Fort Drum Ruins Training

"Unusual features have been built in the Fort Drum military
installation near Watertown, NY. In an effort to train soldiers and
pilots to recognize such features as cemeteries and ancient ruins,
archaeologist Laurie Rush used Defense Department funding to build a
Muslim cemetery and a mound of ruins on one of the Army's ranges. The
project began when Rush learned of the defiling of Babylon in 2003 by
invading U.S. Marines who built a helicopter pad on the ruins of the
ancient city, destroyed a 2,600-year-old brick road, and filled
sandbags with archaeological fragments. A veteran pilot observing the
new "ruins" at Fort Drum said they looked like the ones over there.
The project will give pilots firsthand experience in recognizing and
identifying these kinds of sites from the air."

Reported by Lois Feister in the "Current Research" section of the
"Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology Newsletter" (p. 14 March
2007, Number 66)

Envirosphere, with offices then in a World Trade Center tower (on the
90th of three or four floors it, a part of the Texas-based Ebasco, had
occupied before moving to East Orange, NJ) did the original
archaeological survey in 1983 that I was hired for. The US Army 10th
Mountain Division has since moved permanently there. There were
interesting bog iron foundries there and a large dairy industry. A-10s
used to fly there often for range practice.

George Myers