Inspired by Star Trek's Holodeck, Balkan Village is the initial prototype of a holodeck-like environment created for the Mission Rehearsal Exercise Project. The goal of the Mission Rehearsal Exercise (MRE) Project at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) (see below) is to create a virtual reality training environment for military training in scenarios like the one described here.

THE YOUNG ARMY LIEUTENANT'S dilemma begins to unfold as his humvee rumbles into a Balkan village. His radio crackles: “Eagle 6, this is 1-6. The situation here is growing more serious. We’ve spotted weapons in the crowd. How soon can we expect assistance? Over.”

Eagle 6 is the tactical operations center. Eagle 1-6 is a platoon at a nearby storage depot where a group of weapons inspectors are at work. His platoon, Eagle 2-6, has an urgent mission in another part of town, where an angry crowd surrounds a weapons inspection team.

“Estimated ETA at your location, two-zero minutes. Over,” responds the lieutenant. Suddenly his vehicle lurches to a stop. Up ahead, at the rendezvous point, the lieutenant sees that another humvee under his command has collided with a civilian car, seriously injuring a young passenger. A soldier, the driver in the accident, is also slightly injured. The injured boy’s mother – a combustible mixture of fear, anger and hope – bends over her child. She speaks to him softly in Serbian.

“Driver’s got a cracked rib, but the kid is…” The medic hesitates, glancing at the mother. “Sir, we gotta get a medevac in here ASAP.”

Sullen onlookers are gathering even as the lieutenant calls for the medevac helicopter. A TV news cameraman appears and begins videotaping. Then a helicopter roars low overhead, heading for a landing zone farther up the street. In the distance, a rocket propelled grenade explodes. There’s a flurry of small-arms fire.

Is the accident scene secure? The crowd is growing bigger and more restless. What about the landing zone for the helicopter? A frantic radio call from Eagle 1-6 reports that they are now taking fire. Gunshots are heard over the radio. When the lieutenant orders the platoon sergeant to dispatch a squad to secure its route to Eagle 1-6, the mother explodes. Why are the soldiers abandoning her son?

What should the lieutenant do? Does he forget about Eagle 1-6? Maybe he can split his force and send some soldiers to reinforce the outpost? Or should he just abandon the injured boy?

Wednesday, August 18, 1999, Los Angeles Times
Army, USC Join Forces for Virtual Research

Technology: Effort could provide more realistic military training simulations and better Hollywood special effects

By KAREN KAPLAN, Times Staff Writer
Setting the stage for an unprecedented collaboration between the Pentagon and Hollywood, the U.S. Army today will announce the formation of a major research center at USC to develop core technologies that are critical to both the military and to the entertainment industry. The US Army awarded a contract to the University of Southern California to create the Institute For Creative Technologies (ICT) in order to work with the entertainment and game development industries and computer scientists to advance immersive training simulation.

The primary goal of the new Institute for Creative Technologies is to work collaboratively with the entertainment industry to allow the Army to create highly realistic training simulations that rely on advances in virtual reality, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies. The entertainment industry is expected to use the technology to improve its motion picture special effects, make video games more realistic and create new simulation attractions for virtual reality arcades.

"It's a marriage made in heaven," said Anita Jones, a computer science professor at the University of Virginia who first proposed that the military and Hollywood jointly develop key technologies in the mid-1990s when she served as the Defense Department's director of defense research and engineering.

Paramount Simulation Uses Scripts, Technology to Test Handling of Crisis
By JOHN LIPPMAN
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

LOS ANGELES -- In Bosnia, cable-news correspondent Jackie Banberry has just completed an interview in which Balkan warlord Dragon Vatroslav issued threats against American troops. As she prepares to tape a lead-in, machine-gun fire is heard off camera.
"What is that?" a panicked Ms. Banberry shouts, seconds before her satellite link cuts abruptly to a test pattern.

This isn't a new international crisis. It's part of an interactive training exercise created for the Pentagon that had its origins in a project developed at Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures. Ms. Banberry and Mr. Vatroslav are fictional characters, the machine gun is a sound-effect, and the whole exercise is an effort by Hollywood to give the military a hand.

This weekend in Los Angeles, about 40 top Hollywood executives will meet with President Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove, to discuss what roles Hollywood might play in the war on terrorism.

full story

Institute for Creative Technologies

Full Spectrum Warrior: Full Spectrum Warrior is based on a game developed by the ICT for the U.S. Army to train light Infantry troops in urban combat situations, now released as a consumer product on Xbox consoles.

Jane's Combat Simulations: a collaborative partnership between Jane's Defense (the world's leading source for defense intelligence and information) and Electronic Arts (the the world's leading independent games developer)

America's Army: The Official Army Game: the controversial US army authored video game designed as a recruitment tool

Military Training Technology Online

Combatsim.com