Immediate Action Drills for the Armed Citizen

[awp_101]

It's certainly not "assault the near ambush" from the kill zone as we drilled in the Army. Coincidentally Claude Werner was just writing about how that may need to be unlearned by those who engrained it when they had the mission to close with the enemy.

To that point, several times DB has mentioned working with and knowing high drive type LE that transitioned to the J Frame lifestyle upon retirement for that reason. I specifically remember him telling the story of a guy he knew that was sitting in a coffee shop not long after retiring who recognized a wanted bad guy sitting in there having coffee as well. He said if he’d had his duty gun on he’d have attempted to hold him until help arrived but having “just” a J Frame he decided walking out the door and calling someone he knew at “the office” to handle things was the better plan.

The point of the immediate action drill as I drilled it in Army training was to condition a unit to react with the same immediate action to a specific threat, together to save the time of forming and communicating a plan in certain emergencies. And getting caught in a near ambush is one heckuva emergency.

It’s the same concept but with the “family unit”. If I see something (or someone) odd while we’re out eating and I tell her we need to leave now, I guarantee there’s going to be at least 1 round of 20 questions before she gets up and maybe another round as we’re leaving. OTOH if we’ve already discussed why I might make that call and what she needs to do, then she knows 20 questions can wait until we’re in the car.

And I’d like to offer another thank you to @jlw for a quality and entertaining podcast. I can’t always listen the day it drops but I try to catch it within a day or two on Spotify.

[Hambo]

It’s the same concept but with the “family unit”. If I see something (or someone) odd while we’re out eating and I tell her we need to leave now, I guarantee there’s going to be at least 1 round of 20 questions before she gets up and maybe another round as we’re leaving. OTOH if we’ve already discussed why I might make that call and what she needs to do, then she knows 20 questions can wait until we’re in the car.
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Settle on a phrase that means GTFO now. Normally, one of us asks the other, do you want to go? Are you finished?

If either of us says as a statement: "It's time to leave." That means we get up and go immediately, no questions asked, no stops, don't worry about the check, use the fire door if you have to. The hope is we see it coming left of bang and are exiting before the show starts.