the things worth believing in

I just finished what I believe to be one of the best books on leadership I have ever read. It’s titled “The Mission, The Men and Me”, by retired Delta commander Col. Pete Blaber (Ret). Part memoir, part opinion on the military establishment and part leadership development book, “The Mission, The Men and Me” is written in an easy to read, down-to-earth style that I finished in two days.

The title encapsulates Mr Blaber’s theory on leadership decision-making. He believes that all decisions need to be made with three things in mind. The Mission, The Men under your command and your own self-interest; in that order. If you are told by a superior to do something contrary to accomplishing your mission and dangerous for your subordinates, or you will face punishment/termination…well if you have the guts to be a leader you know what you have to do.

Mr Blaber’s (an ironic name for a man writing about Delta I must admit) theory on operations and leadership is very similar to the way I look at things which I admit made me like his book right off of the bat. As did the fact that he was in Bosnia around the same time I was with SFOR (as a measly MP Sergeant, not SF), which I found “cool”.

Eschewing complicated planning, systems and operations, Col. Blaber subscribes to using simple concepts and rules of thumb such as:

• The Mission, The Men, and Me
• Don’t get treed by a Chihuahua
• When In doubt, develop the situation
• Imagine the unimaginable; humor your imagination
• What is your recommendation?
• Always listen to the guy on the ground

I will not explain all of the rules of thumb here, go get the book, but Blaber spends quite a bit of time on the last one. Always listen to the guy on the ground. In the book, Col. Blaber explains how our modern, high-tech military has resulted in a large number of leaders, military and elected alike, who believe that all the information and “situational awareness” they need can be had via satellite, drones, sensors and video screens and base their unbending, inflexible, unwavering decisions on them.

The problem with this approach is that images, signals, intelligence reports and tech data are meaningless without context. A taxi driver or shepherd can tell you exactly where your enemies sleep, eat, travel, and get their supplies. Soldiers forward deployed can get up-to-date intelligence and “eyes on the target”. They can discover things only a human can discover and they can adapt to the situation far better than a drone in orbit can. Leaders need to speak to people “on the ground”, both civilian and military, before ANY decisions are made. They don’t need to follow all their advice but they have to hear it. Instead what we have are leaders who are so “risk adverse” that they refuse to put “boots on the ground” to get live information, yet perversely seem willing to send soldiers to their deaths rather than abandon or change a pre-determined plan. We have Generals who make battlefield decisions from offices in Washington instead of from the field and seem to be uninterested in listening to what is going on “right now” from men in the field, as long as “the plan” is adhered to. These leaders are so locked into “the planning process” that they lose sight of how to adapt to changing situations.  Some of Col. Blaber’s stories of senior military officers refusing to believe what is right before their eyes will leave you scratching your head.

One of the other interesting things Col. Blaber points out about our military that I never thought of before, is our over-dependence and (in his opinion) misapplication of helicopters in ALL of our military planning. Choppers are large, loud, slow-moving billboards that can be heard a long way off and announce to everybody that we are coming. In Blaber’s opinion choppers make it all but impossible to achieve surprise on an enemy occupied target. Helicopters also demand a large “footprint” in terms of logistics, maintenance and manpower and they require weather that allows them to operate. Sometimes bad weather is our friend and sometimes driving and then walking into an area is the best way to catch our enemies with their pants down…in a snowstorm…when they are snuggling around a fire.

Lastly, Col. Blaber shares what I think is one of the most important leadership principles, that of asking your subordinates “what is your recommendation?” Instead of being the “know-it-all” whose job is to make all decisions, he believes that the leader should be relying on his subordinates experience, training, and “on the scene” information rather than micromanaging. Col. Blaber believes that leadership is about “managing” capable people and allowing them to do their jobs. The leader needs to co-ordinate and be sure that everybody is operating in concert, what he calls “having a shared reality”. Sometimes the leader has to override his subordinates suggestion but he always needs to seriously consider it. Pure gold IMO.

I’m not entirely drinking Blaber’s kool-aide, he is after all one of those “Type-A” SF types who can come off with a hint of “if they had only listened to me we could have won by now”. A great critique of the book can be found here. However, on the whole, this is a great book that anybody in a leadership position should read, study and apply. 5 stars.

Don’t take the easy route, nor the obvious one. While this lesson applies when you are responding to a dangerous situation, you should also consider it as an everyday rule. Take advantage of OODA by being the first to see “them”. Try to never let “them” see “you” first.

While it may seem like common sense, I see many people pull right up to a “trouble spot” and jump out right into a dangerous situation. This can be due to a multitude of factors; poor training, not having a set of heuristics (rules of thumb) already in place for the situation…”I will not pull up right in front of a danger area”, or just plain old stress and adrenaline overriding your thought process.

When you arrive from a concealed location you give yourself the advantage of being able to see what is going on first and plan a course of action accordingly. In this situation the responder has placed his vehicle so that he could use the engine block as cover in the event the bad guy was to come around the corner as he pulled up.

Today’s lesson is associated with the concept of displacement, which we have discussed previously.

When you are engaging an opponent, what you do not want to do is become predictable. You do not want to keep coming out from around cover from the same location multiple times. Your opponent will be expecting it and will be aiming at the spot you keep emerging from.

You need to keep moving to keep from being pinned down and to keep your enemy from being able to anticipate your actions. Change locations.

Not only should you be changing locations, you should also be considering changing levels. Change your firing position. Go from standing to kneeling or vice versa.

If the engagement goes on for an extended period you also need to remember to avoid moving in patterns. If the shooter in my illustration were to repeat this movement sequence multiple times, his enemy would likely notice and anticipate his next firing position.

That would be bad juju.

Joseph Campbell was a writer and lecturer who is best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. The role of the hero was a large part of Campbell’s work and in 1949 he published The Hero with a Thousand Faces in which he introduced what he called the monomyth; a term he gave to a pattern that he saw as running through all hero tales.

Campbell divided a myth or “hero tale” into basic stages or steps:

• The hero receives a call to enter an unusual world of strange powers and events. A call to adventure.
• If the hero accepts the call, he must face tasks and trials. He may have to face these trials alone, or he may have the assistance of a companion or benefactor (sidekicks).
• At its climax, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help/gifts/weapons/training he gained on the journey.
• If he survives, the hero may achieve a great gift which often results in the discovery of important self-knowledge.
• The hero must then decide whether to return to the ordinary world with this boon, often facing challenges on the return journey.
• If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world.

Very few myths will actually contain all of these stages. Some may have many while others might contain only a few. Some myths may focus on only one of the stages while other myths may deal with the stages in a different order.

These stages may be organized in a number of ways, including division into three sections: Departure (sometimes called Separation), Initiation and Return. “Departure” deals with the hero venturing forth on the quest, “Initiation” deals with the hero’s various adventures along the way, and “Return” deals with the hero’s return home with knowledge and powers acquired on the journey.

Departure

• The Call to Adventure: The call to adventure is the point in a person’s life when they are first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know it or not.
• Refusal of the Call: Often when the call is given, the future hero refuses to heed it. This may be from a sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person in his or her current circumstances.
• Supernatural Aid: Once the hero has committed to the quest, consciously or unconsciously, his or her guide and magical helper appears, or becomes known.
• The Crossing of the First Threshold: This is the point where the person actually crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his or her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known.
• The Belly of the Whale: The belly of the whale represents the final separation from the hero’s known world and self. It is sometimes described as the person’s lowest point, but it is actually the point when the person is between or transitioning between worlds and selves. The separation has been made, or is being made, or being fully recognized between the old world and old self and the potential for a new world/self. The experiences that will shape the new world and self will begin shortly, or may be beginning with this experience which is often symbolized by something dark, unknown and frightening. By entering this stage, the person shows their willingness to undergo a metamorphosis, to die to him or herself.

Initiation

• The Road of Trials: The road of trials is a series of tests, tasks, or ordeals that the person must undergo to begin the transformation. Often the person fails one or more of these tests, which often occur in threes.
• The Meeting with the Goddess: The meeting with the goddess represents the point in the adventure when the person experiences a love that has the power and significance of the all-powerful, all encompassing, unconditional love that a fortunate infant may experience with his or her mother. It is also known as the “hieros gamos”, or sacred marriage, the union of opposites, and may take place entirely within the person. In other words, the person begins to see him or herself in a non-dualistic way. This is a very important step in the process and is often represented by the person finding the other person that he or she loves most completely. Although Campbell symbolizes this step as a meeting with a goddess, unconditional love and /or self unification does not have to be represented by a woman.
• Woman as the Temptress: At one level, this step is about those temptations that may lead the hero to abandon or stray from his or her quest, which as with the Meeting with the Goddess does not necessarily have to be represented by a woman. For Campbell, however, this step is about the revulsion that the usually male hero may feel about his own fleshy/earthy nature, and the subsequent attachment or projection of that revulsion to women. Woman is a metaphor for the physical or material temptations of life, since the hero-knight was often tempted by lust from his spiritual journey.
• Atonement with the Father: In this step the person must confront and be initiated by whatever holds the ultimate power in his or her life. In many myths and stories this is the father, or a father figure who has life and death power. This is the center point of the journey. All the previous steps have been moving in to this place, all that follow will move out from it. Although this step is most frequently symbolized by an encounter with a male entity, it does not have to be a male; just someone or thing with incredible power. For the transformation to take place, the person as he or she has been must be “killed” so that the new self can come into being. Sometime this killing is literal, and the earthly journey for that character is either over or moves into a different realm.
• Apotheosis: To apotheosize is to deify. When someone dies a physical death, or dies to the self to live in spirit, he or she moves beyond the pairs of opposites to a state of divine knowledge, love, compassion and bliss. This is a god-like state; the person is in heaven and beyond all strife. A more mundane way of looking at this step is that it is a period of rest, peace and fulfillment before the hero begins the return.
• The Ultimate Boon: The ultimate boon is the achievement of the goal of the quest. It is what the person went on the journey to get. All the previous steps serve to prepare and purify the person for this step, since in many myths the boon is something transcendent like the elixir of life itself, or a plant that supplies immortality, or the holy grail.

Return

• Refusal of the Return: So why, when all has been achieved, the ambrosia has been drunk, and we have conversed with the gods, why come back to normal life with all its cares and woes?
• The Magic Flight: Sometimes the hero must escape with the boon, if it is something that the gods have been jealously guarding. It can be just as adventurous and dangerous returning from the journey as it was to go on it.
• Rescue from Without: Just as the hero may need guides and assistants to set out on the quest, often times he or she must have powerful guides and rescuers to bring them back to everyday life, especially if the person has been wounded or weakened by the experience. Or perhaps the person doesn’t realize that it is time to return, that they can return, or that others need their boon.
• The Crossing of the Return Threshold: The trick in returning is to retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into a human life, and then maybe figure out how to share the wisdom with the rest of the world. This is usually extremely difficult.
• Master of the Two Worlds: In myth, this step is usually represented by a transcendental hero. For a human hero, it may mean achieving a balance between the material and spiritual. The person has become comfortable and competent in both the inner and outer worlds.
• Freedom to Live: Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of death, which in turn is the freedom to live. This is sometimes referred to as living in the moment, neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past.

Being a Tolkien fan, I can see almost all of these stages in the Lord of the Rings saga.

The reason I include this is because I believe that the “Warrior” meme many people desire to live out is based largely on the media, stories, myths and legends that we all, consciously or otherwise, have consumed or been exposed to in our lives. Almost all of us have had our mental model of the hero or warrior shaped or defined through stories, books, television shows, movies or comic books. This has been the case from the days of the bard singing lays and tales around the mead fire, to modern man watching “The Lord of the Rings” on the big screen.  I believe that if we look at the academic dissection of these influences, perhaps we may have a better understanding of what it is that drives us to do what we do. I am sure that anybody who has ever embarked on their own “adventure” can look at these stages and see their reflection within..life imitating art, or art imitating life?

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

by Denise at CopDevotionals

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the streets,
Not a person was stirring, ‘cept an officer on the beat.
As he quietly patrolled the city with care,
Children and parents slept peacefully there.
The officer was clad in his blues and his vest,
Gun on his hip, always looking his best.
He’d just pulled aside for a quick bite to eat,
When all of a sudden, out on the street,
A bright light appeared from out of nowhere,
He shielded his eyes from the brilliant glare.
‘Twas an angel of the Lord at the car’s rear,
He smiled and spoke, “Dear Officer, don’t fear.”
“I’ve been sent by God with a message for you
Who faithfully serve while wearing the blue.
He wants you to know that He loves you all,
He’s pleased with the way you’ve answered His call.
“To protect and serve others, so selfless you’ve been,
Your bravery and kindness have known no end.
Even in tragedy, when nights became long,
You’ve helped countless strangers by just being strong.
“God sees your heart, the joy and the pain,
He knows the profession can often bring strain.
So he sent me down here to let you know,
That as you patrol, you are never alone.
“As you protect others, your Father protects you,
His angels go with you, His Spirit does, too.
No bullet’s too fast, no bad guy too strong,
I’m sent to make sure that your life will be long.
“So fear not the night, and fear not the day,
fear not the threats that might come your way.
I’m sent to accompany you on your beat,
There’s not one moment you’re alone on the street.”
The officer sat stunned by the love of His God,
He bowed his head, with a tear gave a nod.
As the officer said thank you, the angel took flight,
“God’s got your back, carry on, and goodnight.”

I will be going into finding and purifying water and waters survival importance later, but here is a nice video demonstrating one method of purifying emergency water.

Image via Wikipedia

Blatantly lifted from Ann T. Hathaway’s blog:

Theognis of Megara (6th Century B.C.)
lines 869-872

May wide and towering heaven collapse upon me in all its bronze and terror,
catastrophe to the peoples of earth,
on that day when I no longer stand by my companions,
on that day when I cease to harry my enemies.

Amen.

Cover via Amazon

An absolutely fundamental and immediate survival concern (once you have survived the immediate safety crisis that is) , believe it or not, is maintaining your body temperature. Hypothermia or hyperthermia, otherwise known by their more common name…exposure; are the leading causes of death in the bulk of survival situations.

So on this topic I am in total agreement with survival expert Cody Lundin. He believes that this issue is so vital that he named his book, 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive.

Since this is “preschool”, I am not going to bore you with all the descriptions, symptoms and treatments for exposure. Check out the wikipedia links above for that. Suffice it to say that everything from clothing to shelter has to do with keeping your body’s core temperature at 98.6 degrees.

Image via Wikipedia

On the issue of clothes. Clothes are at the top of the list in our survival concerns. Our clothes are necessary for protecting us from the elements and maintaining our body temperature. You should ALWAYS be prepared for the environment you go out in by either wearing or packing the proper clothing.

Clothing systems for both hot and cold environments can be broken down into three components.

• Base Layer: These are the clothing items that go against the skin. They trap air close to the body and should be made of materials that wick moisture away from the body.
• Insulation layer: Added or subtracted as the outside conditions change, insulation layers go between your base layer and your outer garments.
• Environmental Layer: This is your outside shell. The environmental layer protects you from the elements; wind, rain, snow, sun, brush etc. Ideally, your outer garment should be lightweight, loose fitting, wind and water resistant/proof and have the ability to be vented if you begin to sweat too much underneath.

In cold weather you need to try and trap your body heat close to your core by using insulating layers of clothes or air space. This is done by adding or subtracting insulation layers as the temperature dictates. Exercise and food intake will also effect your body temperature .

An acronym to remember for cold weather clothes is COLD.

• C= keep yourself and your clothes CLEAN
• O= avoid OVERHEATING
• L=wear LOOSE clothing in LAYERS
• D=keep DRY

And remember to wear a hat. Your head looses a large percentage of your bodies radiant heat. You will notice an immediate warming when you cover your head in a cold weather environment.

Image via Wikipedia

In hot weather your primary concern, clothing wise, is protecting yourself from the sun. Sunburn effects your bodies ability to cool itself. In hot weather your skin is your survival tool because your body depends on sweating to regulate body temperature.

Your clothing goals here are to wear loose layers of clothes that  will protect you from solar radiation while providing airflow that will slow the evaporation of sweat for efficient cooling. If your sweat evaporates too quickly you will rapidly dehydrate.

So…while not as exciting as learning how to build a Rube Goldberg style dead-fall trap to hunt wild game..you now at least have a good idea of what it takes to survive in the most common survival crisis situation. Exposure.

More on opening doors.

In some situations, mostly when a room is too small for two people to clear (bathrooms, walk in closets, etc.) and the door opens outwards; it’s easier for one person to position themselves on the door while the partner opens it.