MOUT: 29 Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC), Twentynine Palms, CA
29 Palms' MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) facilities stand in for war zones in the Middle East. They include mock villages and a mock city where Marines and sailors play out conflict scenarios.
An examination of how military groups employ simulation, role-playing, and performance to deliver training required to operate in the extreme conditions of combat.
Thirty miles east of Indio, California in a largely uninhabited desert landscape, sits the largest military training ground in U.S. history, though you might not have heard of it.
Incendiary Traces led a recent draw-in at the 29 Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center where participants used drawing as a tool for connecting the SoCal landscape to foreign battle zones.
After participating in the Incendiary Traces visit to the 29 Palms Marine Base, writer David Buuck contributes an excerpt from a novel about role players in a military training scenario.
The towns in the eastern side of the Coachella Valley have long utilized romanticized portrayals of the Middle East to shape views of their own desert backyard.