I always look forward to Red Shirt News, the newsletter by my old friend and colleague Terry Smith. The Red Shirts were those of us who reached a high level with the Monadnock PR-24 side-handle baton, training the instructors who would in turn train other officers. The Monadnock program encompassed other non-lethal weapons as well.
Another old red shirt friend is Larry Smith, late of the San Diego Police Department. In the current issue he does an excellent review of “Time Is Always On Your Side” by Michael E. Musengo, Lynn L. Westover and Lon D. Bartel. The single most powerful lesson I saw him extract in his review was this:
“…in law enforcement time isn’t a luxury—it’s a contested resource.”
It’s true in any form of human conflict. I hear some people say “There’s no timer in a gunfight.” My answer has always been “Sure there is. It’s located in your opponent’s trigger finger.”
Many thanks to Terry and Larry, and of course Musengo, Westover and Bartel.
The PR-24 was a heck of a tool back in the day. Not sure how many agencies issue/authorize their use today.
All very true, but there’s a sobering stat with respect to Col Boyd’s OODA. Post WWII, the Allies (not sure if Russia participated) got the leading aces of all the air forces involved in the European Theater together to go over lessons learned.
Their first item was that the vast majority of their victories involved pilots who weren’t aware of the enemy until bullets started hitting their aircraft. It’s kinda hard to grasp the mindset. Here you are in enemy airspace during a war just cruising along fat, dumb and happy. OTOH, we see this a lot in drivers who’s eyes never leave the road immediately ahead. Especially at night. The mirrors are there for a reason.