“We’re going to be watching what they do in the public,” states Pete Lanteri, the Marine veteran who is organizing the counter initiative, “Obviously on a military base they can do whatever they want. But if they’re going to train on public land we have a right as American citizens to watch what they’re doing.”
Eric Johnston, a 51-year-old retired firefighter and sheriff’s deputy who lives in Kerrville, is a surveillance team leader in Texas. He’ll coordinate three groups of volunteers, about 20 folks in total, who hope to monitor the SEALs, Green Berets and Air Force Special Ops in Bastrop, Big Spring and Junction when Jade Helm kicks off on July 15. With media prohibited at the drills, the volunteers could be a main source of information for the highly-anticipate seven-state exercise.
But locations more precise than the towns around which troops will drill remain unknown. For the citizens’ surveillance operation, therein lies the first challenge.
“If a team member sees two Humvees full of soldiers driving through town, they’re going to follow them,” Johnston said. “And they’re going to radio back their ultimate location.”
They aren’t worried about martial law, he said, but feel like they can’t trust the government, and want to make sure the Military isn’t under orders to pull anything funny.
The Texas volunteers are just one regiment of a national effort, organized by 44-year-old former Marine Pete Lanteri, a New Yorker living in Arizona with plenty of experience on civilian border patrols. He founded the Counter Jade Helm Facebook page, with six thousand members, and he made the webpage and forum to which field reports will be uploaded.
“We’re going to be watching what they do in the public,” he said. “Obviously on a military base they can do whatever they want. But if they’re going to train on public land we have a right as American citizens to watch what they’re doing.”
He said the volunteer force includes about 200 people, with the largest group in Arizona. Many former military and law enforcement, as well as lifelong civilians have joined the cause.
Lanteri will coordinate the whole seven-state operation from his home in Phoenix, Ariz., where each field report will be received. Other individuals, like Johnston, will lead the efforts in each state, and others still will oversee the operations in each town where Jade Helm will take place.
There, volunteers will locate the drill sites and observe. Johnston said there’s a strict no-camouflage policy to avoid the appearance of a more radical group, and they’ll all be unarmed. With binoculars and spotting scopes, they’ll record troop numbers, uniforms and activities.
Source: chron.com
You can follow the counter Jade Helm initiative on their Facebook page here.
Dylan ….
You might want to background check Mr. Lanteri.
At age 44, according to your ariticle, he’s a Marine Veteran. However, I have good reason to believe that Mr. Lanteri only served two years with the Marine Corps.
I could be wrong but not since the end of Vietnam has the Marine Corps had less than a 4 year enlistment.