Military to train to fight Zombies?

Zombies a training tool at counterterror event
Army Times
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Sep 19, 2012

SAN DIEGO — Forget the H1N1 pandemic. Could a future crisis arise from an outbreak of viruses that destroy brain cells and render people violently catatonic, like zombies?

JONATHAN NACKSTRAND / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE VIA GETTY IMAGES
Know how to stop the undead? An October exercise in California will pit military trainees against a horde of role-players exhibiting zombielike behavior. Here, participants in a “zombie walk” in Sweden show their stuff.

The far-fetched scenario of a government grappling a zombielike threat has captured the attention and imagination of Brad Barker, president of the security firm HALO Corp.

Next month, his outfit will incorporate — no kidding — zombies into a disaster-crisis scenario at the company’s annual counterterrorism summit in San Diego, a five-day event providing hands-on training, realistic demonstrations, lectures and classes geared to more than 1,000 military personnel, law enforcement officials, medical experts, and state and federal government workers.

HALO will take over the 44-acre Paradise Point resort and create a series of terrorist scenarios, with immersive Hollywood sets including a Middle Eastern village and a pirate haven.

HALO is composed of former military special operators, and intelligence and national security experts.

They train military units, as well as federal and state agencies, in security, counterterrorism, force protection, emergency response and disaster management. Retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, a former CIA and National Security Agency director, and Mexico Interior Secretary Alejandro Poiré Romero will speak during the summit, which runs Oct. 30 to Nov. 2.
read more here