Simville

Training for a deployment in a far off land as a civilian means learning your job well, and preparing for bad things.  An Advisor is not a soldier, nor do (or should) we pretend to be.  Our job is to work the Government end of capacity building while others put pointy things into bad people.  That said, we need to know how to plan for and mitigate the threats to us (mature folks use “mitigate”, the young use “kill”). 

We have moved ourselves to the Muscatatuck urban environment training site about 50 miles further into rural Indiana; essentially a Hollywood set on steroids.  This place began its life as an old hospital before it closed down in the ‘80s.  It has since reopened for a new job and grown to include reconstructed sections of towns suffering from the ravages of war and disaster.  Wrecked cars, demolished homes and gutted office buildings are peppered throughout.  

There are also sites to simulate a train wreck, graveyard, school, bus depot, an Embassy and a trailer park for good measure.  This place would be awesome for Halloween.  We live at a pleasant housing area at one end of Simville and attend classes at the other end with our chow hall comfortably in between. 

I walk every day amongst the ruins as if I’m in a scene from the Walking Dead.  This is cool!!