Urban warfare military explosions rock Flint, Michigan, residents failed to get the memo

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Yet another location is erupting into urban army exercises ahead of the nationwide Jade Helm drills that have many concerned about martial law and the true intentions of mock takeovers of U.S. cities across the map.

This time, it was unexpected "simulated explosions" that rattled residents in a neighborhood of Flint, Michigan after the U.S. Army initiated training without warning the locals - despite the fact that the drills, which will last until June 12, had been planned for six months.

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According to WNEM 5:

"I was standing there, and all of a sudden, boom!" Jean Glenn said.

"I mean it was loud, it blew up the whole sky or whatever, it was like four or five big bangs," Annette Humphrey said.

Explosions you'd expect in a war zone echoed through Flint. People's homes shook and those inside were caught off-guard. It all went down Tuesday at the shuttered Lowell Junior High on the city's east side.

MLive added:

"They should warn the residents around here at least when there's something that loud and scary," said Nicole Robinson, 28. "That's pretty crazy."

The exercises involve the use of "training simunitions and helicopters. Sounds associated with the training may be heard in the local area," the city's statement says.

"The Flint Police Department is aware of the training and will contact residents in the immediate area where training will occur."

Transparency is definitely part of the issue, and it will do little to dispel the growing concerns about the real reasons for military training all across the country in cities from Florida to Michigan to Texas and Utah.

Technically, a press release was put out, but the news went out such a short time before that most had no idea it was coming.

Just after 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, the city sent out a release informing the public about the exercises. People say the explosions went off around 2 Tuesday afternoon, but why were residents given such short notice?

"Obviously, I can't speak for the Army on that, but we try to give people a heads up when we can, we can't go into too much detail, we don't want people just coming to these things and sightseeing," Lorenz said. (source)

The Army and city blamed a last-minute change in schedule that prompted an 'early start':

"Yesterday was a unique situation," said Chief James Tolbert. "For whatever reason the timetable was moved up. And we put it out as soon as we could. We did put it out before there was any type of explosives."

Meanwhile, reporters since that time have been asked not to film the events - get this, if their faces are shown:

[...] the officials from the army didn't wanted their faces shown during our broadcast.

The concern: terrorists may try to find them and harm them.

Officials do say they will release more information following the exercises, but specifics will be kept secret so tactics aren't passed to our enemies.

The excuses for why a press release wasn't put out sooner and why residents weren't put on notice there in Michigan hardly holds water when you look at the past examples of urban warfare training that also curiously kept locals in the dark.

Infowars carried this report about training Florida back in March that also caught people off guard with 'little or no notice':

The Department of Defense is conducting military training in Broward County this week, with exercises involving low flying helicopters that will 'scare the crap out of people', according to one local reporter.

"This type of training where military helicopters go around scaring the crap out of people has been conducted in different cities across the country and is designed to certify service members in urban environment operations for any future overseas deployments," writes Chris Joseph of the Broward/Palm Beach New Times, adding, "Don't panic. Those military aircraft and soldiers you see down the street are only a drill."

[...]

The U.S. military routinely conducts urban warfare exercises domestically, sometimes with little or no warning whatsoever, drawing criticism that the drills are designed to acclimate Americans to a state of martial law.

Last year, the Twin Cities were also "occupied" by urban training without warning, when low-flying helicopters buzzed concerned residents:

With no warning for residents, military helicopters flew low Monday evening over St. Paul and Minneapolis in a federal training exercise, about which officials released almost no information.

The St. Paul police watch commander initially had no information on the exercise.

He was later informed that it was a training exercise involving Homeland Security and local law enforcement.

[...]

"Apparently (local law enforcement) worked something out last March. Apparently they were supposed to go through the city of Minneapolis PIO to let people know, but that didn't work out so well," Thune said. "One day's notice is hardly any kind of excuse for doing this kind of thing anyway.

"It's incredibly unsafe," Thune added. "When you've got Blackhawk helicopters flying between buildings full of people in the middle of the night, it's just not safe. ... It's absolutely wrong for us as a civilian police department to be engaging in military exercises. It shouldn't happen here."

Perhaps the element of surprise is key to the training... if so, what is its true purpose?

Perhaps we will all wake up one day, surprised to find that this kind of conduct has not made us, or the world, any safer; and that instead our liberties have been slipping away, while the population has become quietly accustomed to military occupation and, yes, martial law.