Training for Consulate Attacks, in Case There's a Next Time CHESAPEAKE, Va. - The "riot" erupted suddenly on the Virginia-North Carolina border in a remote pocket of marshland and pine. "Go back to America!" the protesters shouted, hurling rubber rocks at a large plywood structure meant to be a United States consulate. We don't want you here! This is our country! Two dozen Marines in full riot gear marched out in formation, beat their batons against their shields and otherwise looked menacing. Within minutes they had pushed back the protesters - fellow Marines in jeans and hooded sweatshirts - in a display of crowd control skills. "It can be a long day if you're a rioter," said Staff Sgt. William M. Loushin, the instructor who staged the riot. Once you actually start getting aggressive against a Marine, it never ends well. In the aftermath of the attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, the Pentagon sent two teams of elite, specially trained Marines to protect American Embassies in Libya and Yemen and would have deployed a third group to Sudan had not the government in Khartoum said no. To demonstrate what those units - called F.A.S.T. Marines, for Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team - are trained to do, the Marines put on a show this week. At a training center on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, a clutch of reporters observed Marines repelling faux rioters, shooting down doors and clearing a supposed American embassy occupied by militants. The death of four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, in the Benghazi attack has focused attention on the adequacy of embassy security in danger zones like Libya. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has announced a review of diplomatic security led by Thomas R. Pickering, a veteran diplomat and former under secretary of state, and there have been calls from Congress for an independent investigation. There were no Marines or other American military personnel at the lightly guarded compound in Benghazi, and Marines would not answer questions about how they thought things might have turned out if there had been. The F.A.S.T. units are intended as a rapid-reaction force capable of moving quickly to secure and protect an embassy in crisis. They are not there to engage in offensive ground combat, Marine officials said. Nor are they to be confused with the Marine security guards in dress uniforms who are permanently stationed at more than 150 diplomatic posts worldwide, all under the purview of the State Department. Those Marines, who often number fewer than a dozen at an embassy or consulate, are charged with the security of both classified material and American personnel. They carry only side arms but have access to heavier weapons and have at times engaged in combat. In 2004, Marine security guards and Saudi security had a three-hour gun battle with five attackers of the American Consulate in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, that left five consulate employees and four of the attackers dead. The F.A.S.T. Marines are dispersed for rotating six-month tours at three American military bases, in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, so that they can be strategically located near all potential flash points. The team in Tripoli, Libya, flew from its base in Rota, Spain, while the team dispatched to Yemen came from a base in Bahrain. The third base is in Yokosuka, Japan. On this morning in the isolated Virginia woods, the Marines practiced shooting down "doors" consisting of plywood sheets hung from free-standing metal frames. The right way was to aim at a 45-degree angle for the locking mechanism to the right of the doorknob, then fire. When one knob was blown apart, an instructor brought out a piece of wood with a row of three knobs, which was then attached to the plywood door. The knobs were lined up so that the Marines could practice shooting down doors with knobs in one of three positions common to doors around the world. Instructors say that the Marines go through several hundred knobs a day. The final event was the recapture of an American embassy occupied by militants. On command from instructors, the Marines entered the building, encountered cardboard militants wielding weapons and pretended to shoot them. Normally they would have used live ammunition in the exercise, but not this morning. "It's really dangerous," said one of the instructors, Gunnery Sgt. Todd M. Leahey. This group of Marines in particular, this is their second week of training, so they still have a lot of mistakes they're making. Does anyone ever get hurt? "Absolutely," Sergeant Leahey said. We haven't had anybody die yet, but we have had injuries. Down below, the Marines were shouting and practicing an "eye thump" after shooting a cardboard militant. Sergeant Leahey, 35, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, explained: "If I would press you in the eyeball, if you're alive you're going to have a response. If you're dead you're not going to have a response. In Iraq we had a lot of people who were fake dead. So the Marines, he said, "put the muzzle of their weapon on the chest of the enemy combatant, they press down on it and then they thump them in the eye, and if there's a response, they're not dead. And then you take them as a combatant and detain them. With that, the morning was over and the consulate was secure.