For all of the unfortunate and violent stories of incident’s I have posted of CO’s fighting for their lives to help us LEARN and therefore GROW as Civilian Operators, I think the above story can do the most good-by far. It touches on 4 skill sets that I have always felt are integral to staying…
Category: Tradecraft
Escaping a Wrecked Vehicle
Learning to fight in and around vehicles is a skill-set the CO’s needs to be intimately involved with. The reason being is that aside from our home or workplace, this is a place we spend a majority of our time. Now I could spend 2,000 words just on the subject of worthwhile drills pertaining…
Book Review: Rattenkrieg: The Art of ECQ Combat Pistol
Bob Taubert’s latest work, Rattenkrieg: The Art and Science of Close-Quarters Battle Pistol is a book that is right up there with Styer’s Cold Steel or Applegate’s Kill or Get Killed. The book reminds you of the hard fact that necessity is definitely the mother of invention when it comes to relevant and practical combat skills….
The Tale of Byron Smith…
Balance. That is the word I want you to remember as you read this story. If the past few years of news headlines involving people defending themselves in this overtly liberal society have taught us anything, it is that responsible citizens (ie Civilian Operators) must always seek a BALANCED RESPONSE to anything regarding self-defense, otherwise,…
Technology Dependent and Useless……..
It can be stated categorically that over-reliance on any one thing is BAD. This point was reinforced and qualified for me when I heard a story about the military brass in the Pentagon getting report after report about new line officer’s (the combat platoon leaders in the field) when stripped of all “electronic gadgets”…
Let Slip the Dogs of War
The CO and the Canine by A.H. and S.S. Most people are aware of the fact that dogs can be a deterrent to criminals, but sometimes we can have our sights too low and miss the real value a good dog can provide. This is something that the military has done well for over 3…
Life Lessons from a Combat Platoon Leader
I came across an article in Tom Rick’s Best Defense which is a section of Foreign Policy online magazine recently that I found very enlightening, not only for the non-nonsense manner in which it was written, but also because of the universal way in which the lessons learned can be applied to the training and the…
A CO’s Synopsis on Guerilla Warfare
Being a history buff, in particular, military history, I am one of those guys that fills notebooks and flash drives with random notes that I find interesting and/or useful from books, lectures, magazine articles, etc. The following are some random notes I have taken on the subject. The source(s) for the majority of my notes…
The Evolution of the “Ambi” Fighter
Ambi= Ambidextrous; The ability to use the right and left hands EQUALLY well. Being a military history buff, I really enjoy studying the progression/evolution of tactics and weaponry in warfare through the years. One of the most applicable of these “progressions” that pertains to the CO specifically has been the development of being ambidextrous in…
Protecting your Children in an Era of School Violence
No doubt about it, this decade will go down in history as one of the most violent decades in history for violence in American schools. You know the problem has grown to epidemic proportions when if asked about the latest school tragedy by a friend or co-worker, you have to ask “which one” they are…