Took a Force on Force class last weekend

[Guest Titan Scout]

Tactical Resoponse offers a class called "The Fight".

Here's my AAR

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The Fight shook me to my core.

I knew it would.

When a man points a gun in your face, do you **** your pants? Or do you fight back and survive?

You can't possibly know what you will do in a real confrontation. All you mother ****ers out there that say, "Heres what I would do, I would just..." You're full of ****.

I was actually dreading this class...but I took it anyway. I knew I needed it. This is as close as we can get to ventilating someone without actually getting GSR on our hands.

The other 3 classes I've taken in Camden were highly anticipated. This one was not. Why? Because I knew this class would reveal all the holes in my training. Maybe even show me that when the **** hits the fan, I'm not a go to guy.

Thank god I found that I don't freeze up. Sure I have holes in my game, but thank the Lord I found out that I react.

The Fight is one piece of the puzzle. But maybe the most important piece. This is the class that helps you understand when and where to apply the force that we've trained to project.

9 out of 10 times the answer is to avoid or de-escalate the situation. We train to save ourselves by shooting someone, but that should be the last option.

Why? The emotional and legal implications are staggering.

So what did I learn?:

1. Get the **** Out Of Dodge if you can.

2. Never draw down on assailants who have their handguns already out, instead, Feign compliance.

3. Don't be led by your ego. Be willing to "back down" to avoid a confrontation.

4. The Tache-Psyche effect is real. I experienced selective hearing, time distortion, memory loss, etc...

5. Distance and movement are sweet. The common thug can't hit you if you're far away and moving.

6. Don't give more info in the 911 call than is necessary to get help on the way.

7. Try to make the 911 call yourself if possible.

8. Listen to your intuition.

9. Mental visualization is no substitute for real FOF training

10. The variables are endless, the goal remains the same....Survive.

11. You have to be secure with yourself to take a course where you can look like a fool.

12. Fingers do turn to flippers under stress.

13. A spare mag in a pocket will always come out wrong forcing you to look at the mag. Use a mag holder.

14. Carry your phone on your weak side so you don't have to knob dick with your weapon to access it.

15. Practice your one handed reloads, weak handed shooting, incapacitation drills.

16. Decide before hand what you are willing to fight and die for. Is your $25K car worth a gunfight?

17. Police are human, they can re-word what you've said and it can sound real bad later.

18. Police can lie to fire you up in the hopes you will talk.

19. Once you start talking, it's hard to stop.

20. The desire to explain your actions and prove you are a good guy is simply overwhelming.

21. Don't say **** after the fight. STFU

22. Yeager would make a great prosecutor.

23. **** can go down anytime, anywhere.

24. Finding yourself unarmed, is one of the worst feelings I've ever experienced.

25. more if I think of them

After day 1, I was pretty down on myself. I reacted, but my solutions were not optimal. I found my self making simple mistakes in tactics and skill that I thought I had figured out. Then I realized that this training is unlike anything I've ever done.

Yeager said, (paraphrased) "you have to build up a catalog of similar experiences or your mind won't know what to do in a lethal confrontation."

We all carry to defend ourselves, our loved ones, and innocent civilians. We have taken the Tactial Pistol courses. The next step in the process is FOF training.

You must go through these scenarios to understand the "rest of the story".

You can shoot a tight hole a 10 yds. Whooped de ****ing doo. Can you keep your **** together when homeboy tries to **** your **** up in a parking lot?

If you want to know the answer to that question, take the ****ing class.

Bottom line...I'm better prepared for the worst, should it ever happen.

[Marswolf]

The Fight? Very dramatic....

........

Glad you like Yeager. Lots of people don't, especially in Baghdad.

[TGO David]

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

[Guest Tyler Durden]

James is adept at doing what it takes to survive. Running and hiding being one of his best skills. Did he teach that?

[molonlabetn]

If it keeps you alive when/if the time comes... that's what matters. I sincerely hope that the money was well spent, in that regard.

You won't hear many (if any) positive things from people who actually depended on Yeager when the SHTF... Especially from the dead ones. He's great with people who think he's the schiznit, and unquestioningly fall in stride with spoken bravado.

I've got no beef with him (other than his attitude), may he live forever.

[BimmerFreak]

Tactical Response offers a class called "The Fight".

So what did I learn?:

1. Get the **** Out Of Dodge if you can.

Oh, how ironic....

[BimmerFreak]

Here is some very early promotional material I found featuring James Y.

[Guest Hyaloid]

Oh, how ironic....

At least he practices what he preaches

It is the first rule after all!

[TGO David]

Yep... this thread is going well.

[Guest Mugster]

Well, sounds like this guy must have done something in the sandbox that garnered some bad PR.

Profanity in the original post aside, there's no fighting 101 class you can take in a weekend that will prepare you mentally for a gunfight. When that first round WAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNGs past, some guys fall apart and other guys become warriors. I suspect it has always been this way, back to when we were carrying clubs and living in caves and fighting off the sabre toothed tigers. It is probably not too wise to cast stones...we all potentially live in a glass house when it comes to mental toughness.

If you are looking for adventure, my suggestion is that you join the marines or the army. They've got some basic training for you thats pretty good, and you can go and get an advanced degree at places like the ranger school that might teach you a little about yourself. You might find out some stuff you didn't particularly want to know. You probably should not mention to the instructors that they "can't do" anymore so they are relegated to only teaching. Just a heads up.

[Guest triggertime]

It's easy to bash someone on the internet, especially someone

you haven't even met or have taken a training class with.

Anyone brave enough to do it in person? Just curious....

[molonlabetn]

It's easy to bash someone on the internet, especially someone

you haven't even met or have taken a training class with.

Anyone brave enough to do it in person? Just curious....

To who, you or him?

[Marswolf]

Well, I was brave enough to get wounded twice in southeast Asia, while I wasn't trying to hide. And I've had quite a few scrapes since then. I still move pretty well. Guess some people think I'm brave enough to repeatedly coax me out of retirement to carry a gun into touchy situations. I doubt that even at my age I'd have much of a problem with Yeager or his "trained" Rambozos. You see, I can still actually "operate."

What Yeager did was leave wounded and dying (supposed) buddies to their own defense to go hide in a ditch. I talk to both current military guys and contractors in Baghdad. Ask those who have heard of him in that theater what they think of him.

I can see why getting the heck out of Dodge is at the top of his list. But you don't do that with buddies getting shot all around you. You support them with suppressive fire and try to get them - them - out of there. Every military guy I know of worth anything at all has a different #1 rule - never leave a wounded buddy. That's the way men do it.

All the rationalizing in the world won't make James Yeager into a warrior. All of his sideshow pomposity won't erase what he wasn't able to do. He tried and he failed when the bullets came his way. There is no shame in that. He tried. But he failed. Some people can't hack it, no matter how "brave" their braggadocio. The shame comes in trying to pretend they are something different than what they are.

[BimmerFreak]

Well, I was brave enough to get wounded twice in southeast Asia, while I wasn't trying to hide. And I've had quite a few scrapes since then. I still move pretty well. Guess some people think I'm brave enough to repeatedly coax me out of retirement to carry a gun into touchy situations. I doubt that even at my age I'd have much of a problem with Yeager or his "trained" Rambozos. You see, I can still actually "operate."

What Yeager did was leave wounded and dying (supposed) buddies to their own defense to go hide in a ditch. I talk to both current military guys and contractors in Baghdad. Ask those who have heard of him in that theater what they think of him.

I can see why getting the heck out of Dodge is at the top of his list. But you don't do that with buddies getting shot all around you. You support them with suppressive fire and try to get them - them - out of there. Every military guy I know of worth anything at all has a different #1 rule - never leave a wounded buddy. That's the way men do it.

All the rationalizing in the world won't make James Yeager into a warrior. All of his sideshow pomposity won't erase what he wasn't able to do. He tried and he failed when the bullets came his way. There is no shame in that. He tried. But he failed. Some people can't hack it, no matter how "brave" their braggadocio. The shame comes in trying to pretend they are something different than what they are.

Well said.

I would be happy to ask James about his actions that day in Iraq.

I would be happy to ask him why he continues to self-promote himself like he performed like some great warrior in the sandbox.

Im not going to waste my time driving up to TR, so if James wants to come on down...I would be happy to post mapquest directions.

Until then, I am going to trust the OFFICIAL (not his) after action review of the events that left most of him team dead or wounded.

I will continue to trust the words of those that were in theater that day, and for some reason they all have a different view of who did what, and who showed valor and a cool head under fire.

Like Mars, I too have led men into, and (most) home from combat.

Im not talking "I was a mess-kit repair specialist operating in a war zone" but actual combat. Dirty, scary, combat.

The reality for any combat leader is that there is no guarantee you will bring all your men home. Its combat. People die.

One thing a combat leader should be able to guarantee his men are:

1. I will never leave a fallen comrade behind.

2. I will LEAD you into the fight, and be the last one on the objective once secure.

3. One thing my buddies can DEMAND from me is selfless service. EVERYONE fights and at times, will sacrifice their safety and perhaps lives for the lives of their buddies.

Those three simple rules will get most warriors through the night.

They know they will fight and die for their buddies not because they WANT to die on some far away battlefield, but because its what men in the profession of war do.

I am willing to risk my life for you, because I know you are willing risk your life for me.

One coward, and that balance is thrown out of whack.

Added:

Disclaimer-

Im not promoting myself as the next Audie Murphy or Sgt. York.

I have the (unfortunate) opportunity to be and lead under fire several times now, and I will go on the record and say that it sucked each and every time.

Its something that I hope to finish the left 24 months of my career without having to do again (at some point your luck has to run out...) but will lead with honor and distinction if called to do so. (that means I wont run nor hide while my men fight "on the X" )

[DBTN]

Good review Titan Scout. It sounds like you learned form the scenarios and took away from them what was intended. That speaks volumes to the quality of instruction that is being provided by Tactical Response(TR). Force on force training can be an eye opener. I applaud you for taking the training and TR for providing it.

[Guest triggertime]

To who, you or him?

To him.

If everyone who bad mouths James Yeager on the internet would go meet, sit

down and talk with the man, and maybe take a training class, their opinions would

mostly likely change.

If nobody wants to do that, then they're just playing the blame game and it gets old.

For what its worth, James had been running Tactical Response successfully

long before the Iraq incident. So you don't know if all the "so-and-sos in

the sandbox" have a personal agenda against James out of jealously of his

success or not.

Who knows, maybe their despise for the man has nothing to do with the incident

at all. Go talk to the man in person and find out.

[Mike.357]

If everyone who bad mouths James Yeager on the internet would go meet, sit

down and talk with the man, and maybe take a training class, their opinions would

mostly likely change.

So you don't know if all the "so-and-sos in

the sandbox" have a personal agenda against James out of jealously of his

success or not.

I do not know Yeager from the man in the moon, but I think I will go with Mars's assessment of things, his opinion I value and trust.

I googled him to read for myself and found several diverse sites.

here are two of them if anyone wants to read. One is for and one is against.

I read both of them and still going with what Mars said.

http://www.jamesyeager.com/proaccomp.html

http://yeagerisscum.tripod.com/

[molonlabetn]

To him.

If everyone who bad mouths James Yeager on the internet would go meet, sit

down and talk with the man, and maybe take a training class, their opinions would

mostly likely change.

If nobody wants to do that, then they're just playing the blame game and it gets old.

For what its worth, James had been running Tactical Response successfully

long before the Iraq incident. So you don't know if all the "so-and-sos in

the sandbox" have a personal agenda against James out of jealously of his

success or not.

Who knows, maybe their despise for the man has nothing to do with the incident

at all. Go talk to the man in person and find out.

I do not personally know anyone who despises him, or has an ill-will towards him. But many people who I do respect, do not respect him... he would have a lot of bad reputation to overcome for me to come to respect him, and even then his attitude displayed on this forum would not be easily forgotten. I would have no problem explaining that to him in person.

The insinuation that he wants to fight or intimidate anyone who voices poor conclusions drawn against him based on his reputation and correspondence, only counts against him further... And confirms any suspicions regarding his character which I personally may have had.

[Marswolf]

For what its worth, James had been running Tactical Response successfully

long before the Iraq incident. So you don't know if all the "so-and-sos in

the sandbox" have a personal agenda against James out of jealously of his

success or not.

I personally have nothing against Yeager for his inability to perform in Iraq. Some people freeze or run when they come under fire. Fight or flee. Classic psychological confrontation. They can't help it. But I see how he self-promotes and my conclusion is that he's a big windbag. If it quacks like a duck....

I can promise you that the men I talk to are not jealous of Yeager. They are top-line professionals and battle-proven. They laugh at him or are repulsed by him. They treat him with disdain mostly on the basis that he blamed the other men on the team, some of them dead, as an excuse for his lack of bravery.

I'd be glad to meet him and tell what I think of him face to face, but I wouldn't cross the street to do so. And I certainly wouldn't be such a fool as to enrich him by taking a class.

Tungsten, I have thought for some time along the lines of your question about whether the most hotly promoted "trainers" in this industry are more than good carnival barkers. Suarez, Piazza, and Yeager come to mind. They all have issues. I think I can add our little Russian Spetsnaz to the list.

I'm not saying these people are incompetent or bad trainers, just that promotion seems to be more important to them than integrity. People like that are avoided in my world.

[Guest triggertime]

The point of the matter is that the Iraq ambush should not be a negative influence in anyones decision on whether or not to spend money training with James. It does not

and should not negatively effect his credibility as a trainer.

If anyone feels that it does, then you're being too critical and too judgemental.

What it does show is that James was the only operator with the presence of

mind to get off the x and survive the ambush when bullets were zinging

through the unarmored vehicles that they were provided with. You can't

blame James for what other operators did or did not do. And I wouldn't

call it an inability to perform or an act of cowardism either. You might,

but I don't. As they say, opinions vary.

That said, every trainer has baggage in one form or another. If you're

looking for the pristine training guru, he doesn't exist. Nobody is

perfect. Sometimes you have to overlook a trainer's baggage, keep an

open mind and see what they have to offer to the table.

And that's all I'm going to say.

[saintsfanbrian]

Training helps. Good training, bad training, it's all a wonderful thing. My question is this, during this Force and Force training, was there ever a REAL POSSIBILITY that you would be killed? I seriously doubt it. Hurt maybe, but not killed, and until you are in a situation where a VERY REAL bullet hurtles past you or at you or in to you at a high rate of speed, you will never know how you are going to react.

I can recall my very first night at boot camp. The TI's were walking up and down our group screaming at just about everyone for just about anything. (They were very good at that.) The head TI stopped at me and asked why I joined HIS Air Force. My answer, all be it the truth, was probably not the best thing to say to him. "To get money for college." His response was, didn't you think you might have to take a bullet and die for your country in order to get this money for college? To which I responded, "Yes, I don't like the thought, but if that's what it takes...." I think by this time I had all of the TI's yelling at me. And before anyone makes a joke about it being the Air Farce and they are in the rear with the gear, you may be right, but the last time I checked, they all wear the uniform, they all carry the guns, and they ALL have a very real chance of dying, especially in todays modern warfare.

So, if Mr. Yeager would like to come to Memphis and talk to me, I am more than willing to listen to what he has to say. If he wants to come here with an attitude of being better than me because he went over to Iraq or any other place, I don't care. He wasn't there in support of the country, he was a civilian contractor making a heck of a lot more money than our boys and girls do and he should remember that he was able to leave ANY TIME HE WANTED TO!!!! Our boys and girls in uniform don't get that choice.

Oh, I too have the most respect for Mars. So do most of the people that know him personally. Librarian or not!!!

And getting yourself off of the X is great but fleeing the fight and not providing cover for your buddies to get off of the X is reprehinsible.

[TGO David]

The point of the matter is that the Iraq ambush should not be a negative influence in anyones decision on whether or not to spend money training with James. It does not

and should not negatively effect his credibility as a trainer.

If anyone feels that it does, then you're being too critical and too judgemental.

What it does show is that James was the only operator with the presence of

mind to get off the x and survive the ambush when bullets were zinging

through the unarmored vehicles that they were provided with. You can't

blame James for what other operators did or did not do. And I wouldn't

call it an inability to perform or an act of cowardism either. You might,

but I don't. As they say, opinions vary.

That said, every trainer has baggage in one form or another. If you're

looking for the pristine training guru, he doesn't exist. Nobody is

perfect. Sometimes you have to overlook a trainer's baggage, keep an

open mind and see what they have to offer to the table.

And that's all I'm going to say.

I'm too stunned to even form a cogent response at this time.

[Marswolf]

The point of the matter is that the Iraq ambush should not be a negative influence in anyones decision on whether or not to spend money training with James. It does not

and should not negatively effect his credibility as a trainer.

If anyone feels that it does, then you're being too critical and too judgemental.

What it does show is that James was the only operator with the presence of

mind to get off the x and survive the ambush when bullets were zinging

through the unarmored vehicles that they were provided with. You can't

blame James for what other operators did or did not do. And I wouldn't

call it an inability to perform or an act of cowardism either. You might,

but I don't. As they say, opinions vary.

That said, every trainer has baggage in one form or another. If you're

looking for the pristine training guru, he doesn't exist. Nobody is

perfect. Sometimes you have to overlook a trainer's baggage, keep an

open mind and see what they have to offer to the table.

And that's all I'm going to say.

Good God! What kind of drugs are you taking?

We need to do an intervention to get the Yeager cult out of your mind.

And the proper way to handle an assault on an unarmored car is to use the engine block for cover - not hide in a ditch.

[Guest Mugster]

So I'll pose the question publicly that I posed in private to Marswolf...

Are there any training groups that are worth a **** and aren't marred by some stigma attached to their founder's name? Gabe Suarez and Ignatius Piazza both have their own baggage but both own and operate high profile training groups. Yeager is plagued by this as well... as even a quick Google search will show. Not just by the incident in Baghdad but by things locally as well.

I don't recall Jeff Cooper ever being dogged by this sort of thing, but most of his career was admittedly way before my time.

And it seems that Tactical Response has some good instructors under it's employ, so it also seems a shame that they share the stigma assigned to the group's founder. Tactical Response would probably fare a lot better if James were to retire from the group or at least distance himself as widely as possible from their day to day operations and training.

I guess if one good thing can be said about Titan Scout's experiences is that it did open his eyes to some common sense realities about the use of deadly force in a self defense situation, and how many times our best laid plans for what we'd do when the SHTF goes out the window almost immediately when the adrenaline starts pumping.

Oh well. I'm just tired of politely closing threads about Tactical Response when things get ugly. That strikes me as being the Internet equivalent of running and hiding.

You can probably learn something from most anything, this is true. Yes, there are some training schools designed to teach professionals the arts of war. They are mostly located in or run by military personnel, that being where the professional soldiers generally hang out. Civilians, both with and without a GS rating, are often included in military courses along with foreign nationals. The drop/failure rates are usually quite high for these folks unless they lower the course standards (a whole nother issue). I know they used to run some stuff at Ft. benning for pretty much anybody, but they ran afoul of the IG back during the Olly North thing...the infantry school probably has a detailed web page of its offerings, you might track that down. The marines do pretty much the same thing on the QT as the saying goes.

There are some places out there like this one here as well that specialize in providing military type instruction to civilians:

http://www.rcta.org/

You know, closer to home, try the KyARNG or the TnARNG. Seems like somebody on this board is an NCO in that reserve SF unit based down in montgomery al, the 20th i think it is. They used to hold some training stuff for cops, other military units, and even classes of caydets back in the day. I might start right there, or right here, whatever the case may be. I'm sure a senior NCO can hook you up with some POC's, as they say.

[Punisher84]

This poor poor old horse. Will the great Yeager disruption ever be free of this place? lol