they are at it. ;-)

Been there, done that:

A tank and a civilian car pass by the entrance to the Keifer Command Post on Detroit's West Side. Note: The street at center is Blaine.

Date: 1967-07-26
Photographer: Webb - Detroit News Staff

51 posted on 06/25/2012 9:13:56 PM PDT by archy (I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous!)
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To: DoughtyOne

Just sitting here thinking, my guess is that patriotic young soldiers will be sincerely conflicted: their call to duty against their instinct to protect American citizens.


52 posted on 06/25/2012 10:51:33 PM PDT by ArmyTeach (Our liberties, we prize and our rights we will maintain ... USS Iowa 61)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

BFL


53 posted on 06/25/2012 11:01:00 PM PDT by llandres (Forget the "New America" - restore the original one!!!)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
If the exercise is being done in East St. Louis I'll give a thumbs-up on it.
54 posted on 06/26/2012 3:09:34 AM PDT by Tainan (Cogito, ergo conservatus sum)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

It just getting you ready for a dictatorship right in front of your nose.


55 posted on 06/26/2012 3:18:24 AM PDT by bmwcyle (Romney - not Obama - not a Conservative - not a real Christian)
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To: kaboom
Being from the St. Louis MO and IL metro area, I'd be more inclined to bake cookies for the guys and watch the show than worry about this. There was an army reserve center over on Goodfellow on the north side and those folks pretty much turned out the lights every day at 4:30 after spending some long lunches at a local lunch joint that had good BBQ, parachutes on the ceiling, and woodland camouflage cloth napkins. They did a lot of stuff in conjunction with armor. Across the river from there was a training depot kept alive by one aging congresscritter which was used for helicoptor training and it was no big deal to see streams of military choppers going in and out, hovering, carrying really big payloads with those double rotored choppers, doing whatever, around the area.

They used to MAKE tanks right there on the east side of the river, maybe still do something relating to armor there.

Scott FB across the river and to the South flew Military medical planes in and out that sometimes flew low enough to waggle their wings over their pilot's neighborhoods.The MO national guard flew F-4s out of Lambert field and we'd all pull over to watch it, and the added benefit of old McDonnell Douglas - before it became "McBoeing" and their test flights. We were seeing Harriers long before the rest of the country had even seen such a thing take off vertically.

There was an ammunition plant around there, and scrapyards where you could get some awesome huge brass artillery shells before they got shipped up to a town a wee bit north of St. Louis for recycling.

Truck convoys from FT Leonard wood and Scott were not a big deal. Seeing light armor, artillery and heavy tanks - real ones, real ones like M1s or the older ones on railroad cars- not a big deal.

Seeing people in uniform all over, not a big deal. When you're one of those who raised the sons and daughters manning those vehicles and flying those choppers and planes it isn't alarming, or fearsome, or intimidating but rather, enjoyable to see our kids and our "products" moving around.

St. Louisans on both sides of the river were well acquainted with military activity of all kinds and probably still are, which is why it makes such a good area to operate in. There are so many ex mil or mil families or friends of mil families in that area and numbers of people who work in defense that I doubt anyone would get their panties in a bunch over it.

56 posted on 06/26/2012 4:04:37 AM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: freedumb2003
the 354 NP company

What's a "NP." maybe they mean MP? MPs don't have tanks.

57 posted on 06/26/2012 8:48:40 AM PDT by Gamecock (I worked out with a dumbbell yesterday and I feel vigorous!)
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To: ArmyTeach

It all depends on what their initial swearing in oath is morphed to. It also depends on whether they are transitioned to think of a global vs U. S. centric view.

You can make any group look rogue. It just depends on your vantage point.

Are U. S. Citizens who cherish their Founders and Founding documents a threat? I submit there is an effort to create an atmosphere where they are seen that way.

When that is accomplished, all bets are off.

Pushing Arizona like he did, Obama seems focused on making that happen sooner rather than later.

What took place yesterday, is grounds for insurrection. It’s a frontal assault on a group of citizens of the United States, and it’s not going unnoticed by other states.

Our future is uncertain. Our troops may become the enemy of loyalist citizens. That’s a real shame, but I think it may come to pass.


58 posted on 06/26/2012 9:07:16 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (Remove all Democrats from the Republican party, and we won't have much Left, just a lot of Right.)
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To: Gamecock
MPs don't didn't have tanks.

Cynically fixed. ;)

59 posted on 06/26/2012 9:11:07 AM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: OneWingedShark
Maybe it's because they know the truth is coming out about who Obama really is, and they are preparing for the backlash of that...?
60 posted on 06/26/2012 10:00:57 AM PDT by Lucky9teen (Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.~Thomas Jeffer)
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