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Boston Marathon

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Lord Dick Tim:
I think the IA brief for potentially hostile countries would be a good one.  There's another, don't remember the order number, for dependents in potentially hostile locations.

Charon:
ATFP? That's a pretty solid call, actually.

Charon:
Ol' Tim brings us this link, guys. It's the Anti Terrorism Force Protection level one course, unclassified and open to public. No credentials required to take the course.

https://atlevel1.dtic.mil/at/

I want to hit on only a couple of things here.

First, these IEDs are limited only by the creativity of their creator. You can make a surprisingly great many things explode. Even stockpiles of hydrogen chloride are a huge red flag, believe it or not. As far as the things you might encounter, the majority of these devices are likely to be remote activated, as the technology for remote activation can't be inhibited by ECMs in our country. People would get mad about their laptops not working and all that.

This means you're not going to see mile-long strands of copper wire leading to something dangerous. The likelihood is that the person detonating the device is doing so via cellphone, garage door opener, coleman five-mile radios...Long story short, if you happen upon something taped to a wireless receiver, it's about time to get out of dodge and let someone know.

Don't think of these things as obvious packages with wires sticking out. Anything can contain a bit of explosive. There are a few key points that will key you off to something being a bit suspicious, and the course above should take care of those signs for you.

If you find a device, clear the area. You want at least 200 meters standoff, unless you can manage to find cover. Don't trust cars, unless you're behind the engine block. Cement ought to do it. Calmly move other people from the area if you can, but that's also not necessarily your job, so that's going to fall back on you. After you get to safety, call 911 and report very calmly and very specifically what you saw, where, why it spooked you and what kind of impact it could have on the surrounding area.

If you've been injured, try not to allow yourself to enter "victim" mode. Proactively attempt to treat your injury, if you know what you're doing. If you don't, I'll toss a video up in a bit that shows how to make any strip of cloth into a life saving cravat. Wearing this cravat on your person, or even just having it handy in a cargo pocket equips you to survive some pretty crazy situations. Special Operatives swear by this thing.

If a detonation occurs and you are NOT injured, push out of the affected area and get to cover. Always scan what's around you, consider what the enemy might be trying to get you to do. My general rule is Stop, Look, Think, Act. Get to cover and perform these steps.

Stop: Everything's going to be moving pretty fast, so try to get to cover, somewhere that you've got a moment to observe.
Look: Check out the surroundings. Any obvious threats? Obvious places to run? Are there obstacles to those places? Take in your surroundings.
Think: What is the bad guy trying to get me to do? Is he hoping we'll all crowd down that street to the right? Is this over? What's my route out of here? Finally, how do I help?
Act: Carry out your plan. Remember, a well executed plan now is better than a well thought out plan later.

Final note: If there's one, there's probably two. If it's easily spotted, it's probably designed to keep you where you are, unless the emplacer sucks.

Morblitz:
Ugh. This whole thing. I don't even know what to say.
I heard about it at work during lunch but being in Australia my coworkers didn't know much and internet reception there is pretty shocking (I don't have any personal pc use at my job) so I waited until I got home to find out more.

Just... man.

Lord Dick Tim:
Yea and it comes at a pretty tense time in Washington as well, which may have the unfortunate side affect of a few knee jerk reactions made in response to the tragedy.
Boston itself will recover, she always does, I just hope the help is there for the extended communities that will be affected by this trauma.  It's been hard enough consoling the kids in my program, almost all of them are from Boston.

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