I found this posting today on www.2000andyou.com in the forum. Could it be true? Can anyone confirm? ********************************* "I absolutely could not believe what I heard on the local news last night here in Columbia SC. The news was warning citizens to stay away from 5 points in downtown Columbia SC. 5 points is our cities "restuarant row". It's also all where most of the bars are located cause it's right near the University of SC (USC). In otherwords, it's pretty much the center of nightlife here in Columbia, but NOT last night! The local news at 7:00PM last night issued a warning to citizens to stay away from the area as it was being used by the Marines for Urban warfare exercises!

The late night news last night showed 5 points abandoned except for Marines vehicles and troops.

Wonder what the hell the college kids thought at the university when they they were turned way by armed troops trying to go get a beer after class last night at one of the local hangouts!

More choppers today coming into town today. Latest reports are we now have at least several hundred Marines camped out IN the city.

Local news reported early this week that the exercises had been "extended" from the original 1 week to a month or more. Now we hear they are here until "futher notice". WTF?

Then today, I'm out taking my wife and our new son to the doctor and 6 choppers fly over our truck. I'm not a military person, but it looked like 2 dark green black hawks, some other smaller dark chopper, some kind of big "air crane" type chopper, a big white chopper (bigger than a black hawk) and a smaller white chopper just like the smaller dark chopper but white.

A guy I work with who's wife works for the city of Columbia, told me today, that his wife came home last night and said that one of the Marine officers had gotten into a heated arguement with our Mayor down at city hall about "carrying live ammo".

What the hell is going on? Everyone as work today was talking about this, alot of kinda wary jokes about we are being "invaded".

Talked to a guy in a chatroom from Myrtle Beach SC a while ago. He couldn't believe it. Said he had heard nothing about it.

The only report I can find about them even being here on the net is on the Reuters/AP link off of the Drudge report. Enter Marines in the search box, and then look on the 2nd page of "hits". You will see a 5 line story about hundreds of Marines conducting exercises in Columbia SC.

Very little in our local news about what is going on except for occasional warning to stay out of this or that area.

Is this normal? Who has white helecopters? I assumed they were like medical helecopters or something but someone on a chat site said they are UN. They were not light blue or light grey but pure white. Never seen any like that around here before."

John_Galt SC - 11/11/1999 at 7:30 pm est

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), November 11, 1999

Answers

I was stationed in Sumpter, S.C. and while I know nothion about this story I can ask what are they doing in Columbia. There is nothing there.Might be a place to practice for bigger cities?

-- Mr. Pinochle (pinochledd@aol.com), November 12, 1999.

Two days ago the local NJ news station carried a story about an extensive exercise called "Phoenix Readiness" held at Fort Dix. They said it was one of the largest excercises of it's kind and that it was to help prepare troops for urban military actions in places like Bosnia.

Amazingly the news touted the amount of firepower that was being 'shown off'. After the obiligatory interview with a guy in uniform, the newslady proceeded to rattle off the names of half a dozen different types of rifles, cannons, etc. that were demonstrated. Pretty unusual for a local newscast if you ask me.

Hmmm...Phoenix Readiness....I wonder what they could mean by that...

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), November 12, 1999.

The Urban Warriors invade another unsuspecting American City ...

-- oh it's just a coincidence (BTW@they're.staying.now), November 12, 1999.

i would bet you feel like the people of Boston back during the Revolution, when the British Army moved in,"To protect you" keep the reports comming, you are not alone,there are others who see this , short wave been hopping with reports from all over , Get more info , unit numbers numbers of troops , types of aircraft , tanks and personel carrers , need photos!!! get lots of photos, and take notes !!

MONGO remember to post your info others need to know!!!

-- mongo (mongo2@prodigy.net), November 12, 1999.

http://vh80020.vh8.infi.net/metro/docs/marines12.htm

-- (dontpanic@y2k.com), November 12, 1999.

http://www.thestate.com/metro/docs/marines12.htm

-- Checkthe (fullstory@thissite.com), November 12, 1999.