Expect more nightly military drills

Short notice given to some residents, officials about Army operations around San Antonio

Soldiers in military helicopters will train this week in various locations around San Antonio, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command said, conducting nightly exercises that officials confirmed would continue “for the next several days.”

The exercises, which began Monda, will go from around 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. through Friday, said Maj. Mike Burns, a spokesman for the Fort-bragg, N.c.based command.

It will involve roughly 100 soldiers, including support personnel, using an unspecified number of UH-60 Black Hawk, CH-47 Chinook and MH-6M Little Bird helicopters.

Residents “may hear low-flying helicopters, simulated gunfire and controlled explosions during periods of darkness,” Police Chief William Mcmanus said Sunday, describing a smaller footprint and timeline, from 7 p.m. Monday to 1 a.m. Tuesday in downtown and central San Antonio.

A San Antonio Police Department news release Sunday evening was the city’s first public announcement of the training, about 24 hours before it was to begin. It said the exercise had been planned for months and “was coordinated with the appropriate local officials.”

Mayor Ron Nirenberg learned of it Friday, said his spokesman, Bruce Davidson, who did not respond when asked later if the mayor was satisfied with the degree of public notice offered by the city.

Nirenberg was unavailable for an interview.

Assistant City Manager Jeff Coyle described the upcoming operation in an email to the mayor and City Council at 9:52 p.m.

Sunday, couching it in the language of an initial briefing.

“This training will consist of air and ground mobility operations and close-quarter combat training to enhance soldiers’ skills by operating in a realistic environment,” it said. Coyle said safety precautions had been put in place “to protect participants and residents, along with planning considerations to minimize impacts to the community and private property.”

Municipal officials “are not

permitted by the military to publicly disclose the exact locations and times of the training,” he noted.

Responding to questions Monday, Coyle said the training “is largely taking place inside of vacant or abandoned buildings” and suggested the military had regularly done similar training in the years before the coronavirus pandemic hit. He provided no examples.

District 1 Councilman Mario Bravo, who represents downtown and the near North Side, said he didn’t know about the Army training before reading about it in an Express-news online story Sunday night.

“Of course I would have liked to hear about it sooner,” he said. “To me, it makes a lot of sense that we would have given much more advanced notice.”

Giving residents a two-week heads-up would have been more appropriate, Bravo said. A military veteran affected by posttraumatic stress disorder might have more easily made arrangements to stay with a friend and avoid the disruptions, he said.

A plainly printed flyer posted in the Dignowity Hill neighborhood east of downtown said the area might be affected every night through Friday. “Strange that there’s no phone number or logos on it,” said one commenter who displayed it on Nextdoor, the online neighborhood newsletter.

“Very strange, the hours are insane,” replied another. “No logo, name, phone? Why in a residential area?”

Burns, the Army Special Operations Command spokesman, said the Army had worked with SAPD and the city to “do everything that we can to notify the people that need to be notified … the people in and around the training areas.”

The command includes the elite Delta Force, but Burns deflected questions about which unit was training in San Antonio, saying, “We’ll stick with United States Army Special Operations Command.”

Another officer with the Army Special Operations Command, speaking on background, said the training would be “in and around San Antonio” and that the exercises had been coordinated with “local law enforcement and local leaders.”

“There will be aircraft, there will be simulated gunfire and there will be simulated breaching exercises.”

“We’re not putting anybody at risk,” he stressed. “We’re not putting anybody in danger of being surprised by the operations.”

“For safety purposes we’re not divulging the specific information outside of the training locations,” the officer continued. “What we have done is coordinated with the San Antonio Police Department and all of the specific locations have been notified of the training — when and where it’s going to occur so that it’s not a surprise to anybody who is in and around the area of the actual training events.”

Coyle’s email said precautions would include San Antonio police officers at training sites “to ensure the safety of both residents and participants.” Residents and businesses in the areas where training will occur “have been and will continue to be notified.”

Among the specific actions taken, the email said, was that a team of San Antonio police officers and military officials went door-to-door Saturday to notify residents and leave flyers.

Police said they would send text alerts and conduct reverse 911 calls to the affected areas Monday, and that 911 dispatchers and 311 call-takers will be ready to answer questions from residents.

“The meetings and planning for this training event began months ago,” Mcmanus said in Sunday’s press release. “Being that San Antonio is known as Military City, USA, we have a long history and strong relationship with the U.S. military, and we’re honored to be able to provide support to the U.S. Army as they conduct this critical training in our city.”

The chief noted that “unique, local terrain provides training opportunities and simulates environments troops may encounter when deployed.”

Military exercises are common in the summer months and routinely include fictitious scenarios.

The Army courted blowback from conspiracy theorists in 2015 with a multistate, largescale exercise called Jade Helm, by using parts of Texas, Utah and a slice of southern California marked “insurgent pocket” as a stand-in for territory labeled as “hostile” on a map.

Jade Helm 15 involved 1,200 troops in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and the Lone Star State, and at one point included plans for a nighttime parachute drop over Camp Bullis that ended up being canceled.

In 1999, the Army’s Delta Force trained in the vacant former Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, conducting a raid on the dilapidated building.

That exercise drew criticism from some elected officials, including then-mayor Howard Peak. who were concerned it would alarm tourists and local residents. But it had enough advance public notice to attract crowds of people to watch it from lawn chairs and atop parked cars outside the post — which was then open to anyone wanting to visit it.

The post was closed to the public about six months before 9/11.

Oddly, some members of Delta Force, which officially didn’t exist, handed business cards identifying them as being with the organization to city officials.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said Monday morning that he was in the dark about this week’s training but supported it.

“I think it’s great they’re doing it, with the volatility around the world, whether there’s the China conflict we’re in right now or whether it’s the aggressiveness of Russia going into Ukraine and who knows where else?”

Bravo said residents who think they hear gunshots are likely to call 911, but he expects his own office to get some calls after the fact, from neighborhood associations asking why they weren’t told about the training sooner.