WTHR |Atterbury MPs on alert for military exercise

Atterbury MPs on alert for military exercise

Bartholomew County - Camp Atterbury is hosting thousands of soldiers from all over the country for a disaster exercise. Soldiers started arriving today, putting the military police on alert in light of Fort Hood's mass shooting Thursday in which 13 people died and 30 were wounded.

The shooting at Fort Hood, according to the military police at Camp Atterbury, took extraordinary efforts by the suspect. Ammunition is supposed to be highly secured on post.

During the next seven days, soldiers loading and unloading trucks and setting up tents will be a common sight at Atterbury. Soldiers participating in the exercise are getting plenty of instructions so they can learn how to tackle any type of natural or manmade disaster, including chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological agents. It's the largest exercise of its kind in the military.

Some of the soldiers will have weapons as part of their training.

Capt. Gary Blagburn is a military police officer at Atterbury. His job is too make sure those weapons are loaded at the right time and in the right place. With the population of a small city coming through Atterbury this week, his job just got a lot more difficult.

"That is part of the training of going overseas - always carrying your weapon and making sure that you have that accountability of it," he said.

"All of the ammunition is issued out when you are down range. Then prior to leaving the range they have a clearing procedure so that none of that ammunition is brought back," he explained.

The only soldiers with loaded guns on any base are the military police. At Fort Hood, that was also the case, but the accused shooter managed to get a loaded gun onto the base and started shooting in a very busy area.