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CNN Live Saturday
Marines Practice Mountain Assaults
Aired October 06, 2001 - 17:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Now we're going to take a close look at the lay of the land in Afghanistan and some of the problems that it presents. As you'll be able to see Afghanistan is definitely land locked. And one of its most important geographic features is the massive mountain range that is known as the Hindu Kush. Those mountains that make the prospect of military ground engagement very daunting.
Just to give you an idea of how tremendous this is -- the Hindu Kush is -- it is stretching about 1,000 miles long. I want to go to the telestrator here and give you an idea.
Here's the Hindu Kush stretching about 1,000 miles long it has more than two dozen summits that stretch 23,000 feet in height -- a very large area.
Now fighting in mountainous terrain requires some specialized training and as CNN's Thelma Gutierrez has more for us now from the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a covert world closed to civilians.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seven, four, six, four, eight, one. They're still on the move.
GUTIERREZ: A place where commandos blend into the night, glimpsed only with our night vision lens.
It's called the Mountain Warfare Training Center near Bridgeport, California where 10,000 U.S. Marines practice mountain assault techniques every year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Small reconnaissance, do you want to check out the area around us?
GUTIERREZ: The military says this is routine training but this year the training has special relevance. The rugged terrain here matches some of the challenges of Afghanistan's mountains.
LT. COL. DAVID FUQUEA, U.S. MARINE CORPS: In over the last couple of days we've built a picture of the enemy that tells me he's up in this high ground and that the three companies are now behind him and pushing him downhill towards the rest of my fire support units, which will then engage hopefully as we push him out of the high ground.
GUTIERREZ: This is all part of a three day war training exercise that takes place on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The training goes on all through the night under the cover of darkness.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It tells me where somebody is.
GUTIERREZ: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's probably about six or seven guys right in this area here.
GUTIERREZ: I can't see a thing.
Only infrared night scope vision glasses change that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Light Horse, Light Horse.
GUTIERREZ: The training is designed to simulate real battle conditions. This is the field command center -- a high tech, mobile communications operation where the units' positions are tracked and so are the enemy's'.
No phone calls, no two-way radios are needed here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In this corner we maintain what's called a VSM Digital Communications and load it into a computer, shot it in a burst transmission behind our headquarters and now all of a sudden they have a complete picture of operational plan that we want to carry out.
GUTIERREZ: It happens instantaneously. The information is encrypted twice. The technology has its price.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are tremendous tools that give us tremendous capability but also, like anything, is susceptible to viruses. And also I have to keep a generator outside running all the time whereas five years ago doing this is I didn't have that noise signature and I could do everything without making a lot of noise.
GUTIERREZ: The troops stay on the move all night in the cold with little sleep. By day they practice survival on steep hillsides that reach 14,000 feet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This mountain range in particular is very, very loose rock. It's all shale, which means every foot you put down doesn't stay where you put it -- it will go about two foot below you.
GUTIERREZ: For the past month the 42nd Commando group of the British Royal Marines train alongside the 1st Battalion 6th Marine regiment from North Carolina. LT. COL. DAVID HOOK, ROYAL MARINE COMMAND: We don't have the opportunity to train at this sort of altitude in the United Kingdom but more importantly it gives us the opportunity to train alongside our U.S. Marine Corps brothers.
CAPT. BRAD YOUNG, U.S. MARINE CORPS: Our forces are well equipped for anything -- any kind of terrain to fight in including the terrain that may be in Afghanistan or anywhere around the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Say it again? Over.
GUTIERREZ: Together they demonstrate an assault of a 300-foot cliff.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You'll need an indirect approach -- the reason they're coming this route is because it's not defended and it gives them the ability to slip in the backdoor of an enemy force.
GUTIERREZ: The days of practice pay off. They make it up to the ridge within minutes. Neither of these units -- Americans or British -- have yet been given deployment orders. They say with this rugged mountain training they are ready when the order comes.
Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, in the Sierra Nevada, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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