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GWOT False Alarm
Jan. 21st, 2019 04:19 pmRather against my better judgment, we have blocked out training time for hand to hand combat.
My personal opinion is that we should only be hitting people with our hands if someone has thoughtfully taken away all our weapons and then nailed both our feet to the ground.
My professional opinion is that I have to teach these people how to fight. No, that's wrong. I have to teach these people how to _kill_. Kill or get killed, these are the choices. And I have seven holes in the ground to point at when discussing Option B, each with a guard corpse mouldering in it as as a forever silent exhibit.
Aggression matters. Timing ... (beat) ... matters. Technique is secondary. Weapons are just tools. And pain is the great teacher.
So what had been a yoga studio was blocked out for Security at 1030 and 1430 and 2030 hours respectively, and every guard was expected to put in a painful half hour of mat time. I may be the boss, but I'm still a guard, so...
"Fight!" the instructor commanded and Shane Shreve, all three hundred odd pounds of mostly stupid mixed with lazy and mean came at me.
I stood my ground and at the last moment, turned to the right and gave him a push in the ass. He flew past me and kept going, right into the wall.
Both shook.
I did not wait. I leapt on his back, put an arm around his neck, and demonstrated the carotid restraint hold.
He bellowed and started lurching around the room, face turning purple as I hung on for dear life. Finally he fell, as trees do, and in the last moments before passing out, angrily slapped his hand against the mat.
I immediately let go and stepped back and our medic ran forward with a oxygen mask. Six quick breaths later, he was sitting up. A minute after that, he lurched back to the balk line.
"Shreve, what you could have done was to fall _backwards_, Something annoying on your back, brush it off!"
The instructor had no such advice for me, as it would undermine discipline for him to either wish Shreve luck or tell me to go get fucked.
"Fight!"
This time Shreve held still. Waiting.
If I ever had to really fight him, I'd 1) shoot him, 2) take away someone's gun and shoot him, 3) hit him with a vehicle, preferably armored, 4) throw a four second grenade at him after cooking it for two and a half seconds, 5) call for direct fire, 6) call for indirect fire, 7) drop a building on him, 8) "Brooke!", 9) "George!"), 10) "[insert name of Reaction Team member here]!", 11) ... you get the drift. What I would not do is waste time with any non-lethal option.
I'd power slapped him twice, for abandoning his post and allowing a (severely mentally) ill employee to die unattended. He wasn't the forgiving sort.
I saw no reason not to do it again. So I did.
He brought his hands up to his face. So I punched him in the gut . . . which was a lot like punching a truck tire, except the truck tire was probably at a lower PSI. That's Pounds Per Square Inch.
I managed not to break my knuckles. But my hand felt just like I had punched a truck tire. Don't try it sometime, or if you do, try not to do it during an apocalypse.
I wanted to dance up and down, clutching my right fist and howling. So instead I kneed him in the groin, for which all of our guards of all genders were issued a protective cup.
He fell forward on top of me and I scrambled to get away from the man-mountain before he crushed the life out of me.
He crawled to his knees.
"ALERT! ALERT ONE! ALERT!"
The instructor stepped forward and said, I felt unfairly, "Draw!"
We then parted and rushed to our equipment.
I turned on my radio and held it to my ear.
"... for enemy observation on the west perimeter ..."
That was what I needed to hear. I quickly geared up and Shreve followed, not having slowed down to listen to a radio or anything else.
God help us all, he was assigned as my bodyguard. I needed a bodyguard like I needed ... skip that ... but we'd tried him in most of the guard positions and he hadn't worked out.
I leapt in to the back of the second Reaction Team truck as it lurched into motion headed for the west perimeter. Shreve lumbered forward desperately and leapt as well.
The ground did not shake when he missed his jump and did a belly flop onto the concrete. He limped upright and towards the third truck, not yet staffed with a driver, and took the driver position.
Aw shit.
I hung on and listened to more radio traffic. Post seventeen. The guard was adamant that he had been lased.
Perhaps I should explain. Someone points a gun at you, you've been 'muzzled.' This is considered a felony in peacetime, and merely rude nowadays.
Someone points a targeting laser at you, as from a handgun, and you've been 'lased.' In peacetime that's a misdemeanor. Nowadays it generally doesn't happen, because the little red dot is immediately followed by a little entry wound and a big fat ugly exit wound.
The truck dropped most of us off, except the gunner, who aimed the hard point mounted light machine gun into the off-property line of shrub brush and the occasional tree.
Two Reaction Team managers, a guard supervisor and I braced the guard.
The guard of course had no proof that he had been lased. There was the compelling evidence that he had not been shot, however.
I went over to the tripod mounted binoculars at the post, up on a little lip below the sandbags.
That's when I saw the little red dot, moving around the room from chest to chest.
My pre-Firecracker life flashed before my eyes. I could only think of one way to prevent what I knew was about to happen.
"Grenade!" I shouted on my way down to suck the packed dirt floor of the entrenchment.
Everyone followed. But as I fell, and twisted sideways, I keyed up my mike.
"Suppressive fire, Post 17, now now now!"
Gunfire from several sources promptly barked and the red dot faded away.
We had to follow up the brief gain of initiative.
I stood while the other leaders were still arms over heads.
"Attack the west perimeter! Counter sniper, time now, move move move!"
I ran forward. They could watch me run forward and probably get shot, or try to catch up with me and maybe get shot themselves.
Or Shane Shreve could drive the third Reaction Team truck up next to me while his gunner rapped out brief bursts that couldn't possibly hit anything. That was cool too.
The fourth Reaction Truck carried a countersniper. She'd heard the magic word - while one of her team members provide close in security, she flipped open her hard case and brought up her reach-out-and-touch-someone stick.
This was not good range for a conventional rifle from H5. But it was in good range for the recently acquired heavy barrel rifle, the one chambered in .499 Feinstein (because .50 caliber is illegal in the Golden State, don't you know).
Two snipers versus one, a field full of distracting targets both vehicular and dismounted, and a moment's fatal hesi... CRACK!
"Suspect down," called H5 on radio.
Blood pumping, two Reaction Teams patrolled out of the perimeter. They came back ten minutes later with a fabric stretcher supporting the bottom half of a body and some piled flesh scraps, and another rifle to add to our collection. With a laser sight.
The guard was back at his post, visibly willing his vital functions to cease. I stepped briefly down and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Good work," I said,
Then I led the quick debrief and sent everyone back to what they had been doing, with a few exceptions:
The sniper stuck around, checking sight angles and looking for the enemy sniper's friend(s), because snipers rarely play alone.
Shane Shreve reported to Medical with a headache because "I don't feel so good Boss." With any luck he'd have a ruptured gut. But sadly he was fine.
I stayed at the post with our supervisor and the guard, neither of whom I've named.
The supervisor had been in the middle of chewing out the guard for a false alarm when we'd all arrived.
I pointed out that deprived of higher value targets, the little red dot would have harvested that supervisor, as in "The enemy can't possibly [SPLORCH!]"
I praised the guard. Then the supervisor and I went and had a little talk, moving around as we walked so as not to make things too easy for the enemy.
About three minutes later, I heard a brief CRACK! from behind us and a savage whispered "Got 'em!"
The sniper and I huddled in the bunker while she showed me where the second sniper had been on the map.
Too far out to patrol to right now. We would have to check it out tonight.
A security truck showed up to pick us up and drop off a relief for the guard.
As we rode back in a huddle, the guard looked askance at me.
"Sir, may I ask a question?"
"Yes."
"Did you know about the second sniper?"
"Of course."
"So why did you go walking out there?"
"To draw the sniper out."
"But you could have been shot!"
"How is that different from any other day?"
"I could have been shot," the supervisor realized belatedly. "And you were keeping me between you and the skyline!"
I nodded.
"If we let our observation posts get sniped out, who will staff them? Rank has its privileges."
"To use me for bait?"
"You didn't realize it. That made things look more natural."
And the second sniper hadn't done the sensible thing and withdrawn to play another day. Partly because the supervisor had been so oblivious that the sniper thought they had pretty good odds.
"Can I go back to being a guard?" the supervisor said, bitterly and half-seriously.
No.
"Would you prefer to be a walking duck or a sitting one?"
"Let me think about it."
"Don't sit in one place too long while thinking."
My personal opinion is that we should only be hitting people with our hands if someone has thoughtfully taken away all our weapons and then nailed both our feet to the ground.
My professional opinion is that I have to teach these people how to fight. No, that's wrong. I have to teach these people how to _kill_. Kill or get killed, these are the choices. And I have seven holes in the ground to point at when discussing Option B, each with a guard corpse mouldering in it as as a forever silent exhibit.
Aggression matters. Timing ... (beat) ... matters. Technique is secondary. Weapons are just tools. And pain is the great teacher.
So what had been a yoga studio was blocked out for Security at 1030 and 1430 and 2030 hours respectively, and every guard was expected to put in a painful half hour of mat time. I may be the boss, but I'm still a guard, so...
"Fight!" the instructor commanded and Shane Shreve, all three hundred odd pounds of mostly stupid mixed with lazy and mean came at me.
I stood my ground and at the last moment, turned to the right and gave him a push in the ass. He flew past me and kept going, right into the wall.
Both shook.
I did not wait. I leapt on his back, put an arm around his neck, and demonstrated the carotid restraint hold.
He bellowed and started lurching around the room, face turning purple as I hung on for dear life. Finally he fell, as trees do, and in the last moments before passing out, angrily slapped his hand against the mat.
I immediately let go and stepped back and our medic ran forward with a oxygen mask. Six quick breaths later, he was sitting up. A minute after that, he lurched back to the balk line.
"Shreve, what you could have done was to fall _backwards_, Something annoying on your back, brush it off!"
The instructor had no such advice for me, as it would undermine discipline for him to either wish Shreve luck or tell me to go get fucked.
"Fight!"
This time Shreve held still. Waiting.
If I ever had to really fight him, I'd 1) shoot him, 2) take away someone's gun and shoot him, 3) hit him with a vehicle, preferably armored, 4) throw a four second grenade at him after cooking it for two and a half seconds, 5) call for direct fire, 6) call for indirect fire, 7) drop a building on him, 8) "Brooke!", 9) "George!"), 10) "[insert name of Reaction Team member here]!", 11) ... you get the drift. What I would not do is waste time with any non-lethal option.
I'd power slapped him twice, for abandoning his post and allowing a (severely mentally) ill employee to die unattended. He wasn't the forgiving sort.
I saw no reason not to do it again. So I did.
He brought his hands up to his face. So I punched him in the gut . . . which was a lot like punching a truck tire, except the truck tire was probably at a lower PSI. That's Pounds Per Square Inch.
I managed not to break my knuckles. But my hand felt just like I had punched a truck tire. Don't try it sometime, or if you do, try not to do it during an apocalypse.
I wanted to dance up and down, clutching my right fist and howling. So instead I kneed him in the groin, for which all of our guards of all genders were issued a protective cup.
He fell forward on top of me and I scrambled to get away from the man-mountain before he crushed the life out of me.
He crawled to his knees.
"ALERT! ALERT ONE! ALERT!"
The instructor stepped forward and said, I felt unfairly, "Draw!"
We then parted and rushed to our equipment.
I turned on my radio and held it to my ear.
"... for enemy observation on the west perimeter ..."
That was what I needed to hear. I quickly geared up and Shreve followed, not having slowed down to listen to a radio or anything else.
God help us all, he was assigned as my bodyguard. I needed a bodyguard like I needed ... skip that ... but we'd tried him in most of the guard positions and he hadn't worked out.
I leapt in to the back of the second Reaction Team truck as it lurched into motion headed for the west perimeter. Shreve lumbered forward desperately and leapt as well.
The ground did not shake when he missed his jump and did a belly flop onto the concrete. He limped upright and towards the third truck, not yet staffed with a driver, and took the driver position.
Aw shit.
I hung on and listened to more radio traffic. Post seventeen. The guard was adamant that he had been lased.
Perhaps I should explain. Someone points a gun at you, you've been 'muzzled.' This is considered a felony in peacetime, and merely rude nowadays.
Someone points a targeting laser at you, as from a handgun, and you've been 'lased.' In peacetime that's a misdemeanor. Nowadays it generally doesn't happen, because the little red dot is immediately followed by a little entry wound and a big fat ugly exit wound.
The truck dropped most of us off, except the gunner, who aimed the hard point mounted light machine gun into the off-property line of shrub brush and the occasional tree.
Two Reaction Team managers, a guard supervisor and I braced the guard.
The guard of course had no proof that he had been lased. There was the compelling evidence that he had not been shot, however.
I went over to the tripod mounted binoculars at the post, up on a little lip below the sandbags.
That's when I saw the little red dot, moving around the room from chest to chest.
My pre-Firecracker life flashed before my eyes. I could only think of one way to prevent what I knew was about to happen.
"Grenade!" I shouted on my way down to suck the packed dirt floor of the entrenchment.
Everyone followed. But as I fell, and twisted sideways, I keyed up my mike.
"Suppressive fire, Post 17, now now now!"
Gunfire from several sources promptly barked and the red dot faded away.
We had to follow up the brief gain of initiative.
I stood while the other leaders were still arms over heads.
"Attack the west perimeter! Counter sniper, time now, move move move!"
I ran forward. They could watch me run forward and probably get shot, or try to catch up with me and maybe get shot themselves.
Or Shane Shreve could drive the third Reaction Team truck up next to me while his gunner rapped out brief bursts that couldn't possibly hit anything. That was cool too.
The fourth Reaction Truck carried a countersniper. She'd heard the magic word - while one of her team members provide close in security, she flipped open her hard case and brought up her reach-out-and-touch-someone stick.
This was not good range for a conventional rifle from H5. But it was in good range for the recently acquired heavy barrel rifle, the one chambered in .499 Feinstein (because .50 caliber is illegal in the Golden State, don't you know).
Two snipers versus one, a field full of distracting targets both vehicular and dismounted, and a moment's fatal hesi... CRACK!
"Suspect down," called H5 on radio.
Blood pumping, two Reaction Teams patrolled out of the perimeter. They came back ten minutes later with a fabric stretcher supporting the bottom half of a body and some piled flesh scraps, and another rifle to add to our collection. With a laser sight.
The guard was back at his post, visibly willing his vital functions to cease. I stepped briefly down and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Good work," I said,
Then I led the quick debrief and sent everyone back to what they had been doing, with a few exceptions:
The sniper stuck around, checking sight angles and looking for the enemy sniper's friend(s), because snipers rarely play alone.
Shane Shreve reported to Medical with a headache because "I don't feel so good Boss." With any luck he'd have a ruptured gut. But sadly he was fine.
I stayed at the post with our supervisor and the guard, neither of whom I've named.
The supervisor had been in the middle of chewing out the guard for a false alarm when we'd all arrived.
I pointed out that deprived of higher value targets, the little red dot would have harvested that supervisor, as in "The enemy can't possibly [SPLORCH!]"
I praised the guard. Then the supervisor and I went and had a little talk, moving around as we walked so as not to make things too easy for the enemy.
About three minutes later, I heard a brief CRACK! from behind us and a savage whispered "Got 'em!"
The sniper and I huddled in the bunker while she showed me where the second sniper had been on the map.
Too far out to patrol to right now. We would have to check it out tonight.
A security truck showed up to pick us up and drop off a relief for the guard.
As we rode back in a huddle, the guard looked askance at me.
"Sir, may I ask a question?"
"Yes."
"Did you know about the second sniper?"
"Of course."
"So why did you go walking out there?"
"To draw the sniper out."
"But you could have been shot!"
"How is that different from any other day?"
"I could have been shot," the supervisor realized belatedly. "And you were keeping me between you and the skyline!"
I nodded.
"If we let our observation posts get sniped out, who will staff them? Rank has its privileges."
"To use me for bait?"
"You didn't realize it. That made things look more natural."
And the second sniper hadn't done the sensible thing and withdrawn to play another day. Partly because the supervisor had been so oblivious that the sniper thought they had pretty good odds.
"Can I go back to being a guard?" the supervisor said, bitterly and half-seriously.
No.
"Would you prefer to be a walking duck or a sitting one?"
"Let me think about it."
"Don't sit in one place too long while thinking."
