Nothing new. They did the same thing here in SC back in the 1960's when I was a teen. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. The "good guys" wore a blue arm band and the "bad guys" wore a red band. Took over our town and camped all over grandpa's farm and surrounding farms. They had mock firefights (blanks) in the woods and fields. All us local boys had a damn ball. When they pulled out in those old Kaiser deuce-and-a-half trucks I parked my butt at an intersection about a mile from the house and begged like a war orphan. Those boys threw off case after case of C-Rats for me to haul home. Each meal in the case had cans of food, a candy bar, a P38 and small pack of cigarettes with 5 per pack. Assorted brands of cigs, Winston, Pall Mall, Marlboro, etc. Oh and that chocolate candy bar tasted like dirt. I still have five .30 cal (7.62) ammo cans and five .50 cal ammo cans. One .30 cal can is still full of brass I picked up at one of the firefight scenes. Friend of mine found an M14 hanging on a tree limb on his dad's farm. His dad wimped out and turned it in. I'd hate to have been the soldier that lost his weapon.

Little did I know then that only a few years later I would pull two tours in SEA doing the real thing.