Fair Game Blog — The Crucible, Part 1
Another welcome surprise this morning. Instead of just driving straight back to NY on Monday morning with the picture car, I get to drive Janet Zucker, the producer, and Doug down to Virginia where Naomi is going to do some training for her role.
Naomi is playing Valerie Plame, who was a C.I.A. non-official cover (NOC). An NOC is an agent who assumes covert roles in organizations without ties to the government for which they work. Like all C.I.A. recruits, the real Valerie Plame graduated from the infamous Camp Peary “Farm” top-secret C.I.A. training facility in Virginia.
By the time we have reached our destination in Virginia, we have passed the Pentagon, NSA headquarters and Quantico, the largest U.S. Marine Corps base in the world; so it’s pretty apparent that we are at the epicenter of US defense.
The facility that Naomi will be training at is suitably located at the end of a dead-end road in the woods in Virginia; the kind of road that you would never venture down unless you had a particular reason to do so; appropriate given that the clientele who train here are mostly military special forces and specialist police units. No actors or actresses have ever trained here.
The training facility is called the “Crucible” and is run by two former Marines. Upon hearing this name, most people’s thoughts probably go to burning witches but the Crucible is also the name given to the final test in phase three of Marine Corps recruit training. Designed to emphasize the importance of teamwork in overcoming adversity, the Crucible is a rigorous 54-hour field training exercise, demanding the application of everything a recruit has learned until that point in recruit training.
The instructors at the Crucible hail from the ranks of the U.S. Marine Corps and various spec-ops units and they educate students in the use of firearms, impact weapons, edged weapons, less-than-lethal weapons and unarmed combat, as well as in executive protection, high-performance driving and explosives detection.
After 9-11, a rash of security companies started up with little or no experience. In sharp contrast, the instructors at “Crucible” are required to routinely deploy overseas and provide training to various military, police and protective-services units, or to actually participate in an operational capacity. That experience distinguishes them from their peers, and keeps their instructional material on the cutting edge.
A burst of gunfire from the range, and the ominous skull logo at the front of the building, welcome us on arrival. I have the camera rolling as we enter inside where we’re confronted with a large matted area. Two men in combat fatigues stop hitting a life-like plastic sparring dummy, to eyeball the little red light on my camera that indicates I am recording.
We move upstairs. I keep rolling. Hung from the ceiling are at least 30 flags, presumably countries in which the instructors have operated. All the usual suspects are represented: Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Serbia, Columbia, etc.
We entered the office of the boss, 2008 Black Belt Self-Defense instructor of the year, Kelly McCann. While serving in the United States Marine Corps, Mr. McCann was responsible for standardizing all hostage recovery tactics and equipment, and training all counter-terrorist forces. He holds a Master Instructor rating in combative skills and is a subject-matter expert in close combat for the U.S. Marine Corps; close quarters battle for the Office of Naval Research; protective services for the United States Department of State; apprehension avoidance for the Joint Personal Recovery Agency, and high-risk environment tactics, techniques and procedures for the Department of Defense. Of course, at this stage I didn’t know any of this.
As I crossed the threshold he immediately jabbed a finger in my direction, drilled a hole in my head with piercing eyes and told me (with a splash of Anglo-Saxon for emphasis) to switch the camera off immediately. He explained that there was a “group” training in the facility that was “sensitive” to being filmed. And I sensed the term “sensitive” was euphemistic.
Not the most auspicious of introductions.
To Be Continued …
Read About Naomi’s Training at The Crucible, Part 2
(25 votes, average: 2.80 out of 4)
Post a Comment to Fair Game Blog — The Crucible, Part 1