Many years ago, I found myself in combat. It was my first experience with someone shooting at me and me trying to kill someone. Before then, I was always curious how I would respond in that type of pressure. I did OK but after that first battle, I had an adrenaline crash. It happened to me again but by the 3rd firefight I was accustomed to the terror and didn’t have the same crash. I watched some guy’s completely fold. They were non-functioning until they too were acclimated to the feelings, sounds, and smells of battle. I found that training had a lot to do with how you react.
I’d like to share some of what I learned so you can be better prepared for a life-threatening situation.
First is training. You don’t want to have to really think about gripping your gun, drawing, extending, aiming, and pressing the trigger. Most of these things should be like breathing. You should be able to draw and make ready your weapon without really knowing that it’s happening. Even if that weapon is a non-lethal weapon. You should be so familiar with it that it is quite natural.
Understanding fear and how to use it to your advantage, is a skill very few bothers to learn. Most people have the normalcy bias and think nothing will ever happen to them. This is the attitude many had in 1941. World War II was raging in Europe and the Pacific. Some said that was someone else’s war and too far away to matter to us. Because of this isolationist view we were caught unaware at Pearl Harbor. Over 2400 casualties and over 1100 wounded was the human cost of that miscalculation. Hundreds of ships were either sunk or damaged along with over 100 aircraft shot down or damaged. The United States had the same normalcy bias of many now who think that bad things won’t happen to them. I’m not advocating living in fear but remaining vigilant is my suggestion. Read more about using fear in the book “The Gift of Fear: Survival signals that protect us” by Gavin de Becker. I highly recommend it.
If you are faced with violence, you should have run scenarios in your mind of how you would react to violence. It’s part of preparedness and training. Obviously, you can’t go through every scenario.
First, admit to yourself you are afraid, then move on. Concentrate your mental energies on the task at hand, not on your fear of death, injury, or loss of ego.
Avoid dwelling on the chance of failure. Concentrate on finding a way to win. Be willing to do anything to win. Winning means life. Something you may think is deplorable you should do if it means you live or get out of the violence that has found you.
Take control of yourself. Calmed breathing and concentration. Tactical breathing is something that does really work. When my wife was having our first child, we attended a class called Lamaze. This was a technique used to prepare women and their husbands for childbirth. It taught women to be able to better prepare their minds and bodies for the difficulty of childbirth. A big part of this training was breathing and counting through labor instead of drugs but working through the pain. It worked very well but I also learned that tactical breathing is very similar. Tactical breathing is basically controlled and deliberate focus and breathing. It helps you through pain and stress. I’ve used it often but in that combat experience it saved me. The more oxygen you have the easier it is to move and think. It helps in focusing on getting the job done.
Have a Plan B. Always, always, always, expect Plan A to fail. Expect your gun to malfunction. Expect the bad guy to stay up after being hit solidly. Expect to be injured. If any of these things occur, have a pre-planned option to continue. Have a Plan B. This also points back to training. Being prepared means being ready for failure.
Turn anger into a motivator. Who does this clown think he is? What makes him think he has the right to (rob/rape/kill/pick on) me? Remember the importance of controlling your emotions like anger and fear.
Accept an element of fate in every situation. You can get hurt by accident after doing everything right. Control everything you CAN control (selection of equipment, getting adequate training and practice, being alert, thinking tactically) so there are fewer things you CANNOT control. Stack the odds in your favor, and then what happens is a lot less impact.
Courage under fire is not a matter of being without fear. It is a matter of being able to control fear and accomplish your mission, which is to stay alive. Only fools are fearless.
Finally, be a man of God. “What the heck does being of God have to do with enacting violence on evil?” You may ask. Being righteous doesn’t mean you’re weak or so timid you cannot defend. We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We hold the priesthood of God. We are blessed to have access to the Spirit in ways that those who only have the Light of Christ don’t have. As I was being fired upon in combat, I heard the Spirit tell me to do things that I would not have normally done. Some of those things I saw a direct protection of myself and others. When we are in a bad situation our Heavenly Father will help us, sometimes immediately, or at least when needed. That does not mean we won’t be taken or injured, it means that His will, is going to happen. I have a few minor scars from that experience. I have a friend who was with me who is a great, faithful member of the Church. He has a gunshot wound from that same experience. He was shot but not killed. He went on to have a great career as an FBI agent and to protect Apostles and Prophets in Church Security. He is now a Stake President in Utah. The Lord had a work for him to do as He has for each of us. He will protect those that need it.
You guys that work law enforcement are put into harm’s way more often than most of us. But you too have been trained. I used to train guys like you and one thing I saw that was a weakness of law enforcement was, lack of situational awareness. That and you don’t practice shooting enough… But that’s a different discussion! Sometimes, you’re so caught up in dealing with the task at hand that you can miss what is coming at you. I wrote and taught a situational awareness course in the Air Force years ago. You can practice this skill. You can even practice this skill with your family. In Boy Scouting there is an old game called “Kim’s Game”. By playing this you and your family will learn valuable skills of observance and awareness. And as always watch their hands!
Being ready for violence is as important as reacting to violence.
Stay safe brothers and sisters. May we all never need the skills we’ve been blessed with and the training we’ve received.
Semper Paratus
Check 6
Burn
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