Sometimes our attempts to have the best shooting firearms cause us to lose sight of an important principle: Knowing how to use them safely and effectively should always come first. That does not mean you cannot buy a nicely appointed rifle and then learn how to use it. It simply means you cannot place that same rifle under the bed and expect it to make up for your shortcomings when it is time to pull the trigger.
I was reminded of this during a recent conversation with an old SOF buddy. He is one of the few guys I know who I can trust with my life, because I have. We worked together in uniform overseas for many years and had each other’s backs on several hair-raising occasions. A master of articulating common-sense solutions to everything, my friend inspired the title of this column while we were discussing different approaches to helping people learn to shoot well.
As a tactical instructor, he often sees students who are more focused on the features of their tricked-out guns than on learning how to shoot them. This is a common problem, and we need to remind ourselves from time to time that learning to crawl before walking is important in all things requiring any amount of skill. Running should be somewhere far down the line.
Before buying a high-end tactical long gun, first consider whether some of your hard-earned dollars might be better spent on professional training. A beginning or self-taught shooter can become quite proficient behind the sights of a basic rifle or carbine once he or she is taught to use it properly. Conversely, having a top-of-the-line blaster will not provide any edge if you do not first have a solid foundation upon which to build.
We have probably all seen at least one overzealous person show up at a range appearing ready for Armageddon. I used to work with a guy who would strap a handgun on each hip and sling on both a rifle and a shotgun anytime he showed up (uninvited) at informal shooting events. He would blaze away with one gun until it was empty, literally throw it down, and then move on to the next and the next until his personal thrill ride was over. No one could talk any sense into him, so we simply stayed far away—on and off the range. This clown always made sure he had cutting-edge guns and gear. Not surprisingly, he hit very little of that at which he aimed. In the end, he was all bark and no bite. Fortunately, guys like him are the exception rather than the rule, and most of us are humble enough to admit we need to train more.
Familiar shooting schools like Gunsite and other well-known mobile training groups have much to offer shooters of any skill level. Most of them do good work and if you can afford the time and money, they are worth at least one dance. Oftentimes, just having someone fine-tune your technique is all it takes to get on track. A good instructor will show you where you are weak and what to do to fix it on your own. But, you have to check your machismo at the door and open your mind to get the most out of formal instruction.
I was blessed to receive a lot of specialized tactical firearms training while in uniform. Those courses later paid off by helping me hold my own in both close- and long-range gunfights overseas. Still, I recognize I have much to learn and I always enjoy picking up solid techniques from fellow instructors and shooters. Not every new method works for me, but I home in on the ones that do and try to perfect them.
What if you cannot afford to attend a big-name instructional outfit in these tough economic times? Seek out one of the handful of discreet instructors and companies with impressive pedigrees hovering around the periphery of the firearms training world. These smaller companies tend to be more cost-effective and flexible, without requiring you to provide 20 other students or a month’s salary to attend. Many teach tactical shooting with all firearm types and provide other specialized services.
Field Advisory Services and Training, Fulcrum Concepts and TMACS are a sampling from this category, and I can vouch for all of them. They are staffed by one or more operators with whom I worked—and, in most cases, fought alongside—in my former life.
These guys are the real deal. They eschew the limelight and focus their efforts on helping military, law enforcement and civilian shooters learn to fight and survive. If you are in the market for quality tactical training without the usual ego or glitz, I recommend checking them out. Each offers a slightly different range of courses and options.
I thoroughly enjoy customizing firearms for people who want an edge in comfort and performance, but I would rather steer a customer to an off-the-shelf gun at a local shop than build them a custom rig if their shooting needs and skills are basic. A lever-action .30-30 Win. in the hands of a highly skilled shooter is worth more than a heavily accessorized tactical carbine in the hands of a novice any day of the week. Spend a little time studying under the watchful eyes of a quiet professional and you will come away with new skills upon which you can bet your life. Then, you can rightly shift your focus to improving your fighting arms while regularly sustaining the techniques you learned.
The pilot was standing around as I got out of my wheelchair to board my flight to Portland. He followed me and the flight attendant who volunteered to carry my bag. I fling myself into my seat. He quickly asked, “were you in the military.” I replied “yes.”
He said, “Afghanistan 2010?” Again, although surprised this time, I said slowly “yessss.”
He then told me that he recognized me, my injuries, and my face. He told me he never knew if I survived or not.
Marc Vincequere is his name. He flys w United now. Crazy small world. He was the pilot that flew me out of Afghanistan.
Since January, 50 people have been killed and 122 injured in at least 152 incidents of gunfire on school grounds across the U.S. To respond to the threat of such attacks, some districts — in at least 29 states that allow it — have taken the controversial step of authorizing school staff, other than security guards, to carry firearms on campus. Texas is one of those states.
In the aftermath of the shooting in Uvalde that killed 19 children and two teachers, Texas Republicans have urged schools to arm up and “harden the target.” But Texas state laws regulating armed staff are sparing, allowing school districts to decide for themselves the type, and amount, of training school staff need to carry guns on campus.
…
According to the Texas Association of School Boards, “school districts can grant written permission for anyone, including designated employees, to carry firearms on campus” under Texas Penal Code 46.03, but the law does not lay out standards for training.
The only thing a school employee needs in order to carry a firearm on campus is a license to carry, which requires a background check and a proficiency demonstration. Otherwise, individual districts determine the amount and type of additional requirements, which can include active-shooter training courses and psychological evaluations.
And it seems that the fact that Texas doesn’t have a lot of regulations over how this works is a problem.
Which is hilarious because the people who tend to think that also have an issue with preemption, claiming that local communities know their own needs better than the state and should be permitted to handle those issues as they see fit.
Apparently, that doesn’t apply to the school boards.
That’s what gets me about this. Well, that and the fact that this breathless concern revolves around a non-issue.
We don’t know how many armed teachers there are in Texas, but what we don’t hear about are incidents with them. For all the fearmongering among activists and the media about armed teachers, they’re remarkably lacking in hard evidence of this being a problem.
Oh, they try, mind you:
Despite these efforts to arm teachers, Sonali Rajan, a school violence researcher at Columbia University, says there’s no evidence that it makes schools safer.
“There is no science available at the moment, absolutely none, that shows that arming teachers would either deter gun violence from happening to begin with, nor would it deter or reduce the lethality of a shooting once it was occurring,” said Rajan. “There is evidence that shows very clearly and very definitively that the increased presence of firearms leads to increased firearm violence and firearm related harms.”
The fact that there’s “no science available” is a pretty good indicator, at least to me, that it works. We’ve seen how the science on this stuff is so heavily slanted it’s not even funny.
That also goes to the vague argument that “the increased presence of firearms leads to increase firearm violence.”
See, if this were a legitimate problem, we’d have countless anecdotes of teachers flipping out and shooting people or something, only we don’t. What we do have are the occasional incident where no one gets hurt but do indicate a cause for concern, but are so scattered and rare that they represent a non-issue overall.
So, they just make claims about guns in general and assume that this applies to teachers as well.
That’s simply not the case.
Armed teachers can and will save lives. Just their mere presence is something a would-be shooter has to take into account.
It’s only a matter of time before we’re writing about one that didn’t and got himself killed by an armed educator, whether it be in Texas or elsewhere, and that will be a good day to see these people contort themselves trying to explain it away.
——————————————————————————– Out here in the Peoples Republic of California. I was amazed by the fact of how many of my fellow teachers have a good knowledge of guns. That and how many of them had one or two in their cars. I of course would never do such a thing myself. (Coughs Bullshit!) Grumpy
The Second Battle of Fallujah was the fiercest urban combat US forces had faced since Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive.
In the winter of 2004 a joint US, Iraqi, and British operation kicked off in Iraq. Local forces called it Operation Al-Fajr. Allied troops titled it Operation Phantom Fury. The world came to know this simply epic scrap as the Second Battle of Fallujah.
Fallujah was known for its copious minarets. Radical Islamists frequently used mosques to store weapons and launch attacks.
Fallujah was a typical Middle Eastern craphole located in the Al Anbar Province some 43 miles West of Baghdad on the Euphrates River. The area has been occupied since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. By 2011 more than a quarter-million Iraqis called Fallujah home. Within Iraq, Fallujah was called the “City of Mosques” for its 500 houses of Islamic worship. In 2004 Fallujah was an understudy for hell.
It’s all fun and games until you really piss off the Americans. When Iraqis desecrated the bodies of American contractors it was time to take care of business.
The party started in April of that year during the aptly-named First Battle of Fallujah. In this fight, coalition forces moved into the city to kill or capture insurgents responsible for the violent deaths of an American Blackwater security team. Once Allied forces seized the city they turned over control to an Iraqi government security force.
Turds like these came from all over to take a shot at the Americans. It turned out that being on the receiving end of Uncle Sam’s big stick wasn’t all the travel brochures made it out to be.
It was tough to figure out who the Bad Guys really were in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. Between April and November, enemy forces fortified the place. Insurgents and fanatical foreign Islamist fighters flowed toward Fallujah like zombies after fresh brains. The scene was set for Something Truly Horrible. The Second Battle of Fallujah was to be the first major engagement of the war fought solely against insurgents rather than the previous Iraqi Ba’athist government forces. The end result was to become the bloodiest fight of the Iraq War.
Strategic Details
This inveterate sadist killed in the name of his dark bloodthirsty god. It turns out jihad doesn’t have much of a retirement plan.
The alpha villain in Fallujah was one Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al-Zarqawi was one serious piece of work. Originally born in Jordan, al-Zarqawi ran a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan before moving his corporate headquarters to Iraq. His repertoire included suicide bombings, hostage takings, and the errant ritual beheading. His stated goal was to transform an insurgency against coalition forces into a full-blown Shia-Sunni civil war. His followers called him the ”Sheikh of Slaughterers.” Al-Zarqawi was the agent of chaos and a simply despicable human being.
British and American checkpoints surrounding the city of Fallujah kept the insurgent tally constant.
Coalition forces established roadblocks around Fallujah that prevented insurgents from escaping while excluding fresh scum from infiltrating into the city. For the hard-core Islamists in the city, this was to be a come-as-you-are fight. The joint coalition force was comprised primarily of US Marines alongside some 1,500 US Army combat troops supported by extensive air and ground assets as well as Iraqi combat forces. The 1st Battalion of the British Black Watch assisted with the encirclement.
Being on the wrong end of these puppies would sure suck.
Entrenched within the city were between 1,500 and 3,000 hardline extremists. These freaking lunatics included Filipinos, Chechens, Saudis, Libyans, Syrians, and native Iraqis all united in their hatred of America. On November 7, 2004, Navy SEAL and Marine Force Recon snipers kicked off the party along with some 2,500 rounds of 155mm high explosive artillery. This was to be an old school fight.
Tactical Details
Nothing makes a more compelling entrance than a 120mm M830 HEAT round from an M1A2 Abrams tank.
There was no shortage of valor to be found among coalition forces as they stormed into Fallujah. US forces ably employed M1 tanks and Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles. Air assets included AC130 gunships, B52’s, F15’s, F16’s, and A10’s. UAV’s and a U2 Dragon Lady reconnaissance aircraft kept an eye on things as the fight unfolded. However, this was a city. The only way to take a fortified built-up area is to get out of your vehicles and just go hunting.
Insurgents had planned the defense of Hell House with exceptional skill.
One particularly bloody engagement has become known as Hell House. The dwelling was two stories built around a central atrium with a skylight and multi-tiered stairwell. Bedrooms, bathrooms, and a kitchen surrounded this central space. In better times it would have been a nice place to raise a family. On this day the insurgents had transformed it into a deathtrap.
Assaulting Marines were canalized into a kill zone.
While the insurgents were little more than fanatical cavemen, they weren’t stupid. They had established firing points on the second-floor landing overlooking the interior of the building. Surrounding structures were too low to establish a viable overwatch for snipers or machine gunners. Their well-reasoned defenses had already pinned down eight Marines inside, six of whom were badly wounded.
Marines pressed in to rescue their trapped comrades.
1SG Brad Kasal and PFC Alex Nicoll moved into the house in an effort at extricating wounded US troops. Checking a doorway underneath the stairs Kasal discovered an insurgent hiding. The Islamist fighter fired a burst from a stubby cut-down AK and missed. Kasal shoved the muzzle of his M16A4 into the man’s chest and cut him down at contact range. Then the entire world exploded.
The transformation from combatant to casualty can come shockingly fast in modern urban warfare.
1SG Kasal was shot several times in the legs. His comrade was caught out in the open and wounded even more severely. 1SG Kasal dragged PFC Nicoll into a bathroom to get out of the line of fire.
Several Marines were wounded assaulting the structure.
One proper stud named Corporal RJ Mitchell was already in a 1st-floor bedroom tending to the wounded. He braved the kill zone in the atrium to reach the bathroom where Kasal and Nicoll were holed up. In the process, he was hit in the leg. The insurgents on the top floor dropped in grenades that liberally peppered the three Marines with shrapnel. 1SG Kasal caught the brunt of one when he threw his body over PFC Nicoll to shield him from the blast.
PFC Nicoll, shown here in an image captured by combat correspondent Lucian Read, very nearly died in the exchange.
CPL Mitchell and his wounded comrades found themselves in a seriously bad situation. PFC Nicoll was bleeding out, and 1SG Kasal was struggling to remain conscious in the face of multiple wounds. Mitchell put a tourniquet on Nicoll’s shattered leg and improvised the same thing for 1SG Kasal out of his low-ride thigh holster. Holding his improvised tourniquet in one hand and his Beretta M9 service pistol in the other, 1SG Kasal directed CPL Mitchell to find a way out.
1LT Grapes aggressively coordinated the operation to rescue his injured Marines.
1LT Grapes, the local ground force commander, battered his way through a barred window with a sledgehammer to get into one of the bedrooms. The resulting opening was so small he had to remove his helmet and body armor to gain access. Replacing his gear once inside, Grapes and his men coordinated a proper rescue from within the structure.
These Marines were not going to quit until they had retrieved their wounded and neutralized the insurgent threat.
Two of Grapes’ Marines ran the gauntlet through the atrium to reach the bathroom where Kasal, Nicoll, and Mitchell were trapped. They improvised a stretcher out of a poncho to retrieve Nicoll and took Kasal under the arms to get him out of the building. Mitchell hobbled out under his own power. Marines on the far side of the dwelling finally beat through the walls to rescue the remaining Marines trapped in other rooms.
1SG Kasal emerging from Hell House with an M9 in one hand and his Kabar in the other became one of the most iconic images from the war in Iraq. Note the trigger finger discipline despite the chaos. What a freaking animal.
An embedded reporter named Lucian Read shot a series of iconic photographs during the fight for Hell House that captured the powerful drama that had occurred there. His shot of 1SG Kasal being carried out of the building with his M9 became one of the most famous images of the war. Once his Marines were clear 1LT Grapes leveled the building with satchel charges.
Before leaving the field 1LT Grapes’ Marines returned to police up the sensitive gear that might have been dropped during the fight.
Once the dust settled, Grapes and his men returned to retrieve any sensitive equipment that might have been lost during the fighting. When they approached the collapsed building an insurgent trapped inside deployed a grenade unexpectedly. The Marines leaped clear as the device exploded. 1LT Grapes then ran up to the wounded Islamist fighter and shot him fifteen times in the head. It had been a hard day for all involved.
The Gun
The M9 soldiered on from 1985 until 2017. Most of my time in uniform was spent with the M9. I liked the weapon myself.
The Beretta M9 is the official designation of the Model 92FS handgun adopted in 1985 as a replacement for the original M1911A1 .45. A short-recoil semiautomatic single-action/double-action design, the M9 is typical of the so-called “wondernine” pistols of the day. The M9 feeds from a 15-round double-column, single-feed box magazine.
The M9’s aluminum frame and SA/DA trigger are a bit antiquated today. However, the gun was state of the art in its prime.
The M9 was known to suffer slide failures at extreme round counts, and the design was modified to prevent this after deployment. The M9 was the least respected weapon in the US small arms arsenal according to a post-combat survey conducted by the military. Most of the M9’s reliability problems could ultimately be traced to sketchy aftermarket magazines. The M9 is currently being replaced throughout the military by the SIG SAUER M17 and M18 handguns.
The Rest of the Story
This bronze recreating 1SG Kasal’s extraordinary departure from Hell House is now displayed at Camp Pendleton.
1LT Grapes eventually left the Marine Corps to serve as headmaster for a Catholic High School for boys in Virginia. CPL Mitchell left the Marine Corps the following year to study Mechanical Engineering at Arizona State. He eventually took a job as a gas turbine engineer at a utility company. PFC Nicoll lost his left leg but survived. The image of a shattered 1SG Kasal emerging from the doorway to Hell House, his legs drenched in blood and his M9 safely gripped in his right hand, was eventually transformed into a bronze memorial.
Rapid medical evacuation from a combat zone has saved countless lives. The US casevac system is the best in the world.
By the time 1SG Kasal reached a medical facility, it was estimated that he had lost some 60% of his blood volume. 1SG Kasal caught seven 7.62x39mm rounds to his legs along with 44 pieces of shrapnel. He underwent 21 different surgeries and lost four inches’ worth of bone in his right leg. Nowadays he is said to walk with a limp.
SGM Kasal’s career as a US Marine was the stuff of legend.
1SG Kasal was promoted to Sergeant Major and served with distinction in a variety of combat roles for another eleven years. He retired after 34 years of service as Sergeant Major of the First Marine Expeditionary Force. According to his Linked-In page, he teaches Marine Corps Junior ROTC at the Basic Academy of International Studies in Los Angeles today. I suspect those kids get their money’s worth.
Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi escaped Fallujah but ultimately met his gory end two years later in a coalition airstrike.
On June 7, 2006, two F16C fighter jets approached a safe house north of Baqubah, Iraq. The lead plane dropped a pair of guided 500-pound bombs and utterly flattened the structure. Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was blown straight to hell along with five of his reprobate associates. It was a fitting end for such an evil mob.
.jpg)
