thedrifter
04-23-07, 06:06 AM
Fake country readies Marines for real war
Va. locale doubles for Middle East as unit undergoes training
BY PETER BACQUE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Monday, April 23, 2007
BLACKSTONE -- Popping gunfire, unnerving explosions and shouts in a strange language echo from sand-colored buildings and fill dusty streets.
The fictional Middle East country of Mica was rolling out a prickly welcome mat for the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit last week.
The Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based outfit has 1,401 of its men and women at Fort Pickett in Southside Virginia for 10 days of intense training before they board amphibious assault ships and sail overseas.
And India Company's Marines were just trying to send a little patrol through the fractious town. "These are things they'll potentially conduct in the future, in Iraq or elsewhere," said the company's commander, Capt. Reginald McClam of Garner, N.C.
But his company, part of 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, normally swoops down in helicopters. "We're used to conducting raids," Iraq veteran McClam said, not trying to win cooperation from Third World urban dwellers.
The 22nd MEU will be training mainly at Fort Pickett, but the Marines will take their exercises into Richmond, Blackstone and Crewe.
"Our scenario is we're in a country where we've come ashore off ships and we're operating from a host-nation military facility," said the unit's commander, Col. Douglas Stilwell.
The 22nd MEU is almost midway through six months of pre-deployment work-up, Stilwell said. Its missions can run from evacuating innocents from violent countries to executing combat raids.
"Some are focused on the potential we might go into Iraq," the quiet-spoken officer said. "There's no lack of work."
More than two dozen professional actors and native Arabic speakers from a California film studio populate the training site. They play roles -- peaceful families, aggrieved locals, terrorist units -- in the kinds of bewilderingly fast-moving crises the Marines could soon face in the real world.
"We're intentionally trying to create confusion," said the 22nd MEU's Capt. Clark Carpenter.
In the flash of a bomb and the beat of a heart, "Marines have to make the decisions about who needs to die and who doesn't," McClam said. "And that's real, real hard."
"Here we're learning about 'permissive environments,'" said Lance Cpl. Lincoln Catron, 20, of Culpeper. "That's when you go in and not everyone wants to kill you."
His deployment to Ramadi in Iraq wasn't that peaceful, he recalled: "You didn't even have to go out for 20 minutes and you'd have somebody picking a fight with you."
During the training, another RPG simulator blew up at the base of one of the cinder-block buildings in Pickett's urban training area. Bits of dirt and debris flew through the smoke.
"I don't care who you are -- every time you hear that thing go off, you get that feeling," McClam said, pumping his arms in an overflow of adrenaline.
Despite the frightful, disorienting experiences his Marines will undergo, he said, "I'm asking them to be thoughtful. We call it 'tactical patience.'"
Nurturing the ability to carry on with their missions in the midst of chaos is the point of the Marines' training here.
Lance Cpl. Patrick Roche, 24, of Woodbridge has soldiered through two tours of duty in Iraq.
"This is probably the most realistic training we've had," he said. "There's always room for improvement in this line of work."
For a profession where people train more to bleed less, McClam said, "money can't buy what we're doing here."
Contact staff writer Peter Bacqué at pbacque@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6813.
Ellie
Va. locale doubles for Middle East as unit undergoes training
BY PETER BACQUE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Monday, April 23, 2007
BLACKSTONE -- Popping gunfire, unnerving explosions and shouts in a strange language echo from sand-colored buildings and fill dusty streets.
The fictional Middle East country of Mica was rolling out a prickly welcome mat for the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit last week.
The Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based outfit has 1,401 of its men and women at Fort Pickett in Southside Virginia for 10 days of intense training before they board amphibious assault ships and sail overseas.
And India Company's Marines were just trying to send a little patrol through the fractious town. "These are things they'll potentially conduct in the future, in Iraq or elsewhere," said the company's commander, Capt. Reginald McClam of Garner, N.C.
But his company, part of 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, normally swoops down in helicopters. "We're used to conducting raids," Iraq veteran McClam said, not trying to win cooperation from Third World urban dwellers.
The 22nd MEU will be training mainly at Fort Pickett, but the Marines will take their exercises into Richmond, Blackstone and Crewe.
"Our scenario is we're in a country where we've come ashore off ships and we're operating from a host-nation military facility," said the unit's commander, Col. Douglas Stilwell.
The 22nd MEU is almost midway through six months of pre-deployment work-up, Stilwell said. Its missions can run from evacuating innocents from violent countries to executing combat raids.
"Some are focused on the potential we might go into Iraq," the quiet-spoken officer said. "There's no lack of work."
More than two dozen professional actors and native Arabic speakers from a California film studio populate the training site. They play roles -- peaceful families, aggrieved locals, terrorist units -- in the kinds of bewilderingly fast-moving crises the Marines could soon face in the real world.
"We're intentionally trying to create confusion," said the 22nd MEU's Capt. Clark Carpenter.
In the flash of a bomb and the beat of a heart, "Marines have to make the decisions about who needs to die and who doesn't," McClam said. "And that's real, real hard."
"Here we're learning about 'permissive environments,'" said Lance Cpl. Lincoln Catron, 20, of Culpeper. "That's when you go in and not everyone wants to kill you."
His deployment to Ramadi in Iraq wasn't that peaceful, he recalled: "You didn't even have to go out for 20 minutes and you'd have somebody picking a fight with you."
During the training, another RPG simulator blew up at the base of one of the cinder-block buildings in Pickett's urban training area. Bits of dirt and debris flew through the smoke.
"I don't care who you are -- every time you hear that thing go off, you get that feeling," McClam said, pumping his arms in an overflow of adrenaline.
Despite the frightful, disorienting experiences his Marines will undergo, he said, "I'm asking them to be thoughtful. We call it 'tactical patience.'"
Nurturing the ability to carry on with their missions in the midst of chaos is the point of the Marines' training here.
Lance Cpl. Patrick Roche, 24, of Woodbridge has soldiered through two tours of duty in Iraq.
"This is probably the most realistic training we've had," he said. "There's always room for improvement in this line of work."
For a profession where people train more to bleed less, McClam said, "money can't buy what we're doing here."
Contact staff writer Peter Bacqué at pbacque@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6813.
Ellie