Another occurred decades ago, when the Navy expropriated two-thirds of Vieques for gunnery practice and mock amphibious assaults.

The only live-fire training involved 100 soldiers, a half-dozen armored personnel carriers and several tanks carrying out what a military officer called "a mock assault on a terrorist base."

The volunteers, in conjunction with naval units, staged mock assaults on what were termed "enemy embankments."

Giving in to the concerns for the safety of whales and other marine life, the Marine Corps has called off a mock assault by hovercraft on Monterey Bay.

We aren't supposed to take this mock assault very seriously-at least that's the way it started out.

Those maneuvers will include a mock amphibious assault on an Egyptian beach by marines supported by naval gun fire and fighter jets.

Two years later, a group of Civil War veterans camped in the park for a weekend, fired cannon salutes and, in a mock assault, stormed the castlelike retaining walls.

The ship participated in mock amphibious assaults in the United Arab Emirates after the start of the air war in preparation for a possible amphibious assault.

During these exercises, three Army National Guard regiments participated by "defending" ashore while the Marines of the 1st Brigade attempted a "mock" assault against them.

They made ladders and scaled the walls of the stronghold in mock assaults, then learned to hold the wall against assaults.