the things worth believing in

The Army FM 6-22 (which used to be FM 22-100 in my day) defines a leader as:

…anyone who by virtue of assumed role or assigned responsibility inspires and influences people to accomplish organizational goals. Army leaders motivate people both inside and outside the chain of command to pursue actions, focus thinking, and shape decisions for the greater good of the organization.

The Army bases its leadership principles on what is called the BE, KNOW, DO model.

BE: Character describes a person’s inner strength, the BE of BE, KNOW, DO. Your character helps you know what is right; more than that, it links that knowledge to action. Character gives you the courage to do what is right regardless of the circum­stances or the consequences.

KNOW: A leader must have a certain level of knowledge to be competent. That knowledge is spread across four skill domains. You must develop interpersonal skills, knowledge of your people and how to work with them. You must have conceptual skills, the ability to understand and apply the doctrine and other ideas required to do your job. You must learn technical skills, how to use your equip­ment. Finally, warrior leaders must master tactical skills, the ability to make the right decisions concerning employment of units in combat. Tactical skills include mastery of the art of tactics appropriate to the leader’s level of responsibility and unit type.

DO: The DO of Army leadership doctrine, are the actions a leader takes. Leader actions include-

• Influencing: making decisions, com­municating those decisions, and motivating people.
• Operating: the things you do to accomplish your organization’s immediate mission.
• Improving: the things you do to increase the organization’s capability to accomplish current or future missions.

These are listed as some of the top posts on my blog. Not exactly what I expected but here ya go:

10 Things About The Entertainment Industry That Piss Me Off

10 Oddball Skills That Could Save Your Ass

What They Say…What It Means

Embrace The Suck

And oddly…

The “About” page of my blog.

It’s a bit of education on this “blogging thing”. It appears that a few of my posts hit digg or stumbleupon and got a spike in traffic (but few comments). However most of my “regular readers” seem interested in the topics that this whole effort is intended for; “warriorship”, fitness, martial arts and law enforcement. While some people probably want the “hits”, I think ill be happy conversing with people of “like mind”. I have no delusions of becoming the next “Huffington Post” anyways.

The Front Squat. Most people avoid doing them, as I did until recently. They are awkward, painful and you cant lift as impressive an amount of weight with them, but they provide some benefits that the back squat cannot. The major benefit of the front squat is the fact that your stomach and back muscles are engaged in order to hold your upper body upright. This is part of the pain and fatigue that scares people away from the exercise, but once you begin to get stronger in this particular lift, you are strengthening your core musculature almost as much your legs. A  “more bang for your buck” benefit that makes this exercise worth a closer look.

Strac Technologies has developed an interesting magazine carrier called the F.A.S.T. System model M4. They tout that this system allows operators continuous sub 2-second reloads.

It does look pretty nifty but it only holds 3 magazines at at time and is a little bulky for those 3 mags. Military operators would probably want to be able to haul more mags than these things offer and the almost $300 price tag is a bit steep. I can see it’s value as a specialized piece of gear for SpecOps or Civilian Tactical Units where 3-6 magazine load-outs would be sufficient.

In a previous post on the difference between combative and defensive mindsets an interesting comment came up about Carl von Clausewitz statement on defensive war being superior…which he did indeed say. I went back and re-read some of “On War” and found some interesting quotes that seem apropos to this topic.

• WHAT is defence in conception? The warding off a blow. What is then its characteristic sign? The state of expectancy (or of waiting for this blow). This is the sign by which we always recognise an act as of a defensive character, and by this sign alone can the defensive be distinguished from the offensive in war. But inasmuch as an absolute defence completely contradicts the idea of war, because there would then be war carried on by one side only, it follows that the defence in war can only be relative and the above distinguishing signs must therefore only be applied to the essential idea or general conception: it does not apply to all the separate acts which compose the war.
  
• But as we must return the enemy’s blows if we are really to carry on war on our side, therefore this offensive act in defensive war takes place more or less under the general title defensive—that is to say, the offensive of which we make use falls under the conception of position or theatre of war. We can, therefore, in a defensive campaign fight offensively,
  
• What is the object of defence? To preserve. To preserve is easier than to acquire; from which follows at once that the means on both sides being supposed equal, the defensive is easier than the offensive.
  
• If the defensive is the stronger form of conducting war, but has a negative object, it follows of itself that we must only make use of it so long as our weakness compels us to do so, and that we must give up that form as soon as we feel strong enough to aim at the positive object. Now as the state of our circumstances is usually improved in the event of our gaining a victory through the assistance of the defensive, it is therefore, also, the natural course in war to begin with the defensive, and to end with the offensive.
  
• In other words: a war in which victories are merely used to ward off blows, and where there is no attempt to return the blow, would be just as absurd as a battle in which the most absolute defence (passivity) should everywhere prevail in all measures.
  
• But, irrespective of these things, there are other three which appear to us of decisive importance, these are: surprise, advantage of ground, and the attack from several quarters.The surprise produces an effect by opposing to the enemy a great many more troops than he expected at some particular point. The superiority in numbers in this case is very different to a general superiority of numbers; it is the most powerful agent in the art of war.—The way in which the advantage of ground contributes to the victory is intelligible enough of itself, and we have only one observation to make which is, that we do not confine our remarks to obstacles which obstruct the advance of an enemy, such as scarped grounds, high hills, marshy streams, hedges, inclosures, etc.; we also allude to the advantage which ground affords as cover, under which troops are concealed from view. Indeed we may say that even from ground which is quite unimportant a person acquainted with the locality may derive assistance. The attack from several quarters includes in itself all tactical turning movements great and small, and its effects are derived partly from the double execution obtained in this way from fire-arms, and partly from the enemy’s dread of his retreat being cut off.

“New-Age America produces books and workshops on the ‘New Warrior,’ a man or woman who lives impeccably — austere, protecting the weak, willing, perhaps, to stand his or her ground and fight, but more important, calm and graceful — the warrior as metaphor. We imagine the warrior in bed, in the boardroom, in marriage, the warrior on the golf-course. But these writers seem to forget that the warrior’s values, as admirable as they may be, are won at terrible cost. The warrior as metaphor often offends me, because the battlefield stinks of blood and shit, and sings of screams and flies.* Certainly the values that writers such as Dan Millman extol are admirable, but I would hesitate to call anyone a warrior unless we are not talking about a fellow ubermenschen, but instead a deeply flawed and guilty human being, who strives at the risk of the loss of comfort, of home, of even his or her own soul to protect what must be protected, to maintain a moral sense in a place where no morality can conceivably exist.”
— Ellis Amdur, from Dueling with O-sensei (p. 121)

*This writers thoughts on warriorship are fairly close to my own and encapsulate fairly well what I have been attempting to accomplish in my blog.

“A complete warrior is one who can act appropriately. Such an individual can kill if that is necessary to preserve other’s lives, or he can die for others. But such an individual also possesses the power to find a way through conflicts to a non-combative resolution. This power can create a real peace between people. Such a person’s presence, rather than intimidating, calms and gives strength to others.”
— Ellis Amdur, from Old School (p. 37)

“A warrior’s strategy is designed to bring his commitment into action, develop his being, and enhance his knowledge. Living strategically requires the warrior to eliminate impulsive, whimsical actions and cease being a slave to his likes and dislikes. Actions and decisions are to be based on the warrior’s strategy and have a well-considered quality to them, even when undertaken with lightning speed.* To abandon one’s strategy is to abandon the path itself.”
— Robert L. Spencer, from The Craft of the Warrior (p. 33)

*I particularly like this one. I call it “living intentionally”. Don’t just go along thinking that you will figure out what to do when the moment arrives. Have some sort of plan. Even when things don’t go as planned, at least you have a framework to start from. Likewise, acknowledge your true feelings and intentions. As a LEO I have to acknowledge that buried in all my “higher purposes” is a bit of enjoying the power that comes with the job. Failing to acknowledge the “dark side” that is within all of us results in failing to see that our actions and decisions may be tainted by them.

“Do every act of your life as if it were your last.”
— Marcus Aurelis

“Adventure  is just a romantic name for trouble. It sounds swell when you write about it, but it’s hell when you meet it face-to-face in a dark and lonely place.”*
— Louis L’Amour

*Are not the simplest statements often the best?

“If there is one thing that always sticks in my mind about how Delta Force goes about a mission, it is the utterly businesslike attitude of the men. There is none of that Hollywood crap. No posturing, no sloganeering, no high fives, no posing, no bluster, and no bombast. Just a quiet determination to get on with the job.”
— Eric L. Haney, from Inside Delta Force (p. 191)

“The warrior’s role in society is to protect life and social order by placing himself between that which would endanger both.”
— Greg Walker

Army Shooting Team member Travis Tomasie making me feel like a rank amateur.

I am rarely impressed with the weaponcraft I see displayed on television and film. The one clip that did impress me was the one posted here. It’s from the Cruise movie Collateral. Even though it’s still Hollywood, there was just something about the CQB/H2H, draw from concealment, failure drill sequence that stuck with me.

I received the call-in that no police supervisor thinks he will hear last night… “you have to come in Lt , there was a plane crash”. While Continental 3407 didn’t go down in my jurisdiction, the airport is in my town and there is an incident response plan that includes our involvement. As plans go, it is not a bad one and response was fairly swift and co-ordinated. Again…as plans go, they never quite go “as planned”. The location that was designated as the family assistance center was never quite “hammered out” so we offered our town’s senior citizens center as a substitute. I was tasked with coordinating the set-up and security at this location. It can be reassuring for a cynical cop to see how the public can come together during moments like this. People were calling to volunteer their time, others were driving over with food and a number of local businesses came with supplies. Neighboring law enforcement agencies sent personnel and vehicles over to my location…without being requested…no questions asked…to help with security and traffic control. My department of course was involved from the start and we sent manpower to the crash site in the neighboring jurisdiction to help.

When the families started to arrive, it was of course heartbreaking. So many different people all effected by one single tragedy. In this job one starts to get used to seeing emotion and grief, but rarely do we see it on such a large scale. Please keep ALL of the victims of this tragic event in your thoughts and prayers.

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