I thought they were for martial law......

Don’t be alarmed if armored military vehicles are spotted on Sheboygan County roadways.

Starting today until Aug.17, soldiers from the 102D Military Police Company will be training on M1117 Armored Security Vehicles on roads in the area.

These models have been used overseas in Afghanistan. According to Capt. William Geddes of the 200th Military Police Command at Fort Mead, Md., the M1117s are used for patrol missions.

“They’re vehicles that these military officers might use if they’re deployed, patrol vehicles,” Geddes said. “These are not uncommon (in the military). They’re vehicles that have been in the system.”

The vehicles can be quite strange and intimidating to the regular viewer. They are heavily armored and about the size of a large SUV. Geddes said the vehicles are designed to be driven mostly on paved, regular roads.

This particular company is fairly new to operating the M1117s but they have had the vehicles in inventory for a while, Geddes said, so the company has already received basic training on driving them. Geddes said this training session’s primary focus is to keep the company from getting rusty in handling the M1117s.

“It’s a situation where soldiers were trained, but need to get time behind the wheel to stay proficient in the skill set of operating these vehicles,” he said.

Geddes said the U.S. Army Reserve wanted to alert the public to the training dates so residents are not alarmed when a pack of heavily armored military vehicles is driving around the county. He urged drivers to be safe when they see the M1117s.

“When we switched from jeeps to humvees, everyone was driving around taking their eyers of the road to look at them because they weren’t used to seeing them,” Geddes said. “The same thing could happen with these.”

Sheboygan County Administrator Adam Payne said he had not heard about the training exercises. Two city officials declined to comment, because they also had heard nothing about the training.

Sheboyganpress