This piddly epistle is a followup to “The Greyhound Rules,” posted earlier. If you missed it or it has slipped from your Teflon-coated mind, it’s posted HERE.
Re-read that piece and you’ll note both sides screwed up before the first shot was fired. The Good Guys, lulled by a bright warm morning and pleasant company, were mentally in “training mode,” not possible-threat mode. I’m convinced the Bad Guys had reconned the site, and didn’t expect any interference until they approached the building complex where the small “organic security” detail hung out. As a result, neither side anticipated what they ran into where and when they stumbled into it. Upon confrontation there was a mental stutter-step or two. Fortunately, “Mutual Stupid” affected both sides for a couple of seconds.
Bullet #1: If you live with a gun, be ready to engage anytime, anywhere. If that training had occurred in the US, I know we would have been wandering out to the bushes for that potty-call with empty sidearms. The thought gives me chills.
Lots of poor choices were made about position and “cover.” Some Bad Guys fled into vehicles, where they were trapped. The BG’s really blew the whole concept of “cover,” with deadly results: glass and thin sheet metal won’t stop rounds. Good Guys who should have known better stood up to fire over chest-high flatbed trailers, leaving their lower bodies exposed. Both sides occasionally left feet, hands, knees and elbows stickin’ out from cover, and a few paid dearly for that.
Bullets #2, 3, and 4: Ordinarily, distance is your friend, but the urge to put distance between yourself and muzzle blast can override your good sense. “Know cover,” or it’s no cover. Most walls ain’t cover a’tall. If you have any doubt that what you’re hunkering behind will stop slugs, it prob’ly won’t. Be as aware as any human experiencing “Pucker Factor 9.7” can be of exposing stray parts of your body. One of my standing rules is, “If all you see is a piece of your target, shoot the piece! Shoot it to pieces. Then shoot the pieces to pieces.” Your opponent might have the same policy. Don’t show him your elbow — or even an earlobe. He might be good.
Crabs & Gazelles
The Bus Farm Fight occurred on crazy-quilted uneven ground — basically flat, but cut with abrupt minor changes in height from asphalt to earth to old, tilted sections of concrete. Stumbling while running, scanning for targets and shooting cost a few lives. Mixing movement and shooting can be disastrous unless that movement is very deliberate — or charmed.
Bullet #5: If you feel that shooting during movement is a viable option for you, first work hard on your “combat shuffle” and your “agile crab sideways scuttle,” or, just hold onto your piece with your finger outta the triggerguard and take off like a cheetah-chased gazelle. I’ve found I can shuffle straight ahead and deliver semi-accurate fire without trippin’ much, but that’s it. Simulations can tell you what you’re capable of, and I recommend you find out before you try any ballet moves or “sprint’-n’-spray” techniques under fire. Falling and shooting yourself or a comrade can ruin more than your day.
In the midst of a vicious gunfight, nobody expected a glass-rattling voice to command “stop shooting!” – so everybody did. When you’re low on ammo and a sweaty, a smiling teenager in a Chicago Cubs baseball cap suddenly appears, dashing from bus to bulldozer passing out loaded magazines, you first wonder if you’ve gone completely nuts — and then you grab some.
Bullet #6: Weird things happen in gunfights. Expect an Albanian satellite to fall on your head, or a gopher the size of a grizzly to erupt from the ground at your feet. It will happen during a gunfight. Believe your eyes, shrug off bizarre twists, and stay focused on the threat.
Combat Cool & The Samurai Class
The most striking thing about the Bus Farm Fight was the “combat cool” exhibited by the Hard Hombres. I had seen veteran fighters engaged all over the world, and few had the uniform cool of this thrown-together group. Wounds were expected; death was casually considered. Should they be maimed or crippled, they would be respectfully cared for — even lauded — by extended families and their villages or towns. They knew and embraced how they would live and quite possibly die.
An absolute of their lives was that they would fight well and never yield — never. More than anything else, it was this cool and this refusal to yield that won the Bus Farm Fight.
If not born to it, they had become a Samurai class. I learned something about it, and that’s a tale for another time. But let’s close with this: the Hard Hombres’ combat cool had less to do with how much actual fighting experience they had, and more with how much time they had been tumbling “fighting” around between their ears.
Connor OUT