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In our Basic Defensive Pistol Class Tom and I spend a fair amount of time talking about developing the proper mindset before, during and after a violent encounter and trying to impart how important developing the proper Combat Mindset is to survival in a violent encounter. You have to be determined to survive - you must refuse to be a victim. Additionally on range day we continually hammer our students about “Front Sight, Front Sight, Front Sight” even during exercises requiring high speed in follow-up shots. ALWAYS at least attempt to have a focus on the front sight no matter how fast you are shooting or how stressful the encounter. How effective are these concepts?
In Dick Couch’s book The Sheriff of Ramadi, an excellent account of how the Navy SEALs helped the US Army to drive out the insurgents from Ramadi, Iraq, and enlist the sheiks’ cooperation in that effort; he recounts an amazing story of one Navy SEAL’s combat experience in Close Quarter Combat. The SEALS were room-clearing a house in Ramadi, when one of the SEALS entered a room with three insurgents armed with AK-47s, ready to shoot. Paraphrasing Dick Couch doesn’t do justice to it so I will simply quote it below.
“SEALs train incessantly for this kind of confrontation/up-close shooting, engaging multiple targets, shifting from their primary weapon, a rifle or submachine gun, to their secondary weapon, a pistol sidearm. They drill in these shooting situations in different scenarios and situations, shifting from their primary to their secondary and back, over and over. Few ever have to put these skills, or the muscle memory developed in these drills, to use in extremis. On this day Senior Chief Dale needed all of that and more.
The three insurgents focused their attention and guns on Matt Dale. One of their initial bursts took off part of this thumb and knocked away his rifle. As he had done so often in simulation, Chief Dale reached for the pistol on his hip, a Sig Saur 9mm, and brought the weapon level. Then he began to shoot: sight picture and squeeze, sight picture and squeeze, sight picture and squeeze. While Dale was shooting them, they were shooting him. The Senior Chief was hit an astonishing twenty-seven times. Eleven of those rounds were stopped by his body armor. Sixteen of those rounds went through him. “It was easier to say where I wasn’t hit than where I was hit”. But when it was over, three insurgents lay dead and Matt Dale was still standing.
“I didn’t have time to think about it,” Chief Dale told me. “My primary (weapon) was gone before I got a round off. The rest was instinct and training. I knew I had to get my pistol and there it was, in my hand and I was shooting.” I asked him what he was thinking- was feeling. “Pure anger,” he said. ”I don’t remember much other than I was incredibly pissed off - that they had shot away my rifle and that they were shooting at me. I guess I was able to focus all my anger on the insurgents and stay in the fight. I didn’t stop shooting until the slide locked and they were all down.”
Two lessons in this account: “Front sight / sight picture / trigger press” We harp on it when teaching defensive pistol over and over and over driving you to develop it to an instinctual level until you are sick of hearing it. Why? To prepare you for situations similar to what Chief Dale found himself in. Second lesson: never give up during the fight: “Pure anger – I don’t remember much other than I was incredibly pissed off that they had shot away my gun and were shooting at me.” Being ready skill-wise and having the mindset of “Dammit I WILL prevail – I AM going to survive this” – front sight, trigger squeeze, front sight, trigger squeeze will go a long way to ensure you survive the encounter. A combat mindset exercised by a skilled concealed carry pistol permit holder, practiced enough to focus through stressful situations is a criminal's worst nightmare. If you take our Basic Defensive Pistol Course, we will teach you the elements required to develop a combat mindset.
Brian Wilson
Atlanta Firearms Training
December 2009
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