http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090224/NEWS10/902240390/1001/NEWS Iowa Guard ends urban war exercise amid outcry By WILLIAM PETROSKI • bpetroski@dmreg.com • February 24, 2009 The Iowa Army National Guard has dropped plans for urban warfare training in the western Iowa town of Arcadia after being deluged by nearly 100 e-mails and phone calls from gun-rights advocates nationwide. The four-day event in April would have involved between 90 and 100 combat troops arriving in the Carroll County community in a convoy with a Blackhawk military helicopter flying overhead.<script language="JavaScript"></script><script language="JavaScript1.1">11); document.write('<scr'+'ipt LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1" SRC="http://network.realmedia.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/trpgannettnewspaper/ros/300x250/1834enthnglifmenpfnsptwmn/ss/a/1'+OAS_rns+'@x15"></scr'+'ipt>'); </script><script language="JavaScript1.1" src="http://network.realmedia.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/trpgannettnewspaper/ros/300x250/1834enthnglifmenpfnsptwmn/ss/a/1152290332@x15"></script><script type="text/javascript"> <!-- mm_client = "87268797280"; mm_channel = "trpgannettnewspaper/ros/300x250/1834enthnglifmenpfnsptwmn/ss/a"; //--> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://syndication.mmismm.com/mmtnt.php"> </script><script type="text/javascript">var D=new Date();var Z=D.getTimezoneOffset();var R="";if(typeof document.referrer!=="undefined"){R="&ref="+encodeURIComponent(document.referrer);}</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://syndication.nj.mmismm.com/two.php?origin=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.desmoinesregister.com%2Farticle%2F20090224%2FNEWS10%2F902240390%2F1001%2FNEWS&mm_pub=87268797280&mm_channel=trpgannettnewspaper/ros/300x250/1834enthnglifmenpfnsptwmn/ss/a&tzos=-60&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fsean-kennedy.livejournal.com%2F"></script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://tcla.mmismm.com/mmmss.php?mm_pub=87268797280&mm_pub_channel=trpgannettnewspaper/ros/300x250/1834enthnglifmenpfnsptwmn/ss/a&mm_flag="></script><iframe marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://network.realmedia.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_sx.ads/TRACK_Mindsetmedia/Retarget_Secure/681502574@Bottom3?_RM_HTML_MM_=000000000000000000000" scrolling="no" width="0" frameborder="0" height="0"></iframe><iframe marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://ai.realmedia.com/" scrolling="no" width="0" frameborder="0" height="0"></iframe> Troops would have gone door to door, asking the town's 443 residents about a suspected arms dealer and conducting searches of homes if property owners volunteered in advance to cooperate. There was no opposition to the Guard's plans from city leaders. But gun-rights advocates were outraged, and news about the exercise became a hot topic nationally on radio talk shows and the Internet. Arcadia Mayor Oran Kohorst said Monday he was disappointed the exercise had been canceled. He said he had not heard of a single objection from residents, and he said the City Council supported it. At least two guardsmen live in Arcadia, and many residents either have served in the military or have family members who have served in the armed forces, he said. "This was completely blown out of proportion," Kohorst said. "They were going to come through and meet with the townspeople and just practice going in and out of their homes. They were never, ever going to confiscate guns or anything like that." Talk show host Alex Jones of Austin, Texas, whose syndicated radio program is carried on about 60 stations, said he had received phone calls on and off the air from people in Arcadia and nearby towns who objected to the plans. He said he believes oil companies, in concert with central banks, are creating a worldwide economic crisis to set up a world government. "This is part of an acclimation for martial law," Jones said of the National Guard's plans. Lt. Col. Gregory Hapgood Jr., the Iowa Guard's public affairs officer, said Monday that some urban warfare training will still be conducted, but it will be held at the armory in Carroll instead of in Arcadia. Rather than holding a large company-sized exercise, the training will be in small groups at the platoon and squad level. He said Guard officials changed their plans not because of the protests, but because the unit — Company A, 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry — has recently installed new leadership at the company and battalion level. Smaller unit training would be more beneficial, he said. Company A is an infantry unit that served in Afghanistan for 13 months in 2004 and 2005, and it is expected to receive orders to return overseas within the next 24 months, Hapgood said. One tactic used by infantry units is known as cordon and search. It involves creating layers of security in an area and then searching for weapons caches, explosive devices and bomb-making materials, and people of interest. Hapgood said he considered the surge of e-mails and phone calls as a protest from outside of Iowa. "We have been doing training in our communities for decades, so this is very routine business for us," Hapgood said. "We were quite surprised when we received e-mails from out of state criticizing the event. We have a responsibility to have our men and women ready to go into combat, and we are not going to change that." Many of the e-mails were hostile, even threatening, Hapgood said. One e-mail from a Texas resident said, "I am appalled the Iowa National Guard does not know what the Constitution of the United States says. ... How dare you?" A man who described himself as a "Nevada citizen" wrote that it was good the exercise was called off: "It is possible that there would have been some dead Iowa Guardsmen." Arcadia City Clerk Nancy Schmitz said she had 14 messages when she arrived at work Monday. All were apparently from listeners of Jones' show, she said. "They all basically left the same message; they talked about it being like the Nazis and having the troops coming into our homes and confiscating weapons. It was very different from what was actually going to take place," Schmitz said. She added she supported the training, calling it "a good opportunity to help out the troops."
They just don't get it, freaking idiots. Well yeah they weren't going to search and seize without a warrant this time, they were just practicing for it. Boils my blood.
"But it's training for Iraq!" Man, how screwed up in the head do you have to be to believe THAT? Iraqi's have control of the country now, and the US presence is strictly support at most. They might as well issue us paintball guns at this point. I guess it's Afghanistan, then. Good luck trying to use the door to door tactic in that place. Seriously, I am surprised so many people encourage this type of assault on freedom.
I concede the absolute requirement for training, but completely fail to see how holding mock raids on a set of US households translates to the rabbit warrens of the third world. It just ain't right. Given that we know there are more appropriate mockups on military bases already, they should be used. I'll even volunteer to add realistic ancient ones to the mockups.
precisely Ghrit. Any military training should be done on military bases. But these people that say it's OK, are the same ones that have a foreign car and cry about our economy, the same ones that say it's ok to lose freedom as long as I can go buy chinese crap at walmart and can feel safe, the same ones that feel their point of view is the only point of view and that everyone else should adopt it.
For anybody to allow any Gov agent in their house without a warrant is just asking for the shaft !!! But I guess if 24% of the American people can believe that the congress has their own money anything is possible .
And this is certainly anything but new. The military has been training in conjunction with foreign troops on US soil for decades, and since several years ago have ramped-up their urban campaign all over the country. Search "Operation Urban Warrior" in Google for more info.
Yes they have ,back in 1986 at Ft. Sam Huston they had a whole company of Egyptians training there . For those that don't know Ft.Sam is mostly for medic training ,but these guys always had their weapons with them wherever they went . Seemed fun then and even more so now . We never saw them a class ,all they did was go out in cattle trucks and march around !!They could have been some of the first ones here !!!!!
Just remember: "Practice, makes PERFECT"! Scares me! I know they were going to "play" here along a major highway route, a "pretend incident", where the fire departments and local police departments were to be invoved in a "mock exercise" whereas a terrorist attack occured, involving biological or radiological weapons.... It too was called off, in the "interest" of motor vehicle safety! This "after" they tried this 'garbage', in the downtown area of Phoenix, and had a lot of veterans up in arms, quite literally... They were lucky to leave in one piece! Bill
I personally know of Mexican commandos training at Benning in 1992 (the same ones who recently murder along the border), which I believe Alex Jones did an article on a while ago...and I remember Japanese soldiers trained in White Sands, NM in 2006. Some operations are clean-cut and are obviously accredited through some kind of multinational accord, but some are also black-ops and highly suspect.
Oh yes trust the .gov after all the Obamessiah is president ( for life if he has his way ) one word NO.
Now now bush was supposed to be president for life too... After seeing two months of the Oh-man I'm starting to wonder if hedidn't screw up saving us from ourselves by going home to crawford (or paraguay?) on schedule...
