A different twist on training

American Handgunner, Sept-Oct, 2008 by John Connor

The first of two related themes in dozens of your e-mails goes like, "Wow, do I envy you the training you've had!" Dudes, if you only knew how much I envy the training many of you have received.

See, like many others, I feel like I got shanghaied into being a trainer long before I was sufficiently trained myself, and then my duties became so esoteric and specialized so fast I've never had time to "back up and catch up."

You could divide my working life into roughly four interwoven pieces: Military and law enforcement, with those two split into foreign and domestic. Ninety percent of the training I've done has been either "pre-school rudimentary" for "indigenous personnel," or high-speed low-drag shock & awe stuff. For a while I was even an "appointed expert" on Soviet urban combat tactics. I taught those to both U.S. and foreign troops, adapting some for training American metro SWAT units.

The experience has left me qualified to teach ex-and-future goat herders the basics of sight picture and trigger squeeze, and team tactics on clearing stairways, stairwells and blindwells with smoke, gas, automatic weapons and novelty pyrotechnics.

Folks, this ain't the kind of training you--or I--need for confronting a prowler in your kitchen or surviving an ATM stickup. If you go everywhere with three or five heavily-armed commando pals, I'm your man. If you want to serve bench warrants on felony fugitive gangbangers, I can help. Otherwise, well, read on.

Your second recurring theme tells of your lack of bucks and time to get away from home and business to attend appropriate training at a reputable facility. Many of you, up to your ears in kids, second jobs and coaching Little League can't even get out to the range to pop some caps as much as you'd like. What to do, you ask? First, let me tell you, munchkin-wrangling, paycheck-earning and being a Solid Gold Spouse is the greatest, most honorable calling given by God or man, and then, be glad we're living in the Golden Age of "remote training!"