There’s a website called Defense Video & Image Distribution System (DVIDS), run by the United States Army. Here’s how DVIDS describes itself:
The Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System (DVIDS) is provided as a public service operated by Third Army/U.S. Army Central (ARCENT) on behalf of the Department of the Army in support of all branches of the U.S. military and its Coalition partners serving with U.S. Forces in the Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility and throughout the world.
Third Army/ARCENT has a contract with Encompass Digital Media, Inc., in Atlanta, Georgia, to provide this service. Encompass Digital Media employs civilians to fulfill the contract as media representatives, video editors, web developers and satellite transmission technicians.
Information presented on or via DVIDS is considered public information and may be distributed or copied unless otherwise specified. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested.
The DVIDS service is paid for by the US Department of Defense via the Department of the Army, Third Army/US Army Central (ARCENT).
A video on DVIDS, titled “Assault Support Tactics 3,” is causing a lot of buzz on the Internet, with some claiming the Marines were training to hunt down and arrest civilians in preparation for martial law. As an example, The GovtSlaves.Info Report calls the video “Shock Video: Children Used in FEMA Camp Roundup Drills.”
The video was taken on April 17, 2015, in Yuma, Arizona, by U.S. Marine journalist Sgt. Daniel Kujanpaa. This is how the video is described on DVIDS:
U.S. Marines from 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division participate in assault support tactics 3 during Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course (WTI) 2-15 in Yuma, Ariz., April 18, 2015. WTI is a seven week event hosted by Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One (MAWTS-1) cadre. MAWTS-1 provides standardized tactical training and certification of unit instructor qualifications to support Marine Aviation Training and Readiness and assists in developing and employing aviation weapons and tactics.
Here is a version of the video, 02:27 minutes long, posted to YouTube, showing the Marines subduing men (crisis actors) dressed in civilian clothes, some with feigned injuries like the guy with a bloodied face at the 0:17 mark:
Note the presence of spectators with small children outside the park’s chain link fence, watching armed soldiers hunting down ordinary Americans. Here’s a screenshot I took at the 0:12 mark:
The YouTube video clearly is a shortened version of the original footage because the beginning of the video speeded up or rushed through the arrival of the Marines in choppers into a public park somewhere in the city of Yuma.
The original 7:10 minutes-long video is posted on DVIDS.
What is interesting about the original video is that there is imagery only at the beginning, showing a chopper landing in the park and Marines talking to spectators — including small children — on the other side of the chain link fence. But after the 01:15 mark, there is no imagery for the rest of video until just before the video ends. In other words, the images of Marines subduing and hand-cuffing “civilians” were blocked.
There is, however, audio — of male voices talking, shouting, metallic clanking, a hoarse voice (at around the 05:04 mark), and the sound of machine gun fire (?) or a chopper at around the 05:45 mark. Finally, beginning at the 05:50 mark, the imagery returned — of soldiers carrying a “wounded” man on a stretcher to a waiting chopper, soldiers cleaning up, the landing of another chopper, and the deserted park at nightfall.
Go to DVIDS and verify for yourself about the censored-out imagery of Marines subduing and handcuffing crisis actors posing as civilians.
While I understand the U.S. military must train our soldiers in simulated scenarios of “assault support tactics,” what is the need or rationale for a drill depicting armed soldiers subduing civilians in a public park, viewed by families with small children? Does the U.S. Army think we’re so stupid as to think the Marines could not have conducted this training exercise on a military base?
Many Americans already are freaked out by Operation Jade Helm — a 2-month Special Operations Exercise by élite members from all four branches of the U.S. military, unprecedented in its size and scope. (See “Operation Jade Helm, Posse Comitatus, and why we should be concerned“)
This “training exercise” by the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division will just add to the fears.
H/t FOTM’s Gingercake
~Éowyn
