Army desert training at Fort Irwin
At the United States Army's National Training Center at Ft. Irwin the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division based at Ft. Lewis Wash. runs through a 14-day exercise. It is designed to expose them to conditions they will encounter during a deployment to Iraq. In these scenarios the Army soldiers pretend to occupy up to twelve villages. This one Medina Jamal is populated by several hundred role players. The key roles are handled by Iraqi-Americans who live in the San Diego area when they're not working here at Ft. Irwin. Others are played by soldiers in the OPFOR or opposition forces. Most if not all of them have done a real infantry rotation in Iraq. Everyone in the scene wears laser sensors indicating when they have been hit by gunfire. On Ft. Irwin each rotation uses about 2 200 role players 250 of whom are Iraqi-Americans. On the final morning of their two-week rotation this unit is assigned to preserve safety and order at a political rally featuring the mayor and imam of Medina Jamal. The OPFOR (oposition force) inserted a couple of snipers and several IEDs. The first sniper was discovered and killed but the imam was wounded by the other. One platoon pushes back the crowd in front of the speakers' platform. An observer-controller (OC) advises them not to push the Iraqis. Here infantrymen try to push the crowd back from the speakers' platform. An observer-controller admonishes them to try to avoid pushing or pointing their weapons at the civilians.
Size: 4287px × 2848px
Location: Ft. Irwin California United States
Photo credit: © Kevin Horan / Aurora Photos / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: army, ca, desert, exercise, ft., iraqi-americans, irwin, military, petraeus, training, usa
