The use of live fire in civilian areas during secret military training exercises is not that uncommon, according to a former Night Stalker. Such exercises are conducted in cities that give permission, and in others that have not been consulted in advance.
Sgt. Jeff Norgrove was a crew chief on board a Night Stalker helicopter. He served in Somalia supporting the Rangers, in Honduras with the Delta Force, and in other areas. He is well acquainted with the training and activities of the elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment Airborne — the Night Stalkers.
Norgrove added his confirmation that black helicopters do exist and have been flying around U.S. cities on training missions for years. WorldNetDaily has previously reported that Army public affairs officers have also confirmed such reports.
“If you go up to them real close, it’s almost like a 20 grit sandpaper paint job they have,” explained Norgrove about the special black paint used. He said the helicopters fly low over trees at night to avoid detection by ground radar systems. They also utilize special forward-looking infrared night guidance systems and night vision equipment.
“We used to do a lot of that down in Savanna, (Georgia) with the Rangers. Then I got transferred up to Fort Bragg, (North Carolina) and that’s when things got a little hairy,” Norgrove told WorldNetDaily about his training in civilian areas.
“One of the reasons they really got kicking was after Panama when they went in to get Noriega,” said Norgrove. “It was a total disaster. Everywhere we landed there was nothing there or we were already sold out ahead of time.
“All the soldiers were dating Panamanians, so they were tipped off that we were coming. So they learned valuable lessons with that, and also third platoon got caught up in Somalia. That’s why they really started training heavy in (urban areas).”
Norgrove says his years in the Night Stalkers were actually fun and exciting. He achieved his boyhood dream after first attending a military prep school. Getting accepted to the elite group is quite an honor. Many apply for the opportunity, but only the very best are selected.
“It beats sitting in an office, and the money was good because you get the hazard duty pay, combat pay, and all the flight pay. But after I got out that’s when I started to actually get opened up to what’s actually happening. That’s when I started to question a lot of things,” Norgrove explained.
He says the average Night Stalker is between 20 and 22. He is inexperienced, single and loves to party. Duty with the Night Stalkers appeals to many young men who are easily influenced and manipulated; the money they make pays for their good times.
The typical Night Stalker is a cut above the average guy in the military. He is extremely well fit, intelligent, a good learner, doesn’t question authority, and has been proven in previous military experience. It is not easy to become a Night Stalker, and it is even tougher to remain one.
Once selected, soldiers begin a whole new series of training that never ends. Survival, resistance, and escape training are an important aspect of what is taught. Extensive weapons training, ground tactics, and flight training are all major components of the skills that are learned.
Although Night Stalkers are primarily a form of air taxi for Rangers and Delta Force soldiers to get them to their mission, they must also learn ground skills in case they ever find themselves on the ground in unfriendly territory.
“You’d learn ground tactics in case your helicopter was shot down. Just like in Somalia where the aircrew had to hold out with the Rangers there. You go through rappelling drills so when people are actually rappelling out of your chopper you know exactly what they’re doing and they know what you’re doing. Kind of a cross training type of thing,” described Norgrove.
Night Stalkers recently carried Delta Force soldiers in and out of numerous towns in Texas for various training exercises over a two-week period. Operation Last Dance brought controversy when reports in WorldNetDaily were confirmed that live fire was used in civilian areas. One building was nearly destroyed, and significant damage was done to another in the little town of Kingsville.
Residents, who were not warned of the event, were reported to be extremely frightened. A retirement home only a few hundred feet from the exercise, reported many elderly people were fearful that the world was coming to an end and were under beds crying. The sound of machine gun fire and explosives continued for two hours.
The Kingsville mayor, city manager, and police chief had given advance permission to the Army for the exercise in their town. They say they were sworn to secrecy and couldn’t tell anyone.
Some Night Stalker training exercises are conducted over U.S. cities without permission from local officials. The goal of such exercises is often to see how far they can go without being detected. Many civilians have faced ridicule over the years for reporting black helicopters coming out of nowhere and disappearing into the night.
Such sightings were Night Stalkers on training missions, and the people who reported them should not be labeled as extremists or wackos, according to Norgrove.
Night Stalkers often are sent on missions directly into cities to see how far they can get before someone calls 911. They monitor police frequencies and listen for when a complaint comes in. When they are reported to local police they abort the mission.
“During your briefings you’re given your mission. You go to the coordinates you’re supposed to go to, and then usually about that time, you’ve been had. That’s when everything goes out the window. You can either abort on the commander’s decision, or even if the crew chief saw something,” he explained.
The Night Stalker website http://www.nightstalkers.com has many references to killing and death. It also uses mythology and occult symbols. There is a description of the creation of a Night Stalker, written as if it were from the Bible in a mocking fashion. Their creed is also taken from the book of Revelation and speaks of killing and death.
Norgrove says there is no question about the warped minds of some of the members of the Army’s elite Night Stalkers. He said that he regards the website as scary, and that some members have a preoccupation with death and killing.
“You go out to the bar or something. Some of those guys weren’t the kind of guys you’d want to see drunk,” Norgrove stated.
“We had our share of psychos like any other unit,” he stated. “No baby killers or anything like that, but like I said there were people you wouldn’t want to hang out with. They would get the swelled head and think they are better than anybody else. That type of attitude.”
He described some of the members of Delta Force in the same way.
“I used to joke with a bunch with them (Delta Force), because we used to drink with them and things like that. I always called them the dollar short and the day late bunch, because a lot of their missions haven’t gone too well.
“They’re still trying to live down the Desert One that happened in Iran. You know, that was their first mission. Then when they went into Panama looking for Noriega they bungled that one. Somalia was a bungle,” he related.
Norgrove is concerned about the possibility that Night Stalkers and Delta Force soldiers might one day be sent on a mission to fight American citizens.
“If it were to ever come down to and actual weapons confiscation scenario, I don’t know if I could honestly tell if they would do it or not. I would probably say that 60 percent of them would not do it, because they’re well versed about why they’re there — for the Constitution and for domestic and foreign things,” he explained.
But would they fire on American civilians?
“You know what, I would probably guess some of the younger ones would, especially some that are coming out now. Now, when I was in we were pretty rock-steady. We realized what we were there to do was to fight terrorism and outside threats. When we would train in the cities themselves we realized this was training for when we were put elsewhere. That was spelled out to us then. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if people took that attitude now. Things have changed quite a bit in the past six or seven years,” explained Norgrove.
He confirmed that he participated in exercises in which live rounds were used on a number of training missions in U.S. cities.
“Now I don’t condone that. Especially in a city setting, or even in a rural setting,” he commented.
To date, there have been no reports of frightened civilians shooting at the unmarked, black helicopters, or at the equally unidentifiable soldiers. Norgrove thinks the time may soon some when such an incident will occur.
“When I was in, we didn’t have that concern, but with the rise of the militia thing, that’s got to be a concern. It’s in the mission statement. The order for that was not to return fire. When that would happen you just have to report it in and let the local police handle it, if they knew what you were doing. Not all the time did the local police know what you were doing,” he remarked.
The Army Special Operations public affairs office from Fort Bragg, North Carolina confirmed Norgrove’s claim. Soldiers are under orders not to return fire from civilians while on secret training missions.
“Like I said, those helicopters would monitor the local radio signals and tell you when you had to get the heck out of there. That was just a practice. Like in Panama when the Panamanian defense forces showed up and they had to bail out. Same principle. You have to get out quick,” explained Norgrove. Being shot at would just give them practice for getting out quick.
Although he had not participated in a training exercise with a scenario to go in and confiscate firearms, Norgrove said he knew of one that was planned but not carried out.
His unit was to go to a warehouse filled with arms and destroy it. They were never able to carry out that exercise because a suitable warehouse could not be found. Operation Last Dance may have carried out that mission in Kingsville, Texas.
One official in Kingsville believes the exercise in his town, said to be top secret, was really to practice weapons confiscation.
That man is the emergency management coordinator, Tomas Sanchez. He is a highly decorated Navy veteran, wounded in Vietnam and retired after 30 years of service. He now continues to serve as the head of the military police unit of the Texas State Guard.
“I’m sure that if there was an incident, and a SWAT team needed them (Delta Force), the military (Night Stalkers) would fly them in. Depending on the situation, you don’t always agree with it, but sometimes there’s things you can’t do anything about,” stated Norgrove.
The Night Stalkers got their name from their ability to fly at night. They turn off all the lights on their helicopters, use night vision equipment, and somehow manage to fly only feet about the treetops without getting killed — most of the time. Accidents do happen however.
“They had to pay for all the damage because there are accidents, especially with the night training,” said Norgrove. “With the night vision systems we would also test a lot of new equipment. The problems we would have would be midair collisions. Things of that sort.
“You know, night vision really isn’t very good. I wouldn’t recommend it for flying whatsoever,” he added.
One of the eight helicopters used in Kingsville avoided a disaster when it hit the top of a telephone pole at high speed coming into the city. The pole cause a fire only a few feet from a private home.
“If I were them I wouldn’t talk about the mission either,” Norgrove said of military secrecy surrounding the exercise. “Each one is a different scenario. Some people can take that out of context.”
Norgrove said he believed stories about Night Stalkers and Delta Force involved in the FBI assault on the David Koresh group in Waco, Texas. He was not there and did not know any details.
“We didn’t like working with government agencies too much. Like DEA and things like that. That usually was a bad deal. When we were in Columbia giving air support to DEA, we’d go into coke fields and everything was vacant. They were tipped off. So we didn’t like that too much either. Too many leaks in the system,” he said.
Despite public objections, Norgrove defends the use of live fire training exercises in public areas. He qualifies his response with requirements of safety and professionalism in planning.
“If you have a safe environment to actually fire in, and you know your backstops, and you know the bullets aren’t going to over-penetrate, I don’t have a problem with people doing that. If you’re not sure of an area, like landing in a city and tearing up a warehouse and not caring where everything goes, well, then I have a problem with it,” he described.
Norgrove adds justification for the training operations in public areas by pointing to reports that the terrorist threat to America is increasing all the time. There is a real threat that chemical or biological weapons may soon be used in a U.S. city. There is a somewhat lesser threat that a nuclear bomb may be carried into a city and detonated, according to Norgrove.
He says he would not be surprised to see more and more operations like Last Dance to prepare for battle with terrorists on the streets of American cities.
Sgt. Norgrove was a member of Alpha Company of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment Airborne, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he was a crew chief.
One of the reasons he retired from the Army was discontent over the policies of Commander in Chief Bill Clinton.
“Like everybody else, it was time to go,” said Norgrove.
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- The military’s new cowboys?
- Bush says maneuvers not his business
- Army admits live ammo used
- Training ammo claim disputed
- Yes, Texas, there are black helicopters
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