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 ...
Since you’re a Navy Veteran, you might have heard how often ship Captains have to call home because no matter where the US Navy goes around the world, some imbecile will take pot shots at it. It doesn’t matter how friendly or hostile the coastline nation is—some crackpot decides to conduct foreign policy on his own.
For example, “Sir, we are being fired at by some lunatic with a deer rifle in a tree line on the coast of Greece, what should we do?”
Usually the Captain will contact somebody, be it the US embassy in Greece, the Pentagon, and if it particularly interesting, the White House itself, to request permission to do whatever it is he wants to do, or at least notify them that he is about to delete a tree line in Greece.
That is one of a C.O.’s jobs, to act as liaison with a whole bunch of higher headquarters and other military and civilian organizations, if at all possible, which it usually is. Higher HQ always appreciates it when they are at least notified of intentions by subordinate C.O.s. It makes their coffee taste better.
Now this is overseas. Within the United States the vast majority of military units have to have Public Affairs Officers, because guaranteed, the *easiest* way to get in trouble is when military personnel and US civilians mix it up.
There is nothing quite like military-civilian interactions that end up on the C.O.’s desk to make their stomachs gurgle. Every damn thing you can imagine happens when those two groups mix it up.
Bounced checks, unwanted pregnancies, bar fights, local police problems, DUI, child and spouse abuse, etc., ad nauseum. And there are no civilians like US civilians for being pestiferous, litigious, annoying, troublesome, and whining.
I mean, hell, if Marines are maneuvering around Iraqi civilians, learning urban combat, the worst that can happen is that the Iraqis suddenly decide to try and kill them.
That is nothing compared to the utter chaos that US citizens can cause to a military unit, ending up with half a dozen courts martial, an irritated higher headquarters, agitated local civilian government demanding huge payments, and lawyers flocking like vultures. With the nastiest headlines imaginable picked up by the wire services, calling the USMC filthy names and lying like dogs.
Use Google Earth: Buidings are on the edges of Camp Pendleton. Pendleton has 17 miles of Beaches, but due to strict environmental protections, they can use less than one mile. Have to protect those Least Terns, you know.
All of these are considered "Cities".
And you are demanding that training not be conducted in cities.
No one ever said anything about closing bases. Your reaching tells me you have no ammo in your magazines.
Only a matter of time before the black helicopter crowd showed up.
There is absolutely nothing wrong, Consitutionally or legally, with using an abandoned building in an urban environment to train. It's done all the time and has never harmed anyone.
You seem to be missing the fact that many people died while we learned to fight in urban situations.
When my brother got back from his first tour of Baghdad, he said the first thing that they needed more training in urban areas. He has participated in other "Toledo" scenarios, and said it could save many lives if it could be done more often.
And since this training situation had nothing to do with domestic police duties, but was aimed at Baghdad-type urban fighting, I have no idea why you bring up posse comitatus.
I understand Toledo’s Comrade Mayor is in line for a prmotion to Commissar in the Clinton Reich
The only person who is scared is Finkbeiner. He’s scared that he might upset MoveON.org and lose monetary support in the next election.
I don't know, there seems to be at least one FReeper here who is terrified by the thought some evil Marines are training to take over.
I am not advocating violence, but in the unlikely event of an armed Civil War within our borders, the history of such traitorous actions will make it easier to pull the trigger, as well as identify target priorities.
IMHO, if I might offer a perspective of what a Company reserve unit is probably being faced with, the reality of the “urban training” being conducted, and the risks thereunto pertaining.
The unit probably has 10 weekend drill sessions a year performed once a month, with a 2week active duty period somewhere in the US and those sessions are probably jumbled to meet the requirements of many others, (Bn staffs, Bn exercises, HigherHQ inspections, Bottom up annual individual training and medical requirements, PFT, Weight Cntl, rifle range, language, self defense, not to mention any possible regimental CO wild eyed training agenda thrown in to boot.
This is probably the tamest of requirements, because there has been a prolonged GWOT, requiring the reserves to pony up the manpower en lieu of a general draft, with not just a chance of being deployed, but only a question of when that deployment will occur, will the billets be staffed, and what are the odds, once deployed the deployment will be doubled unannounced, thereby placing many of those deployed and their families in dire financial straits, regardless the legislation and general public goodwill available when not required to be exercised.
Tack onto this the brute reality that all it takes is one bullet ricochet or errant round from friendly or foe, teen, adult or child, or a past IED to trip somewhere along their traverse to result in another casualty, life changing event, which may alter the significant lifelines of tens of dozens of people.
Although those in the unit were well trained in individual weapons, military protocols, some crew served weapons, and how their unit functions within a larger machine, there nevertheless remains a litany of unforeseen threats in assymmetric warfare, especially in an urban environment.
The Marines in that unit don’t have all the time to train. They will be routed through systemic training at individual, team, tactical, unit, and even a predeployment series of training, but the basics of small unit leadership, in those environments take time to rehearse and adapt. There will be a litany of training tasks which even the best training staffs and unit leaders will miss simply due to terrain and situation.
Remember, we aren’t speaking about a battalion or regiment, or group or army sized unit. We also aren’t talking about a novel training idea. Almost every infantry unit at platoon to company and battalion sized unit in the reserve establishment has found a urban area near their unit where they have routinely conducted similar training, repeatedly over the past 7 years. That’s 2 to three tours for many of the permanent members of those units, so it isn’t unique or an isolated type of training.
Almost every major city in the US has had similar training performed in it multiply, and not just since 9-11, but easily since WWII, by various commands. Granted, during Vietnam, there wasn’t much need to practice maneuver at company levels through high rise building districts, nor even much in WWII, because the flag ranks directed schemes of maneuver to try and avoid urban warfare. It’s tremendously labor intensive.
Today’s weaponry is much more precise than even weapons of the 80s. Much greater firepower is available at smaller unit levels. The basics of infantry fire and maneuver still require rehearsal, which doesn’t always require live-fire rehearsal.
Once deployed, it will still seem as though there was never too much training available for those who become engaged with hostiles. The simple basics go far though in maintaining unit integrity. One major problem is staffing and training new teams. Another is simply placing that grouping of men, a Marine company in an environment, remotely similar to where they are going and rehearsing just the mechanics of getting there, receiving an order as a unit, performing it, and returning home.
Practically, the unit already performed much of what it probably had anticipated, regardless of where it landed, but what becomes an issue now is one of morale.
The Marines in that unit join for any number of reasons, but they have quickly learned not to expect all Americans to understand what they heck they do in theater. They realize the rest of America isn’t with them in theater, ..most of America if they get the time is at the mall, not with the Marines in their duties. But what is probably a bit irksome in this situation is that those Marines weren’t looking for someplace inhabited to drill. They looked for places that were vacant, never occupied on the weekends, dead as dead can be, which quite frankly describes much of metropolitan Ohio these days and probably simply sought to rehearse some basic movements at fire team to platoon level at best.
They weren’t looking for applause or gratitude, but they probably didn’t appreciate being told by some other public servant, and have a couple of cops, (who might have even been their juniors at work) tell them they couldn’t practice simply being bussed their, working together in a vacant building and rehearsing a unit movement because it might bother somebody in the area simply knowing they exist.
It’s crap like that which creates counterproductive long term institutional perspectives of other institutions. I suspect there will be many a Marine from that unit which will stand watch at zero dark thirty overlooking some dank, musty, hellhole on the other side of the globe, worrying about what is trying to sneak up on him to not only take his life but make it as painful as possible, all so that some civilian back in Toledo won’t have to consider he even exists, because that is just too disturbing a notion.
If the mayor of Toledo wanted to prevent some awkward situation from arising in Toledo, can you imagine what will now happen with every Marine who ever happens to do business in that city in the future?
FWIW, I state what I have and I am Navy Vet. But I guess that does not matter.
Gee, I made my comments because you blew someone off in your mistaken belief that we didn't train in civilian environments...then made the cute little comment about the "mini-gun" ..... well hell sir. I'm sorry. Your comments about training and urban warfare made me think you were a girl or someone that hadn't seen urban or guerrilla warfare or trained in small unit combat or CQB.
What SEAL team were you on? What was your MOS?
I'm just interested in the full extent of your training for urban combat you received in the Navy.... as a vet, that is.
Cause the Navy guys I met were meat eating warriors. I busted their b#lls, but respected the hell out of their training and dedication. ........ gee that's weird. Cause those squids trained in some of the same civilian environments that some of the units I was with trained at. Maybe your weren't there or in sick bay when the Navy had your unit "do" urban ops".
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
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.
Why weren't these exercises done in Detroit?
Who the hell said I was in the Seals?
I’m done with ya...
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
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.
Why weren't these exercises done in Detroit?
I understand your point. Thanks for the response...
Didn’t you get the memo? They were practicing FOR Detroit. ;) (PS Detroit is too close to Dearborn)
LOL! My hubby’s old MP company, the 1775th out of Redford, did some exercises in Detroit, back in the late ‘90s. We were pretty sure they were going to be deployed to the city for civic control after the Malice Green trial. Never happened, thank God.
I don’t argue against training in any way, nor do I argue against the Marines. They are fine, professional, expert and disciplined. It is, and always has been only a problem with the ******** civilians.
Civilians have no idea. None. And military personnel have always been frustrated with the fickle, stupid, antagonistic and reprehensible behavior of civilians directed towards them.
I know this mayor is full of it. But so are the people who elected him. It is not fair, and it is not right. So the problem is how to get these Marines trained as best their trainers can train them, and if it has to be done out of Toledo, than so be it.
The bottom line is that while confronting this much civilian antagonism, there is little choice but to find somewhere else to train. Because while it would just be grand, and satisfying, to rake this mayor over the coals and train in Toledo anyway, it would only take away from the training mission.
It is wise not to get into a p*ssing contest with a skunk, even if you know you are going to drench the little b*stard.
Good.
So when there is a “disturbance” we can keep our Marines here to help protect us and keep order.
They may not be welcome in Ohio, but they are welcome and loved in Michigan.
1775th! That was my company, from 1982 to 1986!
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