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Thanks for the comment. I was writing quickly last night and think some more context would be helpful.

In spite of the alarmist tone of the Ranger ‘revelation’ I don't dismiss his purported testimony. This exercise encompasses a lot of agencies. One is likely DHS in concert with the Federal Bureau of prisons. A few conveyances such as described probably been ordered. Only a small portion of those estimated to be needed if an extensive ‘insurrection’ might occur. In an exercise combining command post (CPX) and Field Training (FTX) elements relatively small numbers of specialized equipment will be employed in a test environment that will try to mimic at least partially how these systems would be really used to familiarize at least some operators with real time use of their equipment. In this case soldiers or DHS personnel will act the role of prisoners and be transported to a mock series of processing and detention centers. In a real world occurrence the prisoner treatment will be something beyond your worse nightmare . One poster correctly identified a site which describes in detail US BOP real time protocols for prisoner movement and handling.

This is a very large exercise and from its scope and the number of player organizations within the armed services it appears to be what is or used to be called a ‘JCS Sponsored Exercise’. This means that issues of the greatest interest and importance to the Department of Defense will be used as the basis for developing the master event list and the play items for each event.
It also means the JCS exercise fund picks up the tab for all extraordinary costs (overtime, flying hours, material consumption, etc.) that participating agencies incur.

During the late part of the Cold War the JCS sponsored two exercises a year. A CPX/FTX in the spring and a largely administrative CPX in the fall/winter time frame. After the Cold War ended these dwindled to one every other year after Desert Shield and then none after 9-11. The exercise program was restarted after 9-11 by concentrating on mass casualty and unconventional scenarios including Weapons of Mass Destruction events. This exercise in scope and duration appears to be akin to the old JCS spring exercises. These included Night Train 85 which dealt with post nuclear reconstitution and Proud Eagle and Present Arms which was the stage beyond Night Train, if memory serves.
These were large in terms of the tens of thousands of soldiers, airman, Marines, and sailors and government civilians that participated in one manner or another and extended in duration continuing for weeks with small exercise cells managing play between peaks of activity. These exercises took two to three years to plan and fund for and besides the JCS exercise issues each participating activity was expected to develop its own list of issues to play specific to the activities mission and function. Conferences began with conceptualization meetings chaired and steered by the JCS exercise element and moved forward in the deliberate programmed manner of the US armed forces. So this exercise would seem to have been germinating likely since 2010/11 and have been in the detailed planning phase since 2012/13. It has received a fair amount of scrutiny from the highest levels of DOD and the services. In the army, the service I am most familiar with, it would have been briefed to the Chief of Staff or the Vice Chief pretty regularly and also all major Army component commanders and all Army MACOMs on a regular basis.

In other words the very highest echelons of the armed forces have routinely been informed of this exercise and its assumptions and all have at the least been unconcerned with what the exercise assumptions and scenario implied. If there had been significant resistance information on the proposed scenario and its assumptions would have leaked out long ago. That should be disturbing in itself. The background is finally coming out as the exercise materials are widely disseminated ( as they have to be) to player staffs and the public affairs aspects of the exercise have to start to be undertaken to present the event as helpful and non-menacing to the areas where the field training will happen.

What Congressman Gomert should ask is how long DOD has been working on this drill and to demand the exercise event or play list and the exercise plan.
That would provide him with some very interesting reading.