It is funny I should receive this today. I was just reading a post someone dug out of the archives on CS. It was called "freedom comes with a price". A lot of us contributed. The funny thing is I was reading along and came across my own post and was reading and saying, "Hey, this is what I would write". Then of course I saw it was me who had written it. Anyway the post was about the advantages/disadvantages of a standing Military.

Marines to Practice Urban War in Real City Sat Feb 16, 8:11 AM ET

By Steve Barnes

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - U.S. Marines will hunt mock combatants in a real city next week in a first-of-its-kind urban warfare exercise aimed at improving tactics in the U.S. war on terrorism and other dangerous overseas missions.

While there will be no shooting, about 300 Marines will practice reconnaissance and house and vehicle searches in downtown North Little Rock, nearby neighborhoods, on key bridges and at a nuclear power plant from Sunday through Thursday, officials said.

"We're training to keep Marines alive while causing fewer civilian casualties," said Jenny Holbert, a Marine Corps public affairs officer based at Quantico, Virginia.

The unusual maneuver in a real city, instead of in a mock town set up on a military base, is an experiment by the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory.

"It's the first time we've done such training in real neighborhoods, with the tempo of a city -- people walking dogs, going about their lives," Holbert said.

More than 90 percent of Marine operations in recent years have been in "very dangerous, complex" urban environments, Holbert said. Eighteen U.S. soldiers were killed in Mogadishu, Somalia, during the U.S. sojourn there in 1993.

"You can take 30 percent casualties a day in urban situations, so you can see where you wouldn't have any operating force left after long," Holbert said.

The experiment was planned before the September 11 hijack attacks on the United States, but was given added urgency by President George W Bush's declared war on terrorism.

"The war on terrorism is a global threat, and we're training for that," Holbert said.

Using civilian volunteers and their homes and vehicles, the Marines will drill in search techniques for weapons and explosives, as well as civil operations and interrogation techniques.

They will practice reconnaissance against enemy positions in the middle of the city of 65,000, across the Arkansas River from Little Rock.

Marine reserves from North Little Rock will use their home advantage to play the enemy, while most of the troops will come from bases in Quantico, Virginia, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and San Antonio, Texas.

Local police will accompany the troops as they move about, and city workers and officials will join in the role playing, including Mayor Pat Hays.

"He wants to play a warlord," Holbert said.

Little Bit Farm

-- Little bit Farm (littlebit@farm.com), February 21, 2002

Answers

Local police will accompany the troops as they move about, and city workers and officials will join in the role playing, including Mayor Pat Hays.

"He wants to play a warlord," Holbert said. ***********************************

Well LBF, If they want to make the exercise as real as possible, they should capture the mayor, cuff him, put him in an orange jump suit and dump him off at Guantanamo, Cuba.

Bet he won't want to play war lord again :)

(:raig

-- Craig Miller (CMiller@ssd.com), February 22, 2002.