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Daily News Record

Training In Woodstock

By Brad Jenkins

One of the "kidnappers" takes valuables from a "hostage" during a hostage-taking scenario in Woodstock. As the white bus bumps along the narrow, winding, gravel road, one guy reads a newspaper. Others chat about the day ahead.

Everything appears to he normal for the passengers, who are heading to a wooded retreat center for day two of a five-day seminar.

At 9:01 a.m., about 10 minutes after heaving a local hotel, an explosion outside she bus smothers the tranquil sound of birds chirping in the nearby woodlands.

Six camouflaged men carrying guns storm the bus, their loud demands jumbled together.

"Get your hands down." one man shouts at the passengers, his orders filled with expletives.

Sporadic gunfire pops around the bus. The passengers inside now sit silently.

About a minute after storming the bus, the intruders are quiet, too. With hand gestures and menacing facial expressions, they guide the passengers' hands onto the back of the seat in front of them.

Once their hands are in place, the intruders force black bags around the passengers heads.

For the passengers, it is now silent and dark.
Uncertainty rules.

Every month here in the USA, journalists and aid workers and others traveling to hostile countries- become "hostages" as a team from Centurion Risk Assessment Services Ltd (UK) becomes "kidnappers."

The hostage simulation is only a small part of the England-based company's effort to educate journalists and others about the dangers of traveling to hostile situations.

"If it's Tuesday, it must be hostage day" one of the "kidnappers" jokes as he prepares for the bus' arrival.

But for the 15 journalists and one United Nations worker on the bus, there's no joking involved.

Each passenger's head now covered with a black polyester bag, the kidnappers drive the bus farther along the bumpy road to a small field near Massanutten Military Academy's training grounds.

A "kidnapper" pulls a "hostage" toward a field where the "hostages" will be searched. After the brief trip, the hostages are led off the bus, placed in a single-file line and marched around the field. Intermittent gunfire fills the otherwise peaceful setting.

After walking around the field, the kidnappers shove the hostages on the ground. Each is brusquely patted down, their watches, wallets and other valuables stripped from them.

One of the hostages, wearing a red and blue wind breaker, groans as a kidnapper takes the man's belongings. A woman sighs as she feels the effects of having a bag over her head.

When one man scratches his neck a terrorist places a gun at the mans temple.

The gun only has blanks, and the terrorists are actors, but the reality of being kidnapped is starting so sink in.

Centurion's training sessions in Woodstock began in October 2000. Since January the company has assembled groups from all over the world each month at Massanutten Military Academy's training grounds in Woodstock VA.

In addition in teaching trainees how to survive a kidnapping, the company also teaches the group to administer first aid, recognize weapons and deal with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Most seminar attendees at this recent seminar are Associated Press reporters, photographers and television producers. The U.N. worker is a media spokesman in Bogota, Colombia.

They have all been in or will be in hostile situations.

"Leaders and factions in warring countries have become increasingly hostile to journalists," says Paul Rees (Managing Director), who founded Centurion in 1995 after about 70 journalists were killed in Bosnia during a civil war there.

"They don't want the rest of the world to hear what happens there," Rees says.

A greater emphasis on investigative journalism has produced more hostility, Rees says.

Rees and his 16 trainers are all former Royal Marine commandos, the British equivalent of American Special Forces.

In the six years she has worked as a producer for AP television, Sandra Hodzic has been in several hostile situations, including in Bosnia and other Balkan countries.

Hodzic, who had never been through survival training, had to leave the hostage scenario early because she couldn't breathe with the bag over her head. "I thought I was going to faint or something," she says.

The experience was sobering. "Sometimes I think, 'God, why do I do this?'" she says. "But the more you experience, the more careful you are."

Rees says the training isn't meant to scare journalists from working in hostile situations, but it should educate them about the possible dangers. Even so, he knows of three people who have taken the course who decided to leave the country they were covering.

Chris Cramer, president of CNN International, says it's OK if people change their career because of the training. "There's nothing more dangerous in a war zone than people who want to make a name for themselves," says Cramer, who expects CNN's foreign correspondents to take this kind of training.

Cramer knows the dangers personally. He was held hostage for about six days in 1980.

A "kidnapper" stands watch. "It's scary stuff," he says of the training. "Most people come back wiser for taking the course. It's saved some peoples lives."

There are critics, though. Many are veteran journalists who think they don't need the training.

"I think a real disservice is done by veteran journalists who say they don't need the training," says John Owen, director of the Freedom Forum's European office," which works with media organizations to provide the training.

Other critics have accused groups like Centurion of teaching journalists to be soldiers, Owen says.

A few Woodstock residents had similar thoughts when Centurion first arrived, says Tim Holleran, who led the most recent training.

But Woodstock - a war zone? Rees says Woodstock is an ideal location for the company's U.S. training. "If we picked Miami Beach or something, we'd never see the journalists," he says. "It's out of the way. There are no night clubs."

Sitting in a semi-circle in a small, dimly lit room, the mood of the "hostages" has changed dramatically.

Twenty minutes ago, they were terrified. Now, they're laughing.

Laughing because they are no longer hostages. The drill is over, and now they are watching the entire thing on a video-projection system.

This is the end of the second part of the scenario. For about 30 minutes before showing the video, Holleran and another trainer used the scenario to explain how to survive a kidnapping.

Don't resist. Follow instructions. Don't show fear. Don't carry family photos.

Watching the video reminded Jordan Dey, a U.N. spokesman based in Colombia, of how traumatic the simulation was.

"It's surprisingly realistic. Your hearts beating, your breath's hot, you're disoriented," Dey says. "You just want it to be over."