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| Iraq |
| Fort Polk: Army Guard unit also honing up on Iraq |
| 2004-02-01 |
| From Jan 11, but relates to earlier post today about US marines training. This month, 4,800 N.C. Army National Guard soldiers will go to a Louisiana fort for some of the military’s best combat training. They need it: Next month they might be in Tikrit, one of the most dangerous areas of Iraq for U.S. troops. The 30th HSB is assembling at Fort Polk’s Joint Readiness Training Center for a few weeks of battle exercises in a slice of Iraq re-created as best the Army can among the alligators and thick forests of western Louisiana. The guardsmen will patrol mock villages and a countryside populated by a cast of 1,000, said Maj. Ron Elliott, a spokesman for the center. Among the cast will be 200 Arabic speakers -- including some Iraqi expatriates -- to heighten realism. Hickman, in a telephone interview from Fort Polk, said he had already met with two Iraqi Arabs and a Kurd. Actors and Polk soldiers will play the roles of Iraqis -- innocents and insurgents -- and even journalists and workers for international aid groups. "They even have a number of goats, sheep and chickens," Hickman said. Role playing in the chicken yard with someone screaming in your ear in Arabic. That’s realism |
| Posted by:Gasse Katze |
| #1 If you have trouble with the link click on "refresh". It should come through for you. http://newsobserver.com/front/digest/story/3211807p-2881124c.html |
| Posted by: Gasse Katze 2004-2-1 3:57:20 PM |