Starting Oct. 10, 2016, for 48 Hours ONLY, we will be offering 20% OFF on ALL ESSTAC items in stock at SKDTAC.com. In celebration of this miraculous occasion, let us bow our heads…
Our ESSTAC, who art in Washington, hallowed by thy Gear… Thy Webbing come, thy Multicam be done, on Cops as it is for Soldiers. AMEN.
Strikeforce energy in use at the Australian Parliament House
G-Code’s holster for the X2 Taser offers dual retention and the closed front-end design protects the ARC and Stun Gun components of the Taser. What’s more, it incorporates G-Code’s popular RTI.
Available in Black, OD, Coyote and Grey in right or left hand models.
www.tacticalholsters.com/product/X2_RTI
Some of you build models as a hobby. If that’s you abd you’re looking for an interesting kit, check out Master Box, Ltd’s “Somewhere in the Middle East. Present day”, a 1/35 ensemble of figures.
Modelers have created a couple cool dioramas centered around this kit.
Tonight, my obssession with the Cold War continues. ‘World War III’ is a so-called mockumentary offering an alternative history version of the end of the Cold War which turns all too hot.
This 1998 film combines actual historical footage with fictional scenes to depict what might have transpired if, following the overthrow of Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet troops, under orders from a new hard-line regime, had opened fire on demonstrators in Berlin in the fall of 1989 and precipitated World War III.
It was directed by Robert Stone and distributed by ZDF along with an English version, offered in collaboration with The Learning Channel.
First off, I apologize for being a little late with this month’s article. I just returned from a month’s deployment to East Africa: Comoros and Madagascar specifically. As part of my job here at the International Training center, a couple times a year we take our show on the road to do some training in other countries. While the travel is sometimes long (almost 25,000 miles for this trip, as I no shit traveled by plane, train, automobile, rickshaw, horseback and on foot), I still enjoy the experience. Mostly, as I think I learn more from my students (and their countries), than they learn from me and this time was no different. We held training every day on different bases, but I had a lot of opportunities to observe their own training and see a lot of the country. It was a busy month to say the least.
As I usually do on these trips, made some time to PT with my students. Their PT routines were the standard issue for Africa that I’ve seen for years; lots of running, calisthenics and soccer. The infantry guys also do a lot of humping with packs and running with weapons. We even humped a couple of mountains together. There are no weights, no cross fit, etc. type training to speak of. For the most part, they are in pretty decent condition, good runners especially. Tough, lean guys for the most part, this is nothing new.
Now as a trainer, I also take an interest in what they eat. Needless to say there are no special diets going on here. Many of these countries are only a few short steps from starvation, so eating isn’t thought about the same way as it is in the United States. Supermarket type places to food shop are far and few between, and are priced for rich tourists and a few high placed locals only. Everyone else gets their chow from open air markets. Very little refrigeration and NEVER any ice here; Fresh fish, butchered meat, vegetables, fruit and everything else is just piled on tables for sale. Loaves of bread are stacked like firewood. Rice and flour are measured out of the sack and there are plenty of live ducks and chickens for sale. If you’ve ever been to one of these markets you never forget the sight and smell of it. In other words this isn’t your local farmers market that sets up in your hometown square on Saturdays in the summer. This is everyday life and it’s as raw and un-sanitized as you are now imagining.
Now you think with these unfiltered conditions and simple diet these people would be on deaths door? I found the opposite to be true. Most of the people I saw were healthy, thin, muscular and hard working. Most doing serious hard physical labor every day to make ends meet, including the women and children. Not much of a welfare program here, you work or you don’t eat is the basic idea. Just for one example; Madagascar has one the largest brick making industries in the world, due to the rich clay that is everywhere. I saw tens of thousands of small brick making operations going on and with that I saw a conservative estimate of several million bricks, all of which are made completely by hand. I watched people of all ages making, stacking, curing and carrying these bricks. It’s no joke back breaking work, no shade either.
Their simple basic diet of real food fuels all this work, as I saw very little processed food of any type. The butter and milk we saw was all full fat and the sugar was raw brown. There was no fast food, other than soda, which is very popular. Even in the huge capital of Antananarivo (over 1.5 million people), these open air markets are the norm for the vast majority of the people. They do use plenty of local (hot) spices to jazz up the simple fare, but little else. We pretty much ate like the locals the entire trip and we didn’t get sick, nor get the shits the entire trip (we only drank bottled water, I’m not that brave, or stupid). Our rep from the Embassy told us that when local people eat processed food, and sleep in AC they get sick. They know this from when they hire locals to work at the embassy and the hotels.
The funny thing is that you also see very few overweight people. I saw lots of older people working, walking and carrying heavy loads along the roads with everyone else. The roads are very crowded with people walking and riding bikes. The other thing you notice when you meet the people is generally how happy they are? Families are together all the time, working, eating and living. They don’t seem to be burdened with stress and worry, even though their circumstances would be considered dire by any standard that we go by. They value family, their faith (I seen all faiths there) and enjoy the simpler things in life as most have no TV either. Now you could say that they are just ignorant, simple peasants and aren’t smart enough to know any better. So I guess you need to be educated and have 300 cable TV channels to be miserable? Ok got it.
After a few weeks you kind of take all this for granted, then I got on a plane backs to the states, landing in Atlanta. As soon as you land the first thing you see is the over whelming number of obese and obviously stressed out people in the airport. Not a few, but frankly a large majority and of course every few yards is another fast food place, most with a long line of fat bodies waiting to get their fix. It’s a sad fact that we are the richest people in the world money wise, but in many ways we are the poorest. Maybe we could learn some simple lessons from some of the poorest countries in the world. Stay active, if you don’t have a physical job, get some regular exercise. Eat real food, simple food from the earth, not a plastic box. Along with that relax a little and try to keep things in perspective, in the end nothing is more important than your family when you get right down to it.
Now before you say it don’t give me this crap, that if its so great move there? I’m not going anywhere, not for money, free beer or virgins. I’m an American, who has fought for this country all my adult life and I continue to serve. I’m staying regardless, even if I have to the last man standing holding the flag. My point is that with all our wealth, all our greatness, I feel sometimes that we are rotting from within, and we could do better as a nation, starting with our health and attitude. Enough ranting for this month.
Be safe always, Good when you can.
Semper Fi
MGunz
A “combat snapshot” refers to how much information a shooter can process in his environment. This is both a proactive and retroactive process. For example, if an individual proceeds into a room from a hallway, he identifies the layout of the new room while remembering the layout of the hallway. This mental process is what helped our ancestors avoid becoming dinner for lions, and is what helps us perform other tasks such as texting while driving.
Our minds default to pattern recognition. If we enter an unfamiliar room (whether in combat or at a dinner party), our eyes will be drawn to motion. Our brains then employ a friend or foe heuristic that indicates whether we can remain calm or if other action should be taken (e.g. get out, there’s a lion at this dinner party!).
The quality at which we perceive information determines whether we receive data that is actionable or just noise. Entering a crowded room, you can scan the environment by simply moving your eyes within their sockets. Moving your head left and right may be necessary to gather data at different angles, but if we jerk our heads too quickly, any information about our surroundings becomes a blur. Another gift passed on to us from our ancestors is our body’s preference for expending the least amount of effort possible to accomplish a task. Unnecessary movement expends precious energy, but can also signal to predators our location.
Excessive movement also distracts our ability to obtain a combat snapshot. Recall any time you’ve been in the woods hunting or just hiking with family. Regardless of being a soldier or civilian, if you hear something that doesn’t sound right, you naturally slow your movement and alter your posture to scan your surroundings. Your eyes scan in their sockets, and your head moves in a methodical manner to assess the environment.
Consider that natural behavior in the woods and apply it to range training. Although tactical shooters are taught a variety of techniques for gaining a combat snapshot or regaining situational awareness, some methods tend place greater emphasis on performing pre and post shooting rituals. Unfortunately these movements provide no advantage in the real world, or worse, actually contradict our natural survival instincts.
Search and assess theatrics are heavily critiqued among instructors with extensive combat or use of force experience. Although it is important to maintain situational awareness, unnecessary head whipping movements do little to provide a shooter with actionable data. The sister action to theatrical search and asses is a movement I’m going to coin as “spider monkeying”. This occurs when barriers or vehicles are incorporated in flat range training. Rather than reading the terrain and modifying their posture, shooters begin to bob and weave their head around obstacles. This is accompanied by excessive pushing and pulling of a pistol in and out of ready positions (e.g. position three to position four, back to position three, etc).
At full speed, spider monkeying looks like a shooter continuously bobbing and weaving like a boxer, combined with the push-pulling of a pistol into and away from his chest. This behavior occurs for two reasons. First, the shooter is attempting to maximize perceived cover while mistakenly assuming that the extra bob and weave movements are causing the enemy to remain reactive. Second, the shooter knows where all of the targets are located and isn’t required to alter his approach. Instead he can just shoot the scenario similar to a USPSA stage with no regards to application of cover and minimizing his silhouette.
Spider monkeying emphasizes the importance of adding blind shoots to range training. When a shooter must interact with a tactical scenario similar to the real world, it decelerates his movements. Instead of exaggerated bobbing, a shooter obtains a combat snapshot through purposeful action and throttle control. Although a shooter might transition between moving quickly and slowly, these are still deliberate actions as opposed to random head jerking. Why? Because in an uncertain environment, excessive movement will either visually give away your position or inhibit your ability to read data in the environment.
Further examination of throttle control can be observed in certain war movies and combat helmet camera footage. This week marked the 23rd anniversary of the events that would become famous through “Black Hawk Down”. Despite the movie’s delineation from actual events, the actors did do justice through their tactical portrayal of Rangers and Delta Operators. Weapon’s handling and fire team movements appeared similar to the real world. No unnecessary head bobbing or peek-a-boo, just methodical clearing of sectors.
Throttle control is also observed by watching helmet camera footage of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. When soldiers make contact with the enemy there is chaos and ambiguity as platoons attempt to identify where the enemy is located. What is not readily observable is unnecessary movement. During the initial phases of a firefight, it is very hard to tell where enemy fire is coming from unless you are amid the enemy’s formation. This is why soldiers minimize their silhouette and scan their sectors to find new data to add to their combat snapshot. Unnecessary movement is not only disorienting, but it might attract the attention of a PKM machine gunner.
Our instincts represent the culmination of handed down survival mindset from our ancestors. Every lion evaded, spear dodged, or musket ball avoided has fined tuned our senses. To our advantage, we are genetically hardwired to avoid threats. In preparing for violent encounters, we should utilize as much of these senses as possible during range training events.
Aaron Barruga is a Special Forces veteran and founder at Guerrilla Approach LLC. He teaches vehicle tactics and speed shooting for tactical marksmanship.
www.guerrillaapproach.com
www.facebook.com/guerrillaapproach
www.instagram.com/guerrilla_approach
Gunfighter Moment is a weekly feature brought to you by Bravo Company USA. Bravo Company is home of the Gunfighters, and each week they bring us a different trainer to offer some words of wisdom.
