YODAVILLE - It’s Arizona’s newest town. But don’t expect the citizens in the harsh desert near Mexico to vote or pay taxes. That’s because the 120 inhabitants, if you want to call stick people that, are raked regularly with bombs, missiles and machine-gun fire. Powerful lasers sweep their streets.
This is Yodaville, a village of 167 buildings, some four stories high, made from thousands of stacked, surplus cluster bomb containers. It resembles a bleak, nightmarish Lego-land. But military planners say it’s vital for training for future wars. Finished two months ago, Yodaville, 35 miles southeast of Yuma on the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, is the U.S. military’s first urban bombing range. It is replete with streets, street lights and civilian and military vehicles. “We even looked in Hollywood to try to find fake trees. We also looked for power poles and lines. But we ran out of money,” Marine Maj. Jim Parrington said. He said there has been a crying need for such a training site since 18 U.S. soldiers were killed in the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993. The Marines say that their mission will become increasingly urban since 70 percent of the world’s population is projected to be in cities by 2020. One of the pilots in Somalia, Maj. Floyd Usry, came up with the concept of the training village. Since “Yoda” was his radio call sign, Marine engineers took to calling the site Yodaville.
The mistaken attack on the Chinese Embassy in Kosovo also pressed the need for more accuracy in urban warfare. But Parrington said the military’s problems in city fighting go all the way back to the savage battle for the provincial Vietnamese capital of Hue 30 years ago. “In World War II, we could make it miserable for whole city blocks,” Parrington said. “But things are different now. You have to pinpoint the threat and attack it precisely.” Laser-guided weapons have their limitations in urban fighting. Laser sight lines often can’t be established because of the speed of planes and targets in tight surroundings. Laser beams also bounce off glass surfaces. As a result, the U.S. military is trying to develop small bombs, in the 25- to 50-pound range, for urban warfare rather than the standard 500-pound bombs of the past, Parrington said. That, coupled with accuracy and developing new city bombing tactics, is the focus at Yodaville.
There’s a decidedly Third World feel to the place. A mock soccer field is painted green on the edge of town. Streets are narrow. There’s a large shantytown. And talk about ambience. The seeringly hot desert teems with sidewinders and an occasional scrub creosote bush or cactus. Marine Corps engineers first had to clear mounds of used weapons at the construction site. Now, spent bomb casings and other ammo litter the entrance to town near sickly ocotillos coated with a grimy gray dust.
Hornet and Harrier jets scream over the saw-toothed ridge of the nearby Gila Mountains, and deliver their payloads from high over the town as military observers measure their accuracy. Sgt. Kevin Smith, the Marines’ construction foreman, said he thought the brass had lost its mind when it ordered the town to be built to scale last October in an area 800 feet by 1,000 feet. But eight months and round-the-clock rail delivery of more than 23,000 cluster-bomb containers later, the town was ready for bombing on June 9. Each of the containers measure 2 feet by 6 feet and 2 feet deep. Smith said the project would have cost $14 million if contracted to civilians. But Marine Corps engineers took on most of the construction chores and $2 million was spent on outsiders to build the roads. Actually, the roads are sand covered with black chemicals. The completion of Yodaville set off shock waves in militia groups around the country, who weren’t aware that it is a mock town in a military area. Some thought that the Marines were attacking an Arizona town at the behest of the New World Order. Even the Phoenix office of the FBI was in the dark. It sent a message to an Internet group that monitors militias last month seeking more information about Yodaville.
More than 1,500 sorties are planned for Yodaville, including those by attack helicopters, in its first six months of operation. Each day brings a different military scenario. Last Friday, Hornet jets were scouring the town at low altitude looking for fleeing enemy troops and vehicles. The bad guys are easy to spot since they are clad in camouflage. Friendly troops wear green. Villagers wear nothing at all. One jet streaked above the town at 1,000 feet, firing diversionary flares while looking for anti-aircraft guns. The pilot found an armored personnel carrier instead on a street between two of the largest buildings. He dropped an inert bomb, which was supposed to send up a white puff of smoke on impact. But there was no smoke nor trace of the bomb. “Oh no!,” barked Capt. Scott Halverson, an Army Cobra pilot, into his telephone, noting that the bomb was way off target. “The impact was in a no-drop zone.” But the following operations went much better. One pilot dropped three bombs within 30 yards of a jeep. “There wouldn’t have been anything left of him,” Marine Capt. Sean McPherson said. “This is the best day we’ve had as far as nearness to targets.”
Border Patrol agents in Yuma just hope none of those targets are real people. Yodaville was built only seven miles from the border and is near a popular crossing site that begins at a rural truck stop in Sonora, just south of the bounder, said Al Casillas, a Border Patrol spokesman. Needless to say, Casillas added, Yodaville poses extreme risks to illegal immigrants crossing into the United States. Border Patrol agents fear that its appearance of being a town and streetlights at night will lure unsuspecting illegal immigrants in search of water into harm’s way. “When we track a group of illegals onto the range, we let the Marines know and they close down their operations,” Casillas said. “That generally happens twice a week. But you wonder how many others are out there. We just hope this doesn’t become a major attraction and that they have enough water to walk more than seven miles.”
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