Been seeing black helicopters overhead? Uniformed troops with guns drawn? Armored vehicles cruising through your residential neighborhood?
Worry not; it’s just the U.S. military’s Special Operations Command doing “realistic urban training” for military maneuvers on site in cities across the United States because that’s what they need to be able to do, according to the military.
One of the reports in just the past few days came from Miami. There, the Herald reported military helicopters were “buzzing” neighborhoods. It was similar to April 2011, the report said, when military helicopters “buzzed through Brickell, leading to sleepless nights for some people and a lot of griping on social media about it.”
And KTRK in Houston reported the sound of gunfire and the helicopters overhead “created a lot of concern Monday afternoon in one Houston neighborhood.” According to the station’s report, “With military helicopters flying above her southeast Houston neighborhood, Frances Jerrals didn’t know what to think.
“‘When you see this, you think the worst. When you hear this, you think the worst,’ Jerrals said.”
The report said the Army “took over the old Carnegie Vanguard High School.” “There were armed men in fatigues, plenty of weapons and what many though were real live rounds.” The events have a history of causing alarm.
During a recent drill in Miami, a photographer “captured video of a military helicopter firing its machine guns as it flew over an area freeway.”
“The chopper was firing blanks, but an artist visiting the city didn’t know.” Josh Epperson said, according to the report, “‘I heard the machine gun fire and then I hit the deck … I didn’t know what to expect, and it was one of the loudest things I’d ever heard.”
Army spokesman Michael Noggle told WND the military considers the drills routine.
