Monday, May 20, 2013

A Simulated Afghan Battlefield In The Mojave Desert (Photo Gallery)


It's Artificial Afghanistan: A Simulated Battlefield In The Mojave Desert -- The Atlantic

An hour northeast of Barstow, California, there's an army base the size of Rhode Island, complete with a fake Afghan town known as Ertebat Shar.

Fort Irwin is a U.S. army base nearly the size of Rhode Island, located in the Mojave Desert about an hour's drive northeast of Barstow, California. There you will find the National Training Center, or NTC, at which all U.S. troops, from all the services, spend a twenty-one day rotation before they deploy overseas.

Sprawling and often infernally hot in the summer months, the base offers free tours, open to the public, twice a month. We made the trip, cameras in hand and notebooks at the ready, to learn more about the simulated battlefields in which imaginary conflicts loop, day after day, without end.

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My Comment: I am not only surprised that this training field is open to the public two days a month .... but that visitors are actually making the trip to see for themselves what it is all about. Warning .... the battle scene pictures look very realistic.

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