Jade Helm 15 — a two-month, seven-state Army Special Operations training exercise — is scheduled to start Wednesday, prompting concerns among some residents, especially in Texas, where the governor ordered the state guard to monitor it.
A town hall meeting this spring drew hundreds of residents to one of the training sites in central Texas, where an Army spokesman was inundated with questions from conspiracy theorists who had traveled from across the state. Late Tuesday, the Army released a statement again attempting to allay residents’ fears by clarifying what soldiers will be doing, and where.
The training will be on private land and military installations, including National Guard training centers and an Army Reserve center in Arizona; Eglin Air Force Base in Florida; Camp Beauregard in Louisiana; Camp Shelby, the Naval Research Laboratory, Stennis Space Center, and the U.