Word got out about my involvement with the Emergency Services Teams in England during my four year tour. I was invited to attend a formal hostage rescue program that would be held on our base. Instructors and tactics would come from many backgrounds and the core focus would be when negotiations ended and the "green light" was given. Our training started at the "green light."
This program spanned many weeks and was held at odd times during the night and day. Our gear was blank adapters and anything we could find or "borrow," our facilities were condemned buildings, but the instruction was excellent. We spent hours, days and weeks learning and practicing approaches, shoot-don’t-shoot recognition, movement, assaulting, breaching and many other skills that would culminate in a Field Training Exercise pitting us against our capable instructors.
From this classic experience I saw what great instruction can do when tools and facilities are weak. I also was exposed to significant amounts of stress. The exercises were so intense that after one particular room clearing where I was the bad guy, a teammate who was part of an entry team continued to fight after end exercise was called. He muzzled my face and pulled the trigger with an open barreled M-16 and live blanks (someone had forgotten the blank adapters) . I would have had severe facial damage was it not for the quick reactions of another teammate who put his hand up and deflected the muzzle flash. I caught only a portion of the blast in the face and my buddy got the rest. He was treated and the kid who shot me was out of the program. Sometimes when the cheese is up we continue to fight even though the threat has been killed or stopped. Good stress training will reduce this response as participants benchmark themselves under adverse conditions and know how to amp up or down as needed.
Hostage Rescue training would impress upon me the need to train how you will fight and to move beyond the fatigue and stress of high intensity moments and filter what is needed and what is not. Loads of repetition and realistic training are the building blocks of muscle and mental memory, and the ability to act appropriately and quickly are paramount to survival and success. Processing threats slowly, pondering potential consequences and then acting with a significant delay will cost lives and even the mission. These would be many of the building blocks that I would use throughout the rest of my tour and career. They became a personal founadtion for decision making and leading for the rest of my life.
Other lessons learned was the value of force-on-force technology like simunitions, airsoft and paintball. The ability to mark someone (which we did not have) in a dynamic confrontation is beyond description and is essential in reducing training time and increasing retention.
Bottom line is that the Hostage Rescue program I attended in Europe in the late 1980's gave me the foundation needed to bring together classic force-on-force instruction, tools, methods and facilities which is now available in the elite Urban Warfare Center® (www.urbanwarfarecenter.com) to civilians, military and law enforcement agencies.
