The bullet holes punched into the center mass of this pistol-packing suburban soccer mom weren’t fired by ISIS terrorists preparing for a shopping-mall assault, or by local cops training against an active shooter at the local school. They were fired by a Marine during special operations “realistic military training,” or RMT, in Gulfport, Mississippi.
The training was called Raven 15-03, and took place at locations across the Gulf Coast of United States in February in order to give the 3rd Marine Special Operations Battalion a chance to practice “helicopter-borne and vessel-borne insertion, breaching techniques, fast-roping, and close-quarters battle techniques” in “populated environments,” according to a Marine Corps press release. The release didn’t address the details of the “realistic” scenario dreamed up by the Marine Special Operations Command that involved gunning down a married civilian woman with a recent manicure.
Realistic military training in which military forces leave their bases and practice how to kill people out in the real world are a relatively recent phenomenon. One such exercise of this group, Jade Helm, has been seized on recently by right-wing paranoids who suspect that Barack Obama is using it to rehearse an invasion of Texas. But here’s the thing: They’re not altogether wrong.
What knucklehead decided that (continue reading)