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Be prepared for anything is about accepting what is and acting upon it.
Last weekend I participated in a church mass shooter training event. Most of the time I’m the instructor or coordinator, but this time I actually got to participate.
My church got a bunch of volunteers to volunteer to be actors in the scenarios. Our head of church safety organized and ran the training. It was a lot of fun, and I got to mix it up with the bad guys more than once. Didn’t even die this time. Not bad…. but…
Most of the scenarios were normal church shooter events; one domestic violence, one attack on the pastor, one run of the mill mass killer, but the last one was an attempted hostage scenario.
I say attempted because the safety team ended it before it could begin. A couple was arguing during church service and the guy was instructed to get up, pull a gun, and do a Hollywood gun to the head back against the wall thing to see how we would work together throughout the situation.
Turns out most of us on the team are default aggressive. One of the team members moved towards the couple when they started arguing. He is a former Army Ranger and still pretty good in a fight. When our bad guy got up and started to produce the gun, the Ranger was able to push the gun up and fire over the head of the hostage into the head of the hostage-taker. One step behind our Ranger was a former Army medic that spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan, he also grabbed the gun, pushed it up and put his own gun to the hostage taker’s head, and pulled the trigger. I was a step behind the medic and was going to do the same thing.
We all ended up next to a giant metal pillar that holds up the building. I thought our bad guy was going to take the girl and try to back into the pillar. I was going to reach around the pillar with my gun, press it to the bad guy’s head and pull the trigger.
Turns out, moving to the pillar was exactly what our hostage-taking roll player was told to do.
Even in training, it was fast. It happened in a blink of an eye. Honestly, I can’t believe how fast my Ranger teammate was able to act and win the fight. It was incredible to watch.
I bet you, like me, have never thought about a church shooting turning into a single hostage-taker situation. But you have probably thought about it in other places. So be prepared for anything, anywhere.
That is easier said than done. When I was in Iraq in 2003 I thought I had prepared for everything in War. I was wrong. And even though I had prepared for it for so long I still had an ”oh shit” moment when I was in my first gunfight. At first, I couldn’t believe I was there and someone was actually shooting at me. It took me a second or so to snap out of it and get my head in the game, return fire, and win the fight.
And even after 11 gunfights in under 4 months, I still had that ”oh shit” moment in the last one. In fact, years later, when I ended up back in Iraq as a contractor and was shot at a couple of times, I had that “oh shit” moment. The moment was less and less each time, but it has been there every time. I was even laughed at one for having that moment and hitting the deck when it turned out our own guard tower was shooting at someone over the wall not at us patrolling up to the backside of the tower. I was on point and my guys laughed at me for a week for hitting the deck.
I hope you don’t have the same experience I do. I hope you never get shot at. I hope someone never tries to take your life or the lives of people around you. But if someone does, be prepared for anything.
You get prepared by looking at scenarios that have happened. Anywhere, and any time. Then think of what if this or that had happed on top of what happened. No aliens, or Delta Force repelling down the roof to kill you, but something that might happen will keep you on your toes.
Once you have done a bunch of scenarios in your mind, the next step is excepting what is actually happening at that moment. Whether it makes sense, fits your preconceived notions, or is an alien falling from the sky attacking people. You have to accept what is happening in front of you and then react to what is going on. Push your speed and move faster than your enemy to get inside their OODA loop or you are going to lose. It’s pretty simple in the end. The person with the best tactics, acted upon faster, generally wins.
Be Prepared for anything.
Stay Safe,
Ben