[119273] in Cypherpunks
IP: Eyewitness: Urban training ground for Marines
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Wed Oct 20 18:29:34 1999
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Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 16:13:03 -0400
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
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From: believer@telepath.com
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 12:07:42 -0500
To: believer@telepath.com
Subject: IP: Eyewitness: Urban training ground for Marines
Source: Arizona Republic
http://www.azcentral.com/news/1019marines.shtml
Valley is urban training ground for Marines
Training in how to get from a hovering copter to the ground via a rope is
one of the objects of 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit maneuvers going on in
the Valley this week. The exercises are meant to prepare the troops for
work in urban areas.
By Heather Romero
and Mary Jo Pitzl
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 19, 1999
Darkness cloaked the camouflaged men as they slid down ropes tethered to
hovering helicopters and hit the ground in southeast Mesa around dinnertime
Monday night.
One by one, the Marines jumped out of the aircraft and landed on a target
25 feet below on a Williams Gateway Airport runway.
It was a scene that will be repeated several times this week in different
Valley locations as part of the training to prepare them for the rigors of
working in urban areas, rather than the open stretches of beach or dense
strands of deserted forests often associated with Marine operations.
"We've come to recognize that more and more of our missions take us to
urban areas," said Col. Richard C. Zilmer, commanding officer of the 15th
Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Recent forays into Pristina, Kosovo, and Mogadishu, Somalia, are examples
of why these days Marines are trained for urban battlefields, he said.
Marines also helped out with relief efforts in earthquake-riddled Turkey.
Similar exercises have been performed in downtown Los Angeles, San Diego,
and Oxnard, Calif., he said.
Zilmer and Marine unit spokesman 1st Lt. David T. Romley coordinated
Monday's training exercise with local and federal officials -- agencies
ranging from the Federal Aviation Administration to local fire departments.
Just after 7:30 p.m., 43 Marines practiced an "insert technique" in which
two helicopters hovered over a target while Marines descended on ropes -- a
maneuver called "fast roping."
For most, it was their first urban training exercise in Phoenix, where the
flat, open terrain offers possibilities impossible to replicate at their
Camp Pendleton base.
But it wasn't their first time sliding down a rope from a hovering aircraft.
"It's all about being comfortable (with the technique)," Sgt. Fred Keeney
said.
They will be doing several more exercises in the Valley before they leave
Thursday, but the locations are kept secret because they don't want to
attract onlookers.
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Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
