Preparing for the Fight. The Mental Aspect of the

Before Band of brothers came out on HBO, I had my own realization about the mental preparedness of engaging in a life or death situation. If you watched the series when it came out, you’ll see a group of 101st Paratroopers riding in their assigned C-47 towards Normandy on early morning hours of June 6th, 1944. D-Day. Operation Overlord. You’ll see their platoon leader looking about the cargo area of the aircraft taking in a visual assessment of his stick of paratroopers before the big drop. During which we saw a few nervous young soldiers doing their thing. Although they were merely actors, I’m sure they portrayed the Greatest Generation quite well. I also saw brilliant acting because eons ago, I too had the same weird thoughts racing through my head.

During the Japanese feudal period, the Shogun’s chief retainer and teacher was named Miyamoto Musashi. Throughout Japanese history, he was arguably the best known samurai of his day. He was a Samurai that was best defined as unconventional. Considering that his counterparts followed strict guidelines when it came to battle tactics, he embraced the battle by psychologically diverting his opponents even before the physical encounter began. I would strongly suggest reading the Book of the Five Rings or look up his name online for more reference. It’s fascinating. It was his version of the Art of War. If you look at books by Clausewitz, Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu or Rommel you will notice that their versions revolve around theories and methods for entire units or armies. If you look at the Book of the Five Rings, Bruce Lee’s Tao of Jeet Kune Do or the Maxims of Air Warfare by the Baron Manfred von Richtofen it will revolve around the individual technique but it is hard to define one man’s ideals and suggestions as read by another man. All we know is the strategies and techniques one could employ. Even today, the most practical manuals and training guides will show you the history, principles and techniques on how to deploy something.

My short article should probably be titled; The Tao of the Modern Gunfighter.

What would it contain? How would I articulate it for the everyday reader? What should I stress? What are some observations? What are some of its drawbacks? How could I employ it and how can I teach the open student how they can employ it? There are more questions than answers when it comes to relaying pertinent thoughts and snippets of wisdom. It’s more difficult than it sounds. How would you describe the mental nuances of your profession? You could describe how to do the job but how do you describe the mental preparedness for one to do your job or something like your job? Daunting isn’t it?

I’ve written numerous articles on the how and possibly when to deploy in a modern fight. In today’s modern times I’ve discovered two ways to physically fight. The first is how to actively fight in an aggressive or offensive manner. The second is more delicate where you are a reactionary fighter, meaning that first move you make is going to be reactive due to someone’s initial action. Hence the old mantra saying that action is faster than reaction. I can safely tell you one thing; in today’s unknowns, the biggest thing you can do is to gather good solid intelligence on your opponent and establish what they call in the military spectrum of conflict called C3I which is an acronym for; Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence. Sometimes you work with a team. Sometimes you don’t. You’ll have to establish command, control, sometimes communicate and you’ll do it with solid information and intelligence. But what does that mean? You’ll see.

If I were to break things down a bit more and analyze both fights, then I’d have to also look into the preparedness of the combatants. Here’s where it gets interesting because this part is articulable. You can explain it in a few stress points where some of the items can be broken down even further. Let me show you;

The Tao of the Modern Gunfighter

1. Be physically prepared.
2. Be mentally acute to your situation.
3. Train for your particular role or mission.
4. Prepare your equipment for the role or mission.
5. Gather your intelligence prior to the mission;
a. Manpower. How many versus how many?
b. Training. What do you have versus your opponent?
c. Equipment involved. Yours versus theirs?
d. Environment. From weather to terrain selection to cover and concealment.
e. Know your histories. Yours and theirs could be a mitigating factor.
f. When to engage. From certain criteria to insertion points to specific ROE’s.
g. Back up plans. What will you do if it goes sour and you need to disengage?
h. Egress. How will you disengage and where and after action evaluations.
6. Liabilities. What are your opponent’s weaknesses and how to limit exposure of your own?
7. Special Considerations. Anything that could give you or your opponent and advantage in the fight.
8. Objective. What do you wish to accomplish?

Think about how a cop would go into a fracas. Think about the things that they try to get before they get onto the scene. Since I’ve done that it’s easier for me to describe.

1. What is the nature of the complaint or reason for the call? Domestic? Shooting in progress?
2. Location of the incident or direction of movement.
3. Persons involved; descriptions, clothing worn, affiliations, known weapons.
4. History of the area of response or persons involved.
5. Special considerations from vehicle descriptions, tag numbers or non-combatants nearby.

As the regular guy how does this relate to modern gunfighting? Think about this;

What do you wish to accomplish by engaging? Then you start filling in the blanks with the information supplied to you or what you gained. Reasons, locations, persons, known weapons, what their history is, do they have a weakness that you can exploit? Where would you like to engage? Are there any fallbacks? When Sun Tzu wrote the Art of War he once wrote that a Great General will already know that victory is at hand before he commits their troops. It’s the same thing before you fight individually or as the old GI Joe commercial “Knowing is half the battle!” In all honesty, it isn’t lying. Knowing is half the battle. Knowing how you do or what your opponent is capable of is most of the battle. Plan to the most minute detail knowing full well that most plans do go to hell when the first shot flies out but sometimes they don’t deviate that much. It is just the nature of this b**st. Prepare for the worst and train for the best and hope the results lean towards the latter.

Mentally speaking is the harder part. If you’ve done it before then you know what it’s like; confusing at first and regretful at the end. If you haven’t done it then that first step is yours. In many ways it is like parachute training and jumping. No matter how many years I can train you and describe to you the theory, history, principles and techniques of parachute jumping and landing; only you can make that decision to step out of the door. If you don’t understand that analogy think of it as sex. Try explaining the principles to a virgin. Nothing can prepare them unless they decide to actually do it. Once they do it they understand the nature of the subject. Got it?

Think of my Tao as suggestions into the fracas. Think before, during and after the fight. Stay alert. Stay calm throughout. Stay alive.