Posted on 02/09/2008 5:54:38 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Mayor to Marines: Leave downtown He says urban exercises scare people
By JC REINDL BLADE STAFF WRITER
A company of Marine Corps Reservists received a cold send-off from downtown Toledo yesterday by order of Mayor Carty Finkbeiner.
The 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., planned to spend their weekend engaged in urban patrol exercises on the streets of downtown as well as inside the mostly vacant Madison Building, 607 Madison Ave.
Toledo police knew days in advance about their plans for a three-day exercise. Yet somehow the memo never made it to Mayor Finkbeiner, who ordered the Marines out yesterday afternoon just minutes before their buses were to arrive.
"The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people," said Brian Schwartz, the mayor's spokesman.
"He did not want them practicing and drilling in a highly visible area."
So after a brief stop at a friendly base in Perrysburg Township, the Marines by early evening were back on their way home to Grand Rapids.
"I wish they would have told us this four hours ago," Staff Sgt. Andre Davis said.
Sergeant Davis, who traveled ahead of the five-bus convoy, stepped from his vehicle into downtown about 3:20 p.m. and was told by a city employee that the mayor wanted him and his soldiers packed up and out by 6 p.m.
Members of the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines have trained periodically in downtown Toledo since at least 2004 and most recently in May, 2006.
(Excerpt) Read more at toledoblade.com ...
Boy aren't you a bundle of class. I mouthed off? To who?
Looks to me that you're one of those folks who cannot debate so you choose personal attacks. Talk about a loser...
And your profile page sums up the rest.
I never run for help. Just keep things in check.
I have and the thread was deleted anyway. So the end result is, Special ops needed in Toledo. Have a nice day!
Most people, rather than being “scared”, would be intrigued and probably stick around to watch.
Now it’s a good idea aye?
lol...
In regards to your question to someone else: How would you handle mass evacuations from a city? Hopefully not like Mayor Ray Nagin did in the pre-Katrina hours. Frankly I don't understand your argument against the Marines conducting the same type of exercises in the same part of the city that they have done in the past. If Toledo is like any other city in this country, their downtown with shops and stores doesn't even exist anymore.
What are you talking about?,The Good Idea was I posted the facts about Moslem terror suspects gathered up and questioned in Toledo Ohio because UK intelligence called the U.S. to do so.
My thread was totally in favor of the Marines exercising here.
So if there is a problem like! The one outlined below;
Since that seems to be the Mayors issue, I want to make sure the Mayor is not being held a hostage to the Moslem population in respect to the conservative population there,
I believe special ops. as in due diligence by the Freepers can rest this proposition.
While the Marines are certainly willing to be shot at by some crazed Moonbat US citizen with a deer rifle; or be hit over the head by a brick, by some other US citizen Moonbat who thinks that one of them is a giant spider, there is something more important.
A US Marine is not just a representative of the United States. They are a very expensive piece of equipment that is essentially owned by the United States. And while they may be more than willing, or even eager to expose themselves to dangers or risks, from tattooing to being assaulted by US civilians, it is not their *express right* to damage US government property without permission or direct order.
So while I agree that it is important to have realistic training, I also recognize that it is the prerogative of the US government that US Marines not engage in certain conduct, no matter how honorable, that may result in damage to them as a combat asset.
And some types of interaction with US citizens is just such conduct. It may not only result in personal injury to US Marines or civilians, but damage to the unit and possibly to the entire US Marine Corps, if nothing more than bad publicity by hostile news media, or frivolous litigation in civil court.
I fully understand this is crap, as well. But it is the reality in which the US Marine Corps operates in the United States. And I’m pretty sure that JAG would agree.
sit-rep,...in response to your question of cost,..about $100mil and they’ve already been built.
That doesn’t address the issue.
The type of training sought in that localized effort was simple patrolling in an urban environment, getting used to tactics and local small team command and control in 3-D, real time, nothing fancy.
There’s no need to drop millions of dollars when there are blocks and blocks of vacant real estate available to roam about on without any substantive cost whatsoever, but some simple, very real, possibly life saving rehearsal time, which is in short supply as reserve units prepare to deploy.
Are they being trained? Sure. Are they going to well prepared training sites on military bases? Sure they are.
Is there still opportunity to train so that perhaps another life might not needlessly be given up in combat? Sure there is.
Maybe another approach than sanitizing the American mind from the existence of armed Marines is appropriate. Maybe if the deployment of the next door neighbor was more intuitively obvious to the American taxpayer, sufficient questions and interest into the GWOT would get addressed by the uninformed public.
Of course there is also the alternative form of exposure to MOUT in Michigan. Just wait a few more years when enterprising youth from Dearborn may advance into their local neighborhoods in this quaint Michigan ville from their Flint or Dearborn mosque and learn about MOUT from the opposite perspective.
BTW, the reserve units have their hand’s full just getting the opportunity to assemble to rehearse any communication. IMHO, they weren’t out trying to intimidate anybody other than those in their unit who might not have ever even had the opportunity to assemble together in an urban environment.
We will resurrect the art of letter writing. I do recall how much that meant in my (USAF) basic training. I’ll probably give a pass to the goats and sheep suggestion, though. :)
Oh yes. I will keep the board informed. This is a true support for me. I know there are many other parents who have been through exactly what we will go through.
His name is Ben. We homeschooled through grade nine. Then he wanted high school where he has excelled. He did not get any push toward the Corps from me. In fact, I played devil’s advocate in trying to help him think it all the way through.
I am at peace with his decision and very proud of his maturity and determination to succeed. He’s going into the reserves and then college in Spring of 2009. Hoping for the PLC and officer track. I think he has a pretty good chance. But, even if that does not work out, he has made a very good move.
A rinkydink place like Toledo doesn’t get into the national news very easily, so when they do, it can be a defining moment. Well, Toledo’s aging protohippie of a mayor has managed to provide Toledo with a defining moment, and Toledo is being defined as Berkeley on the lake right now. If there are people in Toledo who have had enough of this odd fellow who is their mayor, (and evidently there were already some, because there is a web site which is dedicated to recalling Carly Fink), then Toledo has a great opportunity to use the defining moment to define itself as a patriotic and rational place in the minds of people across America by ousting Mayor Fink using this latest outrageous behavior as the precipitant,
This is not about the Marines. This is about the military conducting exercises on our inner city streets...
Hell, on other threads they are suggesting the while the Military is down there, they may as well take out drug dealers!! Where does it stop!??
Look, you want to be overly gung ho about our Military, that is fine. But don’t lose the vision of WHY we came up with the Posse Comitatus Act. The amount of people here I am seeing who have lost sight of that fine line is staggering to me...
There is only one way for this Military to have the readiness you and others are talking about, and that is to be present and training in every major city across this nation. The second one division who has been training in Toledo is sent to Akron, they are where they were before they started in Toledo. It will not work the way folks are saying it will.
Marines and other Military units must learn concepts and SOPs in Urban Guerrilla warfare. And, I feel better about it, if it is needed, because we have at present more boys and girls on active duty at with sterling experience from the activities in Iraq’s cities...
We don’t need our Military doing exercises in our streets to become normal. I don’t care how patriotic or pro troops anyone is. Because the next steps are obvious. More Militerizing of local law enforcment and eventual continued prescence buy active Military.
No Thanks... I’m not ready to give up this for more security.
I understand your reservations, but it can be done right. Cordon-off the area, signs saying “military training exercise in progress” and a couple cop cars. The most the average civilian will see is some troops running along buildings, etc., not a May Day march down Main St. And it’s a lot cheaper and more realistic than building a whole fake town.
The problem is that this is a Reserve unit. Such units usually don't have the space or money to build realistic training sites for this, and can't afford to spend most of the drill weekend in transport to a post that does. Yet these marines need the training.
The reserves in Grand Rapids have a weekend a month to train. There is no base in Michigan that in any way resembles urban terrain, so to speak. Would it be logical to spend most of their training time flying to and from some military base where suitable terrain was available? Would be economical? Would it be cost-effective. It would not. Furthermore, there’s probably no one downtown in Toledo on the weekend anyway to even notice who’s there or what they are doing.
Mayor Carty Finkbeiner.
My uncle in LA worked for a Fink. And my sister. Once. Moose. Bit. By.
LOL! No, actually you’ve articulated the best possible reason on the other side, and it’s well-considered. I suspect the mayor’s thinking, but I don’t suspect yours at all.
;>)
Maybe you should think up some great idea on how to train soldiers in urban warfare, without using urban areas.
Or you could just use some nonsensical illogic to justify our troops remaining improperly trained in the very warfare they are now having to engage.
I’d hate for you to feel uncomfortable.
Want to feel really uncomfortable?
Join the marines, and go to Iraq. Untrained.
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