These live military exercises conducted out in public with helicopters, repelling and live ammunition have got to stop.
This was a major beef of mine last year when I brought several cases to light that had been conducted out in the open in Texas in which real citizens were threatened and put in harm's way, by not being informed or protected from the exercises themselves.
This illustration with the military performing a real-time attack on a nuclear power station must have caused some angst, not only with the local folks, but with the FBI and all local law enforcement.
Who really needs the aggravation? This was especially important as it was only a few days after 9/11.
The fact the military feels bold enough to do what it wants OUT IN PUBLIC is a fairly frightening concept.
In the others cases I investigated, bribes had been paid to county officials by middle men from the military to conduxct these exercises out in public.

>"This is not the first time that a Fort Bragg training simulation has gone wrong due to poor communication. On the evening of Sept. 14, 2001, the Army launched a mock attack against Duke Energy Co.'s Catawba Nuclear Power Plant on the border between North and South Carolina. The simulation included soldiers rappelling from helicopters and small-arms fire near the plant, the Raleigh News and Observer reported.

Residents who saw several helicopters flying low toward the plant called police, who informed state security officials. When the county emergency-operations center and air-traffic control were unable to reach the helicopters by radio, two F-16s scrambled from Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina. By midnight, eight state and federal agencies, including the FBI, were looking into the scare. After nine hours of uncertainty, the FBI told local officials that the plant was not under attack and that the suspicious activity was part of a military exercise."