Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 07:25:49 -0500 (CDT)
From: Kamaria Ngozi <ngozi@secapl.com>
 
In a major shift in tactics, the US Marine Corps is training on urban
streets to prepare for 21st century warfare.

   A crack Marine Corps unit showed up in Chicago this week - not to do
battle but to learn about sewers and subways.

   Armed with pens and quizzical looks, the burr-headed marines are part
of an effort by the Marines to hone their skills for urban warfare in the
21st century.

   For generations, marines have been trained to fight on beaches,
deserts, and other open battlefields. Now, with much of the world's
population expected to shift to urban areas over the next 20 years, they
are learning how to confront the enemy amid the mirror-skinned skyscrapers
and crowded sidewalks of downtown America. It represents one of the
biggest shifts in Marine Corps tactics in 70 years.

   ``This really is the first time we've actually gone into a city and
looked to see what's involved in the infrastructure and terrain,'' says
Lt. Col. Jenny Holbert, an officer for the Marines Corps Warfighting
Laboratory in Quantico, Va., which is in charge of the training.

   For the 80 officers involved, it was a clipboard exercise. The marines
didn't rappel down the Sears Tower brandishing M-16s or dig foxholes in
Wrigley Field.

   Instead, they toured some of Chicago's antiquated sewer tunnels,
learned about electrical grids, and took notes on police communication
tactics. The only conspicuous things, perhaps, were the fatigues.

   ``They're out here to train their minds,'' says Marines Lt. Col.  Tom
O'Leary.

   Behind the new thrust is the prediction that 70 percent of the world's
population will be living in urban areas by 2020.

   Although marines have fought in urban areas from Seoul to Somalia, the
landscape has changed dramatically. When they fought in Hue City, Vietnam,
in 1968, for instance, the tallest buildings were just three stories high.
By their own admission, Marine Corps officials say they aren't ready for
combat in urban environments. Indeed, they point out that city streets are
tough places to wage war because of the density of buildings and people
and problems with mobility and communication. ``If we're going to do our
job right, we've got to figure out how to fight and operate in an urban
environment,'' Colonel Holbert says.

   The visit to Chicago is part of a Marines experiment called Urban
Warrior, in which officers are developing new combat methods and equipment
to wage wars in foreign cities. Over the next year, marines will descend
on New York City and Camp Lejeune, N.C., for training and will conduct
tactical exercises in Jacksonville, Fla. The experiment began last year
with training in a model town at Camp Lejeune and will finish next March
with a mock battle in a still-undisclosed West Coast city.

   Techniques officers are developing include how to maneuver through
streets and alleys, how to move around inside buildings when the power is
out and how to handle hazards like sewers. ``We're also trying to figure
out how to cross from the 16th floor of one skyscraper to the ninth floor
of another,'' Holbert says.

   The last time the Marine Corps looked seriously at any kind of new
tactics was during the 1920s and '30s, when amphibious assaults were
developed.

   The goal for the Chicago visit is to learn more about ``how a city
operates so that we will be better at fighting in any city of the world,''
Holbert says. The Windy City was chosen as a training ground because it
features most of the major elements of an urban setting: skyscrapers,
sewers, subways, and crowed sidewalks. Nothing was said about its famed
deep-dish pizza.

   Local officials welcomed the marines, which may have been the biggest
contingent of fatigues in the city since the 1968 Democratic convention.

   ``We were happy to cooperate - one reason being that we may learn
something from them [about] security,'' says John Camper, of Mayor Richard
Daley's office.
 

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