heratiki

While I agree Ebola is the most feared disease due to it's mortality rate once contracted it's the flu that causes more deaths every year than any other virus. Not only that but because influenza is so commonplace in the United States that it's infection rate would be astronomical before we caught it simply because everyone would just assume you had this years strain of the flu. A pandemic can result simply due to noticing this strain is particularly deadly a little too late.

Imagine if you will next years flu strain starts killing people with a mortality rate of 90% even in healthy adults (Ebola's mortality rate). Now because it's everywhere all at once and the only symptoms you can go from are those everyone are already used to what do you do? Honestly you hope to contain it and wait out the death toll as that's about all you can do. And then this military scenario becomes something more apparent then we could have imagined.

Now all that being said I totally agree with you in that this is just a waste of taxpayers dollars to figure out silly logistics through acting it out instead of just desktop calculations.

Lightfromdarkness

You've got to remember about all the casket liners that have popped up in the last few years as well in fields, sometimes 250k at a time.

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2014/01/obamafemacoffins-676x450.jpg

Surely victims of a flu pandemic would just be buried or cremated as usual, whereas with something like Ebola you really don't want to be burying a victim as it can get into the water table as seen in Africa. When before in US history has the fear of a flu pandemic triggered of the purchase of perhaps millions of casket liners? I think Ebola would be a more likely threat, the casket liners would keep it contained. I went to the casket manufacturers site before and the casket liners are usually rounded on top as well but all the ones I have seen in the US where flat top, probably easier for storage but also it allows for double depth stacking for burials. This was from their website.

https://usahitman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/hercules-vault.jpg

Like you say it's a lot of taxpayer dollars to waste for training exercises, but they obviously think there must be a threat to be doing all this and purchasing all these casket liners over the years.

Fahler

I hear Blue Bell has had a bad lull in sales recently. They're probably more than willing to whore themselves out to the military for cash at this point.

www.11alive.com/story/money/personal-finance/recalls/2015/04/06/stores-pull-blue-bell-ice-cream-from-shelves/25387525/

DeadMary

I think the company also gets a pretty hefty tax break for lending the equipment as well

heratiki

I agree they should ask questions. I just figured the military was using these vehicles as the best possible analog during simulation and that's what was available for the cheapest cost.

juggernaut

Maybe just delivering some tasty icecream to the troops

heratiki

What I'm trying to understand is how is this a conspiracy? They are doing training exercises in which they will be required to assess convoy practices using refrigerated trucks in the event of a Flu Pandemic. What better way to do that than to use actual refrigerated trucks that would possibly be used in the event of a mass death scenario in real life?