Hmmm...so they left the Coast Guard out...

I have to give the state of Texas a pass on this current silliness, because they did give the world Willie Nelson, Ernest Tubb and Old El Paso taco shells.  But still...

They're all worked up down there because this summer, the elite members from four branches of the U.S. military - Army! Navy!  Air Force! Marines! -  will launch an practice operation. They will move about covertly among us, and zip about from state to state in military aircraft. Texas, Utah and a section of southern California will play hostile territory, and New Mexico isn’t much friendlier, what with the cacti and roadrunners.

Jade Helm planning map...or is it???

They call it Jade Helm 15, and it will run from July 15 to Sept. 15. Army Special Operations Command says the size and scope of the mission makes it much different from other training exercises.

Or...could it be a diabolical plan by the federal government to take over Texas? That's what a certain amount of trepidant Texans believe. As proof of their lunatic notions, they cite the closing of some WalMarts in Texas and other states.

Clearly you don't see the connection between the world's largest retailer closing some stores temporarily for maintenance, and the world's largest federal government swooping in, using those closed stores as supply depots, communication hubs and pre-processing centers, and building vast underground tunnels to connect them.

Or maybe you DO see the connection, but you fake like you don't because you are part of this gigantic conspiracy to invoke martial law in the Southwest United States!

Is that it?  Huh?  

The Army says that they have conducted this sort of training enterprise many times in the past, such as Bold Alligator (the person who thinks these names up used to work for builders, coming up with names for new housing developments such as "Beaver Valley Acres" or "Morningwood").  Bold Alligator was a naval exercise for Marines and sailors. Its war games included "amphibious landings to prevent insurgent groups in the fictional country known as Garnet — Georgia and part of Florida in real life — from launching attacks" according to the Washington Post.

Check out the news story from Bastrop County, TX, that shows irate citizens getting all irate and everything. 

All kidding aside, what is it that happens to a person who becomes part of a hostile mob that like to feel like they are targeted for extinction by the federal government?  Where did this paranoia - this hunch that something sinister lies beneath something like army training - get its start?  

Someone knows, and they just aren't telling us.  Hmmm.

These people are citizens of the United States, prepared to put down their TV remotes and come to the aid of their county sheriff under the "posse comitatus" common law and repel the invasion of the United States by the United States.  Fine looking crowd.