Army Creates Realistic Training in Germany

[leftchick]

This sounds like a rum dum idea...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060311/ap_on_re_eu/germany_iraq_lessons_1


<snip>

It's a lesson learned in training in the snowy hills of southern Germany, and a valuable exercise for Hill, a 19-year-old from Salem, Ore., fresh out of basic training.

Hill and other soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team are learning from Iraq veterans like Maravilla, 26, of Miami at the "The Box" — as the 80 square-mile Hohenfels Training Center is known.

A dozen "Iraqi" cities and towns, with names like Samarra, Beiji and Tikrit — Saddam Hussein's hometown — dot the expanse of rolling hills and fir forests.

U.S. troops have long trained at Hohenfels, meeting mock Soviet soldiers during the Cold War and later preparing for combat in the Balkans.

For their new role, some "cities," like Samarra, have undergone major modifications, with a mosque built on the outskirts and some of the peaked European-style roofs replaced for the flat type found in Iraq.

[matcom]

1. Hohenfels = Hell on earth

trained for 3 months at a time there over 3 years. all seasons. Germany is such a beautiful country but Hohenfels is the black hole. tanks (mine included) and trucks and tracks of all sizes have cut through that earth and those hills like a hot knife through butter.

i hate that place

[file83]

2. And here is the best part....

Some 1,000 civilians from the surrounding area populate the villages during exercises and interact with the American troops through interpreters — speaking German, not Arabic — to add realism.

Glad to be providing 1000 Germans jobs through US Taxpayer money! Wonderful.

Why couldn't they be doing this in the American SW desert with Spanish speaking AMERICANS? Not to mention the climate and landscape of the American SW much closer matches Iraq than Germany.

Sounds like someone is desperately trying to justify a very large American Military installation in Germany. Relics of the cold war, gotta love it.

[0007]

3. What a bullshit article! And this fits as news?

Wouldn't exercises in peace movements and peace talks and learning how to get along with other counties be more conducive than learning how to kill fellow human beings?

After Hill fired warning shots over the truck, AK-47s poked out of the windows and fired back. Needing no more excuse, Hill unloaded 150 7.62mm rounds into the truck — blanks, of course, but effectively "killing" the truck for the exercise.

"We have a lot of new people so it's helping to remember to do my soldier role first — making sure the area's secure before I'm running out to save someone, while the young guys are saying "go, go, go — he needs help!" I've got to get the adrenaline under control."

Pumped up by the exercise, Hill said he now felt better about heading to Iraq for the first time.U.S. troops have long trained at Hohenfels, meeting mock Soviet soldiers during the Cold War and later preparing for combat in the Balkans.

Al Dwar — the focus of Lt. Maravilla's patrol — is little more than a dozen wooden shacks and a handful of green Army tents.

Some 1,000 civilians from the surrounding area populate the villages during exercises and interact with the American troops through interpreters — speaking German, not Arabic — to add realism. They play police officers, mayors, sheiks, villagers, and, of course, insurgents, who can "kill" U.S. troops by hitting sensors the soldiers wear with lasers.

"It's probably as close to the real thing you can get without going to Iraq," said Pfc. Bobby Brown, a 23-year-old medic from St. Louis, Mo., who was with the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq from February 2004 to March 2005.

"It's guaranteed," said Pvt. Joy Joseph, a soft-spoken 18-year-old medic from Brooklyn. She has spent most of her time at Hohenfels screening "prisoners" for injuries, and said she has learned how to work through an interpreter and benefited from the experience of other soldiers who have been to Iraq.

"Those who have been downrange (to Iraq) say the men there don't expect a woman to be in a position of authority, so you have to make it clear that you're in charge," she said.

"So far I like it, what we lose in armor we make up in speed," he said. "We snuck up on an RPG team the other day just like that."

About three hours into the patrol, the situation changed suddenly when a blue pickup truck appeared from around a corner, then spun around and fled. The Humvee gave chase.

"It makes me very confident knowing that the equipment works and my training's good."

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. What will become of Amurka when Amurka runs out of

enemies to feed its burgeoning military industrial complex... or will Amurka do things that will ensure that there will always be enough people hating it to fuel the fire?? Funny how even after WWII ended we suddenly had the need to have military bases on every square mile of the surface of the earth.

[tom_paine]

5. What? Are they shooting Liberals, environmentalists, and protestors

I'm sure they are, at some OHS camp somewhere, but perhaps the Amermacht doesn't get the kind of "realistic training" the new SSS (USSSUD) gets.

[soothsayer]

6. What happened to 'mission accomplished?' what do they need

this for if we've practically democratized the em-effer? hmmmmm...