Staff Sergeant Amy Baker came out of the Porta-Potty and snapped her nylon duty belt shut. She always had to pee when she was nervous, and small arms training and qualification definitely made her nervous. She had enlisted in the United States Air Force Reserve as a Computer Technician four years ago when it occurred to her that she was never going to get her degree in computer science without some financial help. It never occurred to her that she would be carrying a gun, let alone ever putting herself in harms way.
At twenty four years of age, Amy had two years left on her enlistment in the reserves. Standing in at five feet eleven and weighing a mere one hundred thirty pounds, Amy was tall and slim. Her blonde hair tied into a pony tail made her look like a California surfer girl when it was down.
She went into the portable building that served as the classroom at the range. It was small and full, almost to capacity. There were two empty seats. One at the rear in the corner next to an enormous man in a wrinkled uniform, and one in the center of the front row. She didn't really want to sit front and center but the thought of squeezing into the corner seat appealed to her even less.
She had just sat down when the room was called to attention. A woman in her mid forties with blonde hair wearing Major's insignia on her ACUs strode in purposefully.
"Be seated. At ease." Said the woman forcefully.
"I am Major Collins, Commander of the Security Forces Squadron. Welcome, I am glad you could make it. The Security Forces Squadron needs all of the augmentees we can get. You are actually very fortunate. We have a guest instructor that you will meet a little later. Those of you that are here today will get better training than our full time Security Forces get. We don't get this instructor very often and when we do, it is usually at a moments notice, like today. I wish I could stay and attend, but I have a busy schedule. At this time I would like to turn you over to Master Sergeant James Prince from our Combat Arms Unit. They're all yours Jim." Said the Major, raising her hand to signify the waiver of ritual, meaning the room didn't have to come to attention.
"Good Morning!" Said the gray haired Master Sergeant.
"Good Morning!" Replied the class in unison. It was a ritual in the armed forces. The class responded well enough that the Master Sergeant moved on.
"We are going to do things a little differently, so pay attention to our commands. Speak up if you don't understand. We are going to go over weapons nomenclature and the laws of Use of Force before we head out to the range. Tom Sebring our guest instructor is going to qualify with us so we are going to run a hybrid qualification. It should only add a few minutes to the qualification. Every one will shoot the first string, then everyone but Tom will step back, and Tom will shoot the Law Enforcement string. We will do this at the five, ten, fifteen, and twenty five yard lines. First everyone and then Tom at each stage. Watch what Tom is doing, he is an expert."
The classroom portion was boring but relatively painless. There weren't any changes to the curriculum, so it was a review. The class had just exited the trailer when a black Chevrolet Suburban with tinted windows pulled in. It screamed unmarked police car.
"The middle aged man who got out, held up two fingers to Prince, who nodded and took the class to the firing line, leaving the middle spot open. The man from the Suburban walked up to the middle spot and nodded at Prince.
"At the five yard line, Load and Holster." Commanded Prince.
The students all removed their Sig Sauer M-18 handguns, inserted a magazine, racked the slide and holstered. They all topped off their magazines to replace the round they had chambered when commanded to do so by Prince.
"All shooters, six rounds in ten seconds. Six rounds in ten seconds. Be ready, here they come."
The targets were supposed to turn, but as was typical on most bases, the turning system had broken a long time ago. So instead of the targets turning, Prince blew the whistle. The shooters released a volley of fire and then Prince blew his whistle again at ten seconds. Prince was strict on safety, but not a stickler for late shots. These were augmentees after all.
"All shooters except the LEO move to the ten yard line and hold. LEO from the five yard line, from the bent elbow position, one shot, two shots, then three shots, be ready here they come." After the sixth whistle, Tom holstered and walked back to the ten yard line. The students had caught their first glimpse of Tom's shooting. The first thing they noticed was that his gun looked different from theirs. His was black instead of Coyote Brown. The second thing they noticed was that all of Tom's shots were in the small circle in the middle of the target.
When the qualifications were completed, Prince had all of the student's walk down and look at the targets. All of the students had qualified, but several of them like Amy had only qualified by a few points. Prince stopped the group in front of Tom's target. Not only had Tom shot a perfect score, the small circle in the center of his target was missing. It had been completely shot out.
"Learn from this people. Tom is a good shooter, but he isn't Superman or Robocop. He is a practiced shooter that follows the techniques of good marksmanship. Nothing he has done today cannot be done by any one of you with the right amount of practice and the right technique."
The students returned to the classroom, and as is human nature, they all took the same seats they had earlier this morning. Tom went to the podium and began to speak.
"Good morning class. I'm Tom Sebring, I am a Supervisory United States Marshal. I am also a Chief Warrant Officer in the Air Force Reserve, which is why I qualified with you all this morning. I have twenty five years of experience. Besides my time in the Reserves, I spent five years with the San Diego Police Department and twenty years with the Marshal's Service. I want to take our training a little sideways today, and try to bring some reality into what we are doing. I want to have a discussion based lecture on the realities of gun fighting, and before you ask, I have been in three gun fights, two of them fatal. So I am a practitioner of what I am teaching and not just an academic."
A slight murmur went over the classroom. It was slightly more pronounced than when he teaches the Security Forces. It was understandable. Not many in this classroom had given much thought to actually using their weapon for real. A couple were probably squared away, and a couple were probably sociopaths that really, really wanted to use their guns. It was the cost of doing business. Tom didn't relish training sociopaths, but they didn't wear ID bracelets, and it came with the territory.
"How much value do you think what we did this morning actually has?" Asked Tom of the whole group.
When no one answered, Tom went back to speaking.
"I am treating you all as adults here, and this is a serious subject, I promise, no one will get in trouble or laughed at for speaking up in here. What was the value of what we did this morning?" Asked Tom.
"It's trigger time. I never shot a gun before I came in, and this is only my second time shooting one." Said an airman from the middle of the classroom.
"That is a great answer. Why is it great?" Tom asked then waited.
After a few seconds Amy raised her hand and spoke when Tom nodded at her.
"It's honest."
Tom looked hard at Amy for a moment. It made her slightly uncomfortable. There was something about this man. He was old enough to be her dad, but he made Amy feel funny. Tan and lean with gray hair at the temple, he had the definite look of an operator.
"You are correct. Look folks, you come from all different career fields and walks of life. But the reality is, if you get put into a critical incident, the outcome will likely affect all."
"The first thing I want to talk to you all about is mindset. I want you to give serious consideration to why you are in the position you are in, and what you will do if you are presented with a threat. That mental preparation can mean the difference between responding effectively and panicking. Panicking is bad." Tom took a breath, then a sip from his water then continued.
"Mental preparation is the first and most important technique you need to learn, and we will get the opportunity to practice it on the range later today. Say you are assigned to guard a closed gate in the middle of the night. What are some of the mental preparations you should rehearse in your mind?"
Tom sat quietly watching the class. After a few moments, the girl from before put her hand up. Tom nodded to her.
"The first thing I would do is ask myself where would I attack this position from. How would I do it?" Asked Amy tentatively.
"Exactly!" Said Tom. He could hear the murmur. He knew he had them from this point on. The rest of the discussion about planning and cover and concealment, contact and cover, and compartmentalization flowed easily with active and invested participation from the class.
