NIGHT OF LOSSES & A REDISCOVERY

THE WORLD SEEMED TO stop for a while for me as I am shell-shocked and dazed from the knowledge that somebody had just entered into my house – surreptitiously - while I am in the middle of my sleep. It happened between 12:00 midnight to 2:00 AM of May 2, 2012 and it was raining hard. By habit, I should have awoken during downpours.

My wife woke me up from my slumber and, automatically, my attention shifted to the laptops. I found the Acer Extensa still on its place the last time I saw it used but I just lost my newer Acer Aspire laptop left on the glass center table of my living room. Both were covered with cloth yet the expensive one was the one found and spirited away from me.

 

The burglar gained entry by removing five jalousie glass blades from a window. Left behind were the Aspire’s battery and power supply and a pair of Logitech speakers. Placed beside the missing laptop but ignored, nevertheless, were my Guess wristwatch and a Columbia Scorpion King folding knife. Obviously, a child did the dirty job while an older companion could have stood outside waiting.

I saw my backpack on the tiled floor and saw some of its items strewn all over. I felt for the things which I knew were inside but discovered that I just lost my wallet containing my ID cards and an ATM card; and a Habagat neck pouch which contained my Sony Cybershot digital camera and about eight pieces of Camp Red special edition patches.

Retrieving my LED flashlight and knife, I searched quickly the backyard for any hidden suspect that might have been trapped but found none. I went running out of the house into the rain and followed the path to the street hoping that I may catch up with the thieves. M.J. Cuenco Avenue is almost empty save for a huddled group of three pairs of male and female teenagers waiting for the rain to stop.

I am almost naked save for a pair of shorts and I am barefooted. I can’t walk on the streets like this, even if I look like taking a bath in the rain. It’s weird at that hour with a knife. I went back to my house shaken by the swell of fiery emotions that have started to boil over. My wife met me at the door and she has with her an umbrella and she goes out to T. Padilla Street to do some investigating.

I search again the backyard carefully and found my wallet left unfolded on the ground with its items disgorged all around including my ID cards and my ATM card – all wet! Further search on my backpack assures me that my stash of hidden cash is still in its secret compartment although I lost a small amount of cash placed inside an unzipped pocket.

I tried the upper level of my house and the HP notebook is safe. My pair of Rivers hike shoes which I thought stolen is also upstairs. Gosh, what audacity for this unknown intruder to enter my lair. I could not shake off my anger and my unbelief that somebody had just did the impossible. And did it under the cover of rain. You know what, somebody had just torn off a page from my book and turned the tables on me. 

 

On some distant dark past when I was still in the Force, the rain used to cover up my movements and I operate effectively under it. I know very well that rain make people drowsy as warm air are pushed by supercooled air upon its approach. The monotony of raindrops on roof or on a puddle makes everyone comfortable and drop their guard. Even dogs drowse during rain, their excellent senses drowned out by that annoying rhythm and cool comfort. I know, because I used to tiptoe over them.

Then on some more distant darker past, I learned to stay awake when it rained. It was cruel and hard. Sleep is snatched away from you while everybody are enjoying their time on a warm bed on a very cold night. I grow up watching a stream during downpours for, when it rose, I have to plug the holes and, when it overflowed, I have to wait for the flood to abate and then start cleaning the muddy silt while it is still soft and watery.

Even the sight of bulging rain clouds in the distance is enough to send me scurrying for home to hold the fort against a liquid foe. It was like that for twenty years. That was when I lived in the old house.

But on that rainy night when someone entered my home, I rediscovered something amiss in my grown-up adult life: the feeling of abandoned bliss and comfort. The old feelings accompanied by sweaty anxieties and goose chills which usually follow when the subconscious mind switch on the brain to consciousness during the approach of rain were gone.

That feeling is surprisingly absent. Or it may have been eroded by living in a new house? Or I may be getting rusty and lost my old zing? Whatever. It is a shock to me and is so alien. I could not defend my home in that situation and, for that matter, allow any intruder to make mincemeat out of me. It was a good thought though that it wasn’t an assassin but just a petty thief.

I could do nothing about the stolen laptop and camera for now, so I texted my old underworld friends to take a look out of those items if ever it gets traded in their places. On the other hand, it is wise to have this incident recorded to the police authorities. I went personally to the Waterfront Police Station and pass a piece of paper to the investigator where all the info are typed so I could keep questions to a minimum.

The Acer Aspire is the center of entertainment for my boys. In it they could play online games, surf the ‘net, interact in Facebook, watch You Tube videos, download MP3, listening to music or saving pictures. The 4GB DDR3 memory, the 500GB hard disk space, the 15.6 high-definition LED LCD monitor, the Windows 7 platform and open-source browsers gave them the freedom to do as they please provided you use 110 volts of electricity else it explodes in your face.

The Sony DSC-220 camera is a different matter. It is used in the furtherance of my outdoor activities and my travels with which images captured are documented and blogged in Warrior Pilgrimage or uploaded in Facebook or Webshots. The camera had been dropped on streams twice but it still functioned after a few days drying. Basically, it could withstand rough handling.

Those were my toys and my joys. It pains me that it is not with me anymore and I just hope that my outlaw pals would send me a positive message in the days to come. If not, life moves on and wait for these things to drop from the sky along with the rain.

A new thought crossed over me. This concerns about the new feeling of comfort and bliss. To an ordinary mortal, this is most welcome. To a man who used to live life dangerously in the past, this is evil. I begin to sense the urgency of my present plight. I used to be comfortable at being uncomfortable or uncomfortable at being comfortable. How to recover the old sense back is the most difficult part.

Document done in LibreOffice 3.3

GUNS OF OCTOBER

I AM A SELF-STYLED “gunless society” advocate yet I am also skilled with a gun being someone who happen to be trained by an ex-Sayaret Matkal in the early '90s. Why is that? Is it possible to stand in the middle amidst two differing principles? That is a line of thought I could easily live with being someone who has been there at one time or another.

It cannot be denied that more and more people have fell victim to criminality and the police cannot be at certain places all the time to give protection. It cannot also be denied that more and more people have access to guns now than ever before and crime statistics have risen because of that.

Then again, why not make a stand that would benefit the best of both worlds? Teach people about the principles of a gunless society while firing a gun on the side. Double speak? Maybe? But I don't care what you think. If teaching people both would result to a betterment of society then, so be it. I don't care about the politics behind each side.

So, once again, my gun skills will be used for the betterment of certain individuals who, by the nature of their work, are tasked to carry guns, guard private properties and protect the lives of company officers, employees and their visitors. I am talking about the often-neglected and often-ignored private security guards.

This writer under the banner of my personal blog - Warrior Pilgrimage - was tapped by Tactical Security and Detective Agency, Inc. in October to conduct the Basic Gun Safety and Firearms Proficiency Training upon their guards assigned with Oro China Jewelry and with Gateway Motors (Cebu), Inc. at different firing ranges in Metro Cebu.

Security guards from among the different outlets of Oro China Jewelry scattered in the cities of Cebu, Lapulapu and Danao availed of this program on October 2. Firearms used were a 9-millimeter pistol, a caliber .38 revolver and a 12-gauge shotgun. The well-maintained Kamagong Firing Range inside Camp Lapulapu, Cebu City was used as venue.

Participants fire five rounds per position totaling 25 rounds for revolver, 15 rounds for 9mm pistol and two rounds for shotgun. Positions were standing for both pistol and revolver at 10 meters using strong hand and 5 meters for weak hand; kneeling, sitting and prone for revolver only at 10 meters; and a 5-meter draw-and-fire pistol on a selected target. Aside that, familiarization firing for a 12-gauge shotgun is also laid for the firers.

The following week on October 9, sixteen guards comprising the first batch coming from the different areas of Gateway Motors like KIA-Gorordo, KIA-AC Cortes, KIA-Linao, KIA-Tawason and BMW-Nivel Hills were fetched from the agency headquarters in Mandaue City and fired guns at the NS Firing Range, Tawason, Mandaue City.

I had my hands full overseeing the 16 firers on a very hot day until Mr. Zaldy Recla, human resource manager of Gateway Motors, came to assist me. Mr. Recla is also a club member of NS Gun Club whose firing range in Tawason is the ones we used.

I used the same formula as with the previous participants (to include the 14 company officers, employees and security guards from Cebu Grand Hotel that I taught at Aqua City Firing Range, Talisay City on July 23, 2011) and I find it effective and very practical. Also, this is the first opportunity for all the guards to fire different firearms and at dissimilar distances and situations.

On October 23 and at the same NS Firing Range, it was the turn of the second batch of guards from Gateway Motors comprising eleven people. Mr. Recla came again to give support to his wards and, at the middle of the day, both this writer and Mr. Recla test-fired a US M2 Carbine as consolation to release a long drawn urge to tickle this classic assault rifle.

Afterwards, I treated the guards to a late lunch in Upper Canduman while being entertained by our very own Flash Donaire demolishing Omar Narvaez of Argentina on late broadcast TV. Warrior Pilgrimage would like to thank Mr. Recla and to security officers, Fernando Ypil and Robert Unabia of Tactical Security, for valuable support to all my engagements.

For this series of firing range activities of October, Warrior Pilgrimage, in consonance with Tactical Security & Detective Agency, Inc., is happy to give each firer certificates that would enhance their standing in the security industry and I see a smooth relationship in the future.

 

Document done in Libre Office 3

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE SIERRA MADRE

I STOOD NAKED with 499 other “captives” on a cold and windy early morning of January 1989. My time in Tanay, Rizal is winding out in about two weeks. Infront of us are our sets of fatigue uniforms and combat boots piled high like a mountain on a road junction at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range.

I am assigned as pathfinder and I am issued a compass to lead 100 people back to Camp Capinpin during the escape and evasion phase. At a given signal, we are going to break free from our “holding area” in a deep valley and recover our clothes up here. I don't think I could do that in utter confusion. But I marked where my uniforms lay and I don't have to go far. I have to think fast.

Up ahead is a clump of grass surviving in the middle of the road going down to that valley. It is almost shoulder high and I believe no one could imagine that it could hide a big guy in there. But first, I would retrieve what my grandfather taught me many years ago: to sit still like a rock and harness my mind to confuse the “enemy” before I could reunite with my uniform and boots.

Then a rifle shot cracked in the air and everyone stampeded down the road. I ran with the other “captives” and crouched low when I ran past the grass. Stealthily, I eased back into its protection. More shots were heard and more footsteps came hurrying down until there were no more. Then silence.

I bent my head between my knees, closed my eyes and willed my mind to go blank. I heard nothing except the wind and crunch of heavy boots and one of the “enemy” came close. Then the grass danced before a strong breeze and it is reassuring.

I could feel an “enemy” standing just a meter beside me unmindful of my presence. Warm exhaled air lightly touched my skin pores as it is carried by the breeze but I am a rock today and I am invisible. Discovery meant hard butt strokes from an Armalite or from an M14 and indescribable disgrace.

The “enemy” took three steps forward and I heard a loud metallic action as a round is loaded into the firing chamber. Then a burst of gunfire is fired into the air. Warm empty brass shells landed on my head and my back. Another burst is fired again. The “enemy” gave last-minute instructions and I could understand it clearly well.

Once the transport trucks leave, I opened my eyes. I looked around the surroundings and cautiously approach the mound of uniforms in a wide circle and found my boots and my army fatigues. By the time I was tying up the shoe lace for my last shoe, the first “captive” arrived, followed by another until all 499 milled around the mound. Everyone were grabbing for himself clothes and shoes, fitting this and that.

I just could not believe two guys fighting over the same shirt and a sleeve almost got separated. Elbows flew. Raised agitated voices rang in the cold morning. Wrong pairs of shoes scattered everywhere. Pants seesawed back and forth. Discipline learned the hard way evaporated. It took almost an hour before the crowd settled down and donned their uniforms in the best way they can.

I regrouped my 100 and I stifled a laugh at their appearance. Each group is on its own and we are five in all. Then the whole 500 traveled as if it is one group and that is insane. I decide to break away for I know the “enemy” will be waiting and laughing. From here to the camp are “enemy” checkpoints and discovery meant physical humiliation.

Half of my group questioned my logic and it is torn apart. I am left with fellow “captives” from the Visayas and Mindanao regions, to include my Moslem brothers. My ragtag group evaded several checkpoints over a land that I am not familiar with. I led them by studying the terrain and chose where my route would take with a characteristic cunning taught by grandpa.

My group arrived first at half past noon inside Camp Capinpin undetected and I reported to my training officer. Half of my command is found missing during headcount and I bore the brunt of the punishment but that is nothing compared to the ignominy of being “recaptured” at the checkpoints which the rest were, several times.

Really, it is nothing for I found solace in the fact that I have outwitted the veteran Scout Rangers at their own game and turf.

Document done in Libre Office 3

Sketch in ballpoint pen by PinoyApache

CHILD MOCK WARS: Airsoft to Slingshots

SUNDAY, JULY 26, 2009. I went to the Mandaue City Reclamation Area to watch an ongoing airsoft battle on an open lot nearby the Cebu Doctor's University. It is my first time to see an airsoft event. I saw grown-up men running; their rattling plastic weapons spewing off plastic pellets at opponents. The ground is very muddy but they were very serious with their game. I was quite amused and I shook my head unable to believe seeing “aggressive” grown-up people doing things that only children used to do.

I was wondering what were their past time during their childhood years? What sort of games did they play as a child and what kind of neighborhood where they were reared in? I'm not sure if this bunch of men are late bloomers yet, I was wondering also if they have experienced our old-school war games?

Then and there, nostalgia visited me. I played war games when I was of elementary age. At those years, my aggressive nature where already harnessed. Boys of my age or older, when I was able, urged me to join them in “battles” against another group of boys a block away. Neighborhood were pitted against another neighborhood and there were many many ways to play a war – depending on the season.

In October, when young bamboo shoots are sturdy enough after the first rains, we make pop guns with it. Small strips of wet paper balled to fit inside the hole of the native pop gun are used as bullets. It pops out one paper pellet at a time and then you retreat and take cover to reload while another would take your place. A balled wet paper will hurt and sting your skin if the air pressure pushing it is just right. It will even hurt you more if a very itchy seed of a certain plant is used as projectile.

This same bamboo pop guns with large bores are used to squirt water at opponents when caught unawares. Water most often used are either those laced with red pepper or from a canal or, worse, urine. In the heat of the battle, some boys will use the bamboo rod that pops the paper out and use it as a dagger in retaliation or when cornered. When pinned down, you have to wriggle and fight your way out. Rescue missions are rare in those times.

We fought head on without the use of cover and body protection unlike those “big boys” I saw in that airsoft event who fired their plastic guns behind obstacles without looking at their opponents. They used a lot ammo and hitting nobody! In our case, it is one bullet one kill. Supplies are limited. We do it in mass-frontage attack shouting battle cries with counter-attacks and lateral strategies. It is a very close close-quarter affair. Sometimes, it became so personal with flying fists settling the issue.

In another season, we used the rubber slingshots. The typical projectile is rolling two-inch strips of paper up to three-eighth of an inch thick and bending it in the middle to look like an inverted V. You squeeze the two ends of the V together over the rubber sling and pull it taut like pulling a bow and release it at your intended target. This will hurt twice more than that of the bamboo pop gun especially when released from an exact distance of 6 to 10 feet. Farther than that, the paper arrow will swerve, made off-course and off-target by a passing breeze.

We solve that by using the flower stem of the tikog grass. The tikog is heavier than the paper; will hurt more and is effective even in distances of ten feet or more. The juice of the tikog can cause allergy on the skin. The good thing about it is that our neighborhood is the only place where this kind of grass abound. With that luxury, we won many wars and made many allies and our numbers increased and we became confident in waging wars in far-off places, even crossing district boundaries.

Our opponents, upon seeing that their paper bullets are no match to our tikog arrows, used strips of GI or copper wires encased and hidden inside the rolled paper and it became so ugly to each side that naked metal wires flew all around and nobody dared to meet in the middle. The good thing about our generation is that we exhibit a spirit of sportsmanship and fair play, in imitation of war movies, and resort to ceasefires and parlays complete with white flags. We either settle for a truce or continue the war with other weapons.

Sword-fighting is one of them. Inspired by medieval knights and samurai movies, we arm ourselves with three-foot bamboo sticks with garbage or cauldron covers as our shields. Three or five of us would meet head-on with the same number of our opponents and, sometimes, when the pain is too much for one boy to take, the sword becomes a spear; then a retreat and shouts of victory and taunts; a foot of territory gained.

Another is the Indian-pony fight. One boy would ride on another boy's back and square off with another pair and try to kick each other down until a rider fell off or the “horse” will buckle under bringing with it his rider. Another is using rubber-powered rifles. With the same principle of the hand slingshot, this wooden “weapon” fire small pebbles and green manzanita fruits. The range is much farther and battle tactics are inspired more by that popular TV war series – Combat.

One childhood game I hate to play is imitating Bruce Lee. Every school recess (yes, it's like a ritual), ten to fifteen boys will come at you with flying kicks and tiger claws and you end up at the bottom kissing dirt with big bumps on the head and a soiled uniform. Tears are forcibly restrained else the taunts will be more nasty and cruel. No regrets there. I learned later that this is the typical “school of hard knocks”. A good training ground.

We fought our battles at schoolyards, in abandoned buildings, on the streets, along riverbanks, grassy fields, on open basketball courts and at the waterfront area. Escape and evasion are part of our “maneuvers” and parkour-like running were developed and mastered; well ahead of its time.

These were how I relished my childhood together with other kids of my generation. We improvised with what we had and we enjoyed much more than those airsoft guys could have imagined in their lives. Besides, it was not awkward doing our thing then like these grown-up men are doing now. I'll bet their moms would give an approving smile at their just-harnessed battle skills. Maybe. But I'm sure the missus don't want to be part of it. Especially the muddied military outfit.

My aggressiveness were fine-tuned at that early age and have been handy when crunch time came in my adult life; especially with the real thing! I have my resourceful generation and my tough neighborhood to thank for for being mediums of my passage to these rites.

Going back to that airsoft war, I saw an organized mayhem. The field were pockmarked by parties upon parties of untraditioned men who fought not as a single unit. All the contingents were ill-trained for the business of battle. All ran helter-skelter for cover and friendly fires a-many. Umpires raised yellow flags on the premise of a “hit”. Blaring music and a commentator all joined in the chaos drowning out the essentials of an engagement – the passion of the game and their sounds.

Document done in OpenOffice 2.1 Writer

I NEVER KNEW IT HAD A NAME

A copy of my letter addressed to Mr. Karlon Rama, Sun*Star sports columnist where a part of this letter was featured in his column, STAGE FIVE, on May 21, 2008.

Sir:

I am a regular reader of your column, STAGE FIVE, and I find it very informative, interesting and a perfect medicine to my ignorance of other things and events that are somewhat close to my heart yet quite invisible to my senses. 

So, on the Sun*Star Cebu issue of May 12, 2008, you featured a particular way of carrying or wearing a handgun, which is concealed in an inside holster and tucked inside the belt line of the pants, and the possible ways of drawing it out without having the holster go along with the gun. Very few have mastered it due to the difficulty it entailed but you’ve done your research well and you deserve my respect and thanks.

I really appreciate your concern about lawmen and how should they behave or dress when off-duty and, in the event when facing with a threat, what technique or ways should they choose to apply in drawing out their sidearm to answer a lawful calling.

I am a former policeman and was trained by an Israeli anti-terrorist commando officer during my SWAT days. I worked undercover then as an anti-narcotics operative so it would be proper for me to wear and carry my handgun inside the beltline to be more effective. Concealed yet easy to draw. As you were saying, “...(Massad) Ayoob developed a modification of the Hackathorn Rip…by having the thumb of his strong hand hook the garment…hand moving up…giving him a clear path from which to draw”.

It is the same technique I practiced and perfected since 1991 and I didn’t know it had a name and, much more so, it had a Mr. Jordan, a Mr. Hackathorn or a Mr. Ayoob lay credit to this idea or technique. I don’t read gun magazines either save for scanning the eye-popping features and photos of collectible and contemporary guns. I advocated then of carrying a gun discreetly as against the general conception of most law enforcers in plainclothes who display their firearms to affirm their status symbol.

When drawing, I let the thumb of my strong hand hook the lower part of my t-shirt to protect the hammer spur from getting snagged from the garment as my hand goes on its upper motion while my middle, ring and little fingers are slightly curled to quickly catch the handgrip, the index finger extended far away from the trigger, so as to prevent it from being accidentally fired during that one swift motion. I could quickly draw a concealed gun with my developed technique as if I’m drawing a gun on a side holster in a match. Believe me, it’s a blur!

Sometimes, I wore a shirt tucked inside my jeans pulling the exposed garment just enough to have a sagging effect. Then I slid my holster with the gun through the neckline into the inside of the beltline fixing it so it would not create a bulge. Security guards in malls, theatres and bars don’t bother to frisk seeing a guy wearing “in-shirt”. Upon drawing, my weak hand would grab a fistful of the sagged part of my shirt ripping it up almost chest level and, at the same time, my strong hand (hooked thumb, curled three fingers, extended index) would draw the gun out where it would meet the weak hand, now as a support, in the center. One drawback though is that your gun will get rusty due to accumulation of sweat especially during hot days.

The use of both hands in the latter dress-style and/or technique is never a problem to me, defensive-shooting wise. You don’t make yourself a conspicuous target by just standing inert; you’ll have to confuse your opponent by moving sideways or downward. People, you know, always presume one position of firing stance and automatically spend a round to where their intended target is at and, in the process, will miss or slightly graze his target where, in this rule, the first bullet fired should count.

But that was eons ago. I assimilated perfectly well with civilian life and guns are not a part of my life now except, perhaps, reading your column about people and events that are having had to do with guns. But my warrior mentality and reflexes have not receded any and I find myself more preoccupied with blogging, mountaineering and bladed weapons nowadays and, that, is another story.

Thank you again, sir Karlon, for that feature on your column about concealed guns and the ways with which to draw, it sure woke up a lot of memories, which I found in common with and glad to share it with.

God bless!

Respectfully yours,

Pinoyapache

TOY SOLDIERS

I SAW TODAY, June 25, 2008, four agents of the Witness Protection Program of the Department of Justice (WPP-DOJ) escorting a government witness in their midst. They were armed each with 7.62 mm Galil assault rifles slung across their necks and 9 mm Jericho pistols inside their holsters complemented with enough ammo to hold to a standstill George Bush's boys in Iraq. Both fine firearms are made by the Israel Arms Industries (IAI).

They were, in the meanest terms, formidably armed and they put on a show as they escorted their principal down the stairs into a waiting double cab. They were clad in blue uniforms and khaki cargo pants, badge shining on their left breasts with dark glasses to hide their stiletto eyes. You wouldn't see the likes of those except, perhaps, inside a cinema. But, they were real.

They were very alert, disciplined and they were well attuned to the slightest movement as their heads followed jerkily every motion found in their peripheral vision. They were young and clean shaven and they adhered strictly to proper gun safety as I found their index finger extended safely away from the trigger. I will give that last point of observation to them my earnest admiration. And they were tense --- very tense! You could see clearly how they gripped the handgrips hard, some fingerprints adhering to cold steel by their sweaty hands.

It just so happened that I was in Toledo City, on the west coast of Cebu Island attending a criminal court hearing when one of them caught my critical eye, one hand gripping the handgrip of a Galil while the other hand flailing loose and free. The next two imitated the first one while the last one clutched the Galil's forearm stock in a reverse and awkward manner. They were in a textbook diamond formation and I couldn't wait to exult on my own discovery of several weak spots, or should I say, their inexperience.

They were just small details that a trained eye would take notice of and utilize these to his favor and slightly decrease the “enemy” advantage of superior strength and firepower to well within his own control and comfort. For one thing, I already have the element of surprise on my side.

For a hundred grand, I could ping off the four guards with a .22 wheelgun and successfully deliver my client's message to the witness in a matter of seconds if I have my way! But I am not. I am just a sadistic perfectionist. I would love to poke into somebody's chink in their armor and get away with it in my imagined bloody street wars of my mind.

A weapon like a Galil needs respect from its owner. You wouldn't handle a Galil, even if it is slung safely around your neck or shoulder, with just one hand unless another hand is clutching the forearm stock nearest to the magazine. The tendency of a long firearm with a sling is that it would swivel and swing if it is held at the handgrip in the event of a sudden reaction to face an armed aggressor and would only be stabilized when the support hand grabs the forearm stock and, by that time, it would be too late, considering that you'll have to switch from safety to semi-auto after that.

A weak hand clutching the middle of an assault weapon stabilizes its fulcrum point as it would bring the weapon closer to the body of the holder and makes the transition to fire very easy and swift and it is much comfortable as it relieves the strong hand of its tenseness from holding the handgrip for so long. It would also remove the aggressive stance by which the latter hand position would project to people.

It would take a few gunfights or of some considerable amount of time engaging in “immediate action drill” (IAD) exercises to arrive at a conclusion whereby one could see beyond what others could not. I am speaking from a view of someone who was there before and, by good fortune and having a wise teacher, I was able to keep my hide that long.

Looking back many years ago, I could not forget how my Israeli instructor lambasted me for taking for granted my handling of an assault rifle. I was like those kids I saw a while ago with those deadly Galils. It was for that reason he turned his ire on the ground where I stood and emptied one magazine of his baby Armalite, intentionally missing me by inches, as showers of dirt and dust fell on me. It was for a reason why he did that – to show a sense of value for my weapon! A little sign of respect. A small gesture that would ultimately save a life...mine...and others as well.

Document done in OpenOffice 2.1 Writer, Trebuchet MS font, size 12.