What Are They Accusing Him Of?

In Loose Change: The Second Lame Attempt at the Truth (abbreviated LC:2LAatT) Dylan and Co. make the following statement about American Airlines pilot Charles Burlingame:

October 24th, 2000.
The Pentagon conducts the first of two training exercises called MASCAL, which simulate a Boeing 757 crashing into the building. Charles Burlingame, an ex-Navy F4 pilot who worked in the Pentagon, Participates in this exercise before retiring to take a job at American Airlines, where, less than a year later, his Boeing 757 allegedly crashes into the building.

In the viewer's guide, and also on here, we point out that Burlingame actually started flying for American in 1979. He eventually retired from the reserves in 1996, four years before Dylan says he participated in this exercise.

Well in "Loose Change: We change those items we didn't want the readers to look up to check themselves" the story changes a bit.

October 24th, 2000
The Pentagon conducts the first of two training exercises called MASCAL, which simulate a Boeing 757 crashing into the building. Charles Burlingame, an ex-Navy F4 pilot who worked in the Pentagon for 17 years, participates in an earlier version of this exercise in 1989 before retiring to take a job at American Airlines, where 12 years later his Boeing 757 allegedly crashes into the Pentagon.












OK, well they are still wrong with his retirement date, but at least they are a little closer. The major question to ask though, is so what? MASCAL, as the name implies is short for Mass Casualty. It is not an exercise to work out the details of an attack, it is an exercise to test the response to an event which causes more casualties than the normal medical channels are prepared to handle. The website the Loosers cite even explains this, mirrored here.

An Army medic found the practice realistic.

"You get to see the people that we'll be dealing with and to think about the scenarios and what you would do," Sgt. Kelly Brown said. "It's a real good scenario and one that could happen easily."

A major player in the exercise was the Arlington Fire Department. "Our role is fire and rescue," Battalion Chief R.W. Cornwell said. "We get to see how each other operates and the roles and responsibilities of each. You have to plan for this. Look at all the air traffic around here."

Each participant was required to fill out an evaluation form after the training exercise.

"We go over scenarios that are germane to the Pentagon," Jake Burrell of the Pentagon Emergency Management Team said. 'You play the way you practice. We want people to go back to their organizations and look at their S.O.P. (standard operating procedure) and see how they responded to any of the incidents."

These exercises are hardly limited to the Pentagon. Here is an article about one taking place in Bosnia.

Camp Butmir - The helicopter could be seen coming in to land. Then something went terribly wrong, the tail end went up in the air and then the whole thing came crashing down.

Once the smoke cleared and the dust settled, passers-by could see bodies strewn about the ground on the outside of the helicopter and screams of pain and agony could be heard coming from inside the wreckage.Within minutes, sirens of emergency vehicles could be heard approaching the scene to rescue the victims.

Fortunately, the scene was not a real one, but a Mass Casualty (MASCAL) Exercise that was part of Adventure Express/Dynamic Response, an exercise that involved troops all over BiH. Soldiers and medical teams from all three multinational divisions
(MNDs) in BiH came together on May 3 to take part in this necessary training.

This is another one of those "sinister assertions", where they list events only remotely connected, along with some creepy sounding music in order to imply some sinister, although completely unexplained force is at work.

So what exactly are they accusing Burlingame of doing? Participating in an exercise which might end up saving the lives of US servicemen? The horror...