thedrifter
10-22-07, 06:33 AM
Reality check
With help from Hollywood, training can shock and awe
By Gidget Fuentes - gfuentes@militarytimes.com
Posted : October 29, 2007
SAN DIEGO — When Marines hit the trash-strewn streets and dusty buildings of a makeshift Iraqi town or Afghan village for training, it’s as close as some leathernecks will get to the real war zone short of actually landing there.
Make-believe mortars explode in deafening blasts feet away from a patrol. Smoke billows from improvised car bombs as a squad scrambles to find the triggerman. Screams of victims, some with lost limbs and mangled bodies, echo off the walls as corpsmen race through the streets to their aid.
Forget the bland, sterile, concrete training facilities of the Cold War-era Marine Corps.
The Corps’ newest urban training ranges are offering more close-in explosives, more blood-gushing wounds and more foreign-speaking actors in mock villages and small towns that look, smell and feel like the real thing.
One of those sites is tucked inside Stu Segall Productions studios, a San Diego company that blends Hollywood’s magic and artistry with tactical training to give Marines a bigger dose of reality before they experience combat for real.
The so-called “hyper-realistic” training is designed to flood their systems with adrenaline and expose them to the disturbing images and chaotic situations of a combat zone, well before they see it for real.
“We want to do it here, prior to you going into combat,” said Stu Segall, a Hollywood producer whose tactical training company, Strategic Operations Inc., is at the forefront of helping the Marine Corps inject more realism into standard pre-deployment combat training exercises. “You can tell how they react, where they will just be in shock.”
Marines who’ve seen combat say hyper-realistic training comes as close to real as any other exercise. Repeated exposure in training doesn’t just sharpen individual and small unit war-fighting skills, they note, but also builds confidence, reinforces “muscle memory” and eases fear of the unknown.
“You want to take all the guessing games out of it,” said Sgt. Kyle Hoover, who is heading to his third combat tour in Iraq this fall with Camp Pendleton-based Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. “Once they start getting the rounds blowing up by their heads, hopefully they’ll react and know what to do.”
Actors hired as role players make the training much more real, sometimes spending hours in character, Segall said. Some learn to feed off the Marines’ reactions in the scenarios. One female actor, outfitted with bloodied, mangled fake wounds, plays the role of a combat-wounded woman.
“It’s the most dramatic,” Segall said. “It doesn’t get much more real than that.”
The carnage, blood and wounds are intentional. “We incorporate that through all of our training as much as possible,” said Kit Lavell, executive vice president and a decorated Vietnam aviator. “It’s very graphic. It disturbs people.”
The goal, Lavell said, is simple. “For what you are throwing at us here, it’s worse than out there,” he said. “That’s exactly what has to be done in training.”
Strategic Operations’ trainers, many of them experienced combat veterans, work with the units to provide a challenging training environment. “It’s not just Hollywood effects,” Segall said. “We understand tactically how to do this.”
The company tailors each scenario to the unit’s needs, tapping into its bag of Hollywood movie tricks to inject makeshift car bombs, rockets and weaponry into changeable buildings, facades, props and scenery that create a foreign environment disturbingly similar to the real thing.
“We don’t blow things up,” one Strategic Operations demolitions expert said, explaining the difference between military explosives and pyrotechnics. “We make things look like we blew them up.”
Trainers want realism, not a sterile training range. “There’s profanity and there’s screaming,” Segall said. “At that moment in that training scenario, it’s not training. It’s real.”
Hearts are beating, adrenaline is pumping, hands are shaking. “They’re doing real combat,” he added, “but no one is getting hurt.”
Reality-based training is a hot trend across the military. Among Segall’s newest clients is Navy Expeditionary Combat Command. “Everybody is starting to get the idea that realistic training is a benefit,” he said.
Before he led 3/5 through the Battle of Fallujah in late 2004, Col. Patrick Malay and his men spent weeks immersed in urban warfare training. “We learned all that stuff out there at Stu Segall studios, using some significant mental stress by exposing them visually to some very graphic things,” recalled Malay, now 5th Marines regimental commander. “We call that stress inoculation.”
With reality-based training, “you already have been inoculated to all the stressors” of combat, said Army Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a former Army Ranger and author of the books “On Killing” and “On Combat.” “You want to make it as real as possible.”
With repeated exposure to those stressors, “when the real thing happens, it is far less dangerous and it is far less stressful,” Grossman said. While there is a danger in triggering an adverse reaction or a horrific memory, “we’d want to do that in training.”
Gunnery Sgt. Silvester Ramirez watched as several platoons from Combat Logistics Battalion 11 made their way through the training gantlet as a rocket-propelled grenade landed nearby, exploding in a flash and dirt cloud. “The more realistic it is, the better. An RPG coming across is better — it’s the sounds, the sight of it all,” he said.
It’s new training for many of Ramirez’s men and women, who will deploy with 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, and the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit this fall. “For our guys, this is all new to those who haven’t really done room clearing or patrols,” said Ramirez. “They can be called out at any time.”
Ellie
With help from Hollywood, training can shock and awe
By Gidget Fuentes - gfuentes@militarytimes.com
Posted : October 29, 2007
SAN DIEGO — When Marines hit the trash-strewn streets and dusty buildings of a makeshift Iraqi town or Afghan village for training, it’s as close as some leathernecks will get to the real war zone short of actually landing there.
Make-believe mortars explode in deafening blasts feet away from a patrol. Smoke billows from improvised car bombs as a squad scrambles to find the triggerman. Screams of victims, some with lost limbs and mangled bodies, echo off the walls as corpsmen race through the streets to their aid.
Forget the bland, sterile, concrete training facilities of the Cold War-era Marine Corps.
The Corps’ newest urban training ranges are offering more close-in explosives, more blood-gushing wounds and more foreign-speaking actors in mock villages and small towns that look, smell and feel like the real thing.
One of those sites is tucked inside Stu Segall Productions studios, a San Diego company that blends Hollywood’s magic and artistry with tactical training to give Marines a bigger dose of reality before they experience combat for real.
The so-called “hyper-realistic” training is designed to flood their systems with adrenaline and expose them to the disturbing images and chaotic situations of a combat zone, well before they see it for real.
“We want to do it here, prior to you going into combat,” said Stu Segall, a Hollywood producer whose tactical training company, Strategic Operations Inc., is at the forefront of helping the Marine Corps inject more realism into standard pre-deployment combat training exercises. “You can tell how they react, where they will just be in shock.”
Marines who’ve seen combat say hyper-realistic training comes as close to real as any other exercise. Repeated exposure in training doesn’t just sharpen individual and small unit war-fighting skills, they note, but also builds confidence, reinforces “muscle memory” and eases fear of the unknown.
“You want to take all the guessing games out of it,” said Sgt. Kyle Hoover, who is heading to his third combat tour in Iraq this fall with Camp Pendleton-based Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. “Once they start getting the rounds blowing up by their heads, hopefully they’ll react and know what to do.”
Actors hired as role players make the training much more real, sometimes spending hours in character, Segall said. Some learn to feed off the Marines’ reactions in the scenarios. One female actor, outfitted with bloodied, mangled fake wounds, plays the role of a combat-wounded woman.
“It’s the most dramatic,” Segall said. “It doesn’t get much more real than that.”
The carnage, blood and wounds are intentional. “We incorporate that through all of our training as much as possible,” said Kit Lavell, executive vice president and a decorated Vietnam aviator. “It’s very graphic. It disturbs people.”
The goal, Lavell said, is simple. “For what you are throwing at us here, it’s worse than out there,” he said. “That’s exactly what has to be done in training.”
Strategic Operations’ trainers, many of them experienced combat veterans, work with the units to provide a challenging training environment. “It’s not just Hollywood effects,” Segall said. “We understand tactically how to do this.”
The company tailors each scenario to the unit’s needs, tapping into its bag of Hollywood movie tricks to inject makeshift car bombs, rockets and weaponry into changeable buildings, facades, props and scenery that create a foreign environment disturbingly similar to the real thing.
“We don’t blow things up,” one Strategic Operations demolitions expert said, explaining the difference between military explosives and pyrotechnics. “We make things look like we blew them up.”
Trainers want realism, not a sterile training range. “There’s profanity and there’s screaming,” Segall said. “At that moment in that training scenario, it’s not training. It’s real.”
Hearts are beating, adrenaline is pumping, hands are shaking. “They’re doing real combat,” he added, “but no one is getting hurt.”
Reality-based training is a hot trend across the military. Among Segall’s newest clients is Navy Expeditionary Combat Command. “Everybody is starting to get the idea that realistic training is a benefit,” he said.
Before he led 3/5 through the Battle of Fallujah in late 2004, Col. Patrick Malay and his men spent weeks immersed in urban warfare training. “We learned all that stuff out there at Stu Segall studios, using some significant mental stress by exposing them visually to some very graphic things,” recalled Malay, now 5th Marines regimental commander. “We call that stress inoculation.”
With reality-based training, “you already have been inoculated to all the stressors” of combat, said Army Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a former Army Ranger and author of the books “On Killing” and “On Combat.” “You want to make it as real as possible.”
With repeated exposure to those stressors, “when the real thing happens, it is far less dangerous and it is far less stressful,” Grossman said. While there is a danger in triggering an adverse reaction or a horrific memory, “we’d want to do that in training.”
Gunnery Sgt. Silvester Ramirez watched as several platoons from Combat Logistics Battalion 11 made their way through the training gantlet as a rocket-propelled grenade landed nearby, exploding in a flash and dirt cloud. “The more realistic it is, the better. An RPG coming across is better — it’s the sounds, the sight of it all,” he said.
It’s new training for many of Ramirez’s men and women, who will deploy with 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, and the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit this fall. “For our guys, this is all new to those who haven’t really done room clearing or patrols,” said Ramirez. “They can be called out at any time.”
Ellie