Realistic military training coming to 7 states

Doug,

I think your points make a lot of sense. Standing by what I said above, if someone in command ever got too cute about things? I think that would just about be the only case where it would happen. That is, a rogue field commander running on his own ideas until stopped or put down. I can't see direct offensive action toward US civilians unless cloaked in the chaos and total confusion of a true national disaster in-progress (and then..fat chance GI Joe is going to give a damn what some Officer thinks is important for 'teaching protesters or gun owners a lesson' during all that).

Now that you mention it though, I do distinctly recall reading about U.S. Special Operations guys out of Bragg and elsewhere using the local communities and the mountain towns of Virginia as 'real world training events'. Often enough, or so I got the impression, that the locals actually came to look forward to near annual events as something to be entertained by as bystanders to it all. 

......Of course, they go WAY over the line when they're firing chain guns off little bird helicopters, while directly over U.S. Metro city areas (Miami a couple times now, as one example). Blanks or not...(and I don't trust enough to believe that to take to the bank every time)...they can just stick to what THIS story talks about. Training events where the local town invites or at least, fully supports the evolution ...unlike Miami and elsewhere, where mayors and police are sometimes as shocked to learn of the training as the civilians in the middle of it.