New American Truth

It was in the year 2000 (if I remember correctly) that I attended a Low Light Instructor’s course.  The instructors were Ken Good, Vaughn Baker and a couple of associates.  It wasn’t the first time I’d ever been introduced to Boyd’s Cycle, otherwise known as “OODA Loops” – or the human decision making cycle, but it was the first time I’d had the impact of efficient OODA Loops demonstrated so effectively.  Since taking that class I’ve included at least brief information about OODA Loops in every officer survival and defensive tactics class I’ve taught.  Why?  Because winning the decision making race means winning the fight – and if you don’t understand the race you’re in, you have less chance of winning it. Read the full story

05/04/13 – AFGHANISTAN – WAR DEAD – (Google Search)
Total: 2,192
Fatalities In hostile actions: 1,731
In non-hostile actions: 461
Tallies may be incomplete because of lags in reporting.

05/06/13 – AFGHANISTAN – The weekend deaths of seven U.S. soldiers and a member of the NATO-led coalition made the casualty toll one of the highest of the year in the war in Afghanistan.(Google Search) Read the full story

O4/27/13 – KERRVILLE, TX – One Pasadena police officer was killed and another was severely injured in an accident involving an 18-wheeler late Friday on I-10. They had stopped to aid a stranded motorist. (KHOU.com, Houston, TX)

05/02/13 – NEW CASTLE, PA – Officer William “Jerry” McCarthy IV, 60, was killed Thursday when a pursuit ended in a violent crash with the suspect. He was pursuing a woman who was driving with a suspended license when she crashed into his cruiser. Another officer was injured and hospitalized in fair condition. (PoliceOne Staff and WTAE) Read the full story

04/20/13 – SHERMAN, Texas – A North Texas officer, Grayson County Sheriff’s deputy Chad Christian Key, was killed Saturday night when a repeat drunk driver hit him as he directed traffic. (NLEOMF and PoliceOne)

04/21/13 – Washita County Sheriff’s Office, OK – Deputy Sheriff Douglas Leon Hanna was killed in an automobile crash. (NLEOMF)

04/21/13 – Boston, MA – A police officer shot and wounded while pursuing the marathon bombing suspects last week, VMI alumnus Richard ‘Dic’ Donohue, had to be resuscitated after his heart stopped and he lost his entire blood supply, but doctors and relatives said Sunday he was emerging from sedation and expected to recover. (Roanoke Times and L. A. Times) Read the full story

Long time readers know that I have, in the past, written several articles about Bugout Bags, Go Bags, Trunk Kept Go Bags and assorted other articles on related topics. This past week I was presented with an interesting hypothetical: what if you couldn’t take a bag? What if all you had was what you were WEARING and your guns. What would that consist of? Naturally this is radically different depending on what environment you are, or you expect to be, in. Still, it seemed an interesting enough challenge to contemplate that I thought I’d share. Read the full story

04/12/13 – Brookfield Police Department, WI – Police Officer Donald Bishop suffered a fatal heart attack while responding to a burglary call. (NLEOMF)

04/14/13 – Opelousas Police Department, LA – Assistant Warden Peggy Sylvester was killed in a single-vehicle crash. (NLEOMF)

04/15/13 – NEW YORK – A New York City police officer shot her boyfriend, turned the gun on her 1-year-old son and then shot herself in an apparent double murder-suicide at her home Monday morning. (PoliceOne.com) Read the full story

First let me say this:  We at New American Truth are horrified and distraught at the loss of life in Newtown, Connecticut.  The history of violence in or against our schools in the United States predates our country’s founding.  It should shame us all that we act so aggressively to prevent accidental deaths by fire or physical injury but we so completely neglect the prevention of violence in any realistic manner.  Instead of arming willing and capable teachers and training our students to never accept being a victim, the educational leadership mouths meaningless platitudes about “zero tolerance” and “teaching individual responsibility.”  The only way to survive a violent attack and emerge victorious against evil is to train for it and respond to it with greater justified and completely moral violence.  Until that reality becomes accepted and spread through our schools, violence will continue; the loss of innocent lives will continue; and politicians will continue to use such horrific events, leveraging them for their own power-grabbing agendas. Read the full story

As I read various articles and blogs about survival preparation, planning, preparedness, etc. it occurs to me that each writer, including myself, holds a greater expertise in certain areas of preparedness and survival than in others. I know… “Duh!” right? What would I expect? Everyone has that which they have mastered to a greater extent and those skills that they still need to practice. It is human nature, I believe, to prefer to practice that which we are already good at and to neglect, to some extent, the things we aren’t as good at. Why? Because we naturally don’t like failure and when we practice the things we’re not as particularly skilled at, we don’t do them as well… leaving us feeling a greater sense of failure than when we efficiently and neatly accomplish another skill set we’re far better at. Read the full story

MILITARY

04/08/13 – ISTANBUL – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday railed against the “cowardly” terrorists responsible for the attack that killed five Americans in Afghanistan, including a “selfless, idealistic” young diplomat on a mission to donate books to students. Anne Smedinghoff, a 25-year-old diplomat originally from Illinois, and a civilian interpreter for the Defense Department, and others were among victims of the blast Saturday. Three U.S. soldiers were among those killed, according to the ISAF statement. Four other State Department employees were injured, with one in critical condition, Kerry said. The other fatality was not named.
(BOSTON HERALD & BLOOMBERG NEWS) Read the full story

Let me start out by saying that I grew up in the era of the first couple Rambo movies and was firmly embedded with the thought that a good survival knife had to be big, have saw teeth, a hollow handle, a lanyard and in general look mean enough to take down a Cape Buffalo.  I have, since then, matured some (read “gotten older”) and have realized that where field knives are concerned, bigger isn’t always better.  Of late it seems that some manufacturers are agreeing with me. Read the full story