W. Hock Hochheim's March 2007 Web Log

HOCK'S Web Log

 

 

"Read by Thousands Round' the World!"

 

 

 

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27 March 2007: Leaping Across the Big Pond

I am off to Belgium and then Germany over the next three weeks, at the mercy of the computer connections and techno I may not be familiar with. Looks like I will be teaching almost every day, somewhere, where ever my gracious host have cooked up, but I shall be checking in...

 

Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com

Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/

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26 March 2007: The 100 Yard Dash...to or from Boot Hill?

Remember when being called "cool," was ...cool? That being "cool under fire or pressure" was a compliment? That easy, common sense compliment makes even more sense today than it did yesterday.

The information that the sheer increase of heart rate alone has little to no effect on skill performance is slowly working its way across the collective minds of military and police personnel and trainers. The other day a veteran officer and shooter at the Meridian Naval base spoke up and said,

"You mean...those shooting courses they made us do when we ran 50 yards,

stopped suddenly and started to shoot at targets?

That wasn't adrenaline training like they said? Why was it so hard, then?"

Boy, can I ever hear the words of some semi-educated instructor barking about how this was some kind of adrenaline course. Well, in a word? No. Its not. Hitting the bulls eye might have been hard simply because...your chest and arms were heaving from the run, not that your small muscle and motor skills were affected from the 145-plus heart rate, or the other bogey-man, the adrenaline rush. It is now accepted among bio-mechanical experts that rushes of fear and anger actually affect the kind of performance once defined as the "problems in the 145 or more beats-per-minute category." They drummed into us years ago, that the world went to hell at 145-plus. Many of the uninformed still do!

Fear? Anger? Involved in your range day? Possibly! Perhaps you were afraid of looking bad before your peers on this course? Or fearing that a failure of the course might mean being fired from your enforcement job? Perhaps you were ripping mad at yourself for stubbing your toe or dropping yet another magazine? Maybe some fear-related or anger-related adrenaline might be in the mix. But, if you are just running and shooting? Its about something else. Wind/Conditioning? Other issues. I think it is important for trainers and everyone to split these hairs. These misconceptions about heart rate performance, adrenaline, fear and anger make for bad doctrine. Bad doctrine makes for bad training. And you know where that leads...Boot Hill.

 

 

Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com

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25 March 2007: New Halleck FMA Knife DVD

We just finished the Filipino Knife 1 of the Halleck Training Progressions. Marc explains and dissects the knife drills of Lameco, Lacoste and Inosanto - and shows many options and techniques. This DVD covers one of the famous drill patterns and many of the practical inserts and options.

 

Filipino Knife Training Progression One

http://www.hockscqc.com/shop/product263.html

 

 

 

 

 

Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com

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22 March 2007: Defining the Sunset

I'd like to scribble down some thoughts here, if you will allow me to, on the idea of defining yourself. Some look at your achievements. But some look at other things. Perhaps you have heard of that old saying, "you define yourself, your stature, you, by the stature of your opponents or enemies.

 

The Japanese would say "business is war." And those bloody bastards mean that war methods are used to defeat business competitors. But, Avis looks hard at Hertz....etc. American Airlines battles Southwest Airlines. You get the picture. You often measure your success or failure by the titans, the mediocrity, or the failures you perceive fluctuating around you. Business is war! Unless you have been in a war. Then you know war is war.

Perhaps your neighbor and his new car and 4-wheel drive lawn mower is another level of success/fail study. He may have nothing to do with your profession, making your measuring yardsticks uneven, but you still covet his new built-in, gas grill and flat screen. But often, not enough, or sometimes too little, we define ourselves by our neighbors, friends, business competitors, or by our enemies.

Enemies. Imagine a police officer defining his or herself as, "I want to fight Hannibal Lector!" That officer will become the psychological expert. The profiler. The mastermind. Then he is knocked out in the simple bar fight call. Or, vice versa, an officer defines himself as a gutter-level, street cop, learning the ways and means of low life and then can't turn to page two on a white collar crime case or a configure a mafia connection, or understand Hannibal Lector. Who is your enemy? Who do you fixate on to fight?

When I was in the older U.S. Army, the world of the enemy was in the jungle. We were green, green and a dark green. The other day I was at an Army base and everything was tan. Every tank. Every shirt. Even the faces - from multiple tours of duty. We define ourselves by the our enemy. Jungle. Urban. Desert. That is not a bad thing. It is what it is.

Eleven years ago, unhappy within the confines of the martial arts, frustrated by military and police training programs, I started out with a plan to teach hand, stick, knife and gun. On a scale of..what? Where? Who? No one was doing it. I mean taking it to the college-like, level of knowledge. No one else was actively doing it and if they were? It was elementary school level. Now, many are trying the hand, stick, knie and gun game. Gun guys trying to be stick guys. Stick guys trying to be gun guys. Artsy guys trying to be reality guys. And so on. Defining and re-defining themselves by the competition.

The martial arts and systems are full of these overt and covert comparisons. You measure your enemy in the ring. Lots of high-level fighters train to fight other, high-level fighters. Then they, like the street cop, are knocked out by a sucker punch from a bum. A trophy-shooter, or Gunsite graduate, street cop is killed by an untrained thug. The Thai guy fights the Thai guy. The karate guy versus the karateka. The UFC guy fights the UFC guy. These tunnel-vision, stand-offs, are at the root of the Myth of the Duel, which I pontificate about all the time. The Two stick fighters, exact-sized sticks in a duel. Two knife fighters dueling. Patton vs Rommel? Wellington vs. Napoleon? Hoover vs. Kennedy? How do you define the fight? What is the big win?

Can you judge yourself by your enemy? Your business competitor? Should you? I guess to some extent it is natural and to be expected. Biological even. We constantly look for reference points in life. In the big picture, experts are usually successful experts in a few things. A brain surgeon can't knit a quilt. A Brazilian champion can't fix a car engine, and Einstein can't tie his own shoe, (which is a symbolic remark as Albert could tie shoes to the point of initiating String Theory) But in the end, a large part of you must truly stand alone from all these comparison mazes.

You stand alone. At some point you must stand inside your own value system. And what is that? The parameters? A moment with your child. Or your grand kid. A moment with your spouse? Is it a last ditch charge up San Juan Hill, or a stand in a hallway at the Alamo. Things that may well be a measurement outside any who's-who scale, or any achievement chart in the Wall Street Journal, or the list of requirements for a military medal.

Conformity or escape. Rebellion or acceptance. Define one side and you've defined the other and further defined yourself somewhere in between. There is no escape from the big picture. There is just the big picture and you ping-ponging around in it trying to drop into the bonus hole.

Peace on a Sunday afternoon sunset may be the greatest achievement. You know, I think often of Texas Hill Country, myself. A good whiskey is a golden brown in the right kind of thick glass, if held up to catch that springtime, Texican sunset. Hey, ain't that a great moment too? Doesn't that also fit in the definition of who you are? Somewhere? Somehow? Its a Zen thing, huh?

As Caesar said, then Patton said again, "all glory is fleeting...baby." (Kojack added the "baby" part).

 

Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com

Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/

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16 March 2007: Hand Confusion

About a decade and a half ago, a new invention fell upon the gun scene. Really small, powerful flashlights. In fact, they became an industry phenomena. One major, mini-flashlight company is a titan in the field. Many copy companies followed. I like them. How can you not? I have two small flashlights. But there was one small problem. The military/police, industrial complex and the even bigger handgun world were totally and utterly committed to a two-handed grip when shooting. I'll wager some 95% of shooting training is done with two hands. So very little one-hand, close-up shooting is practiced that shooters draw and shoot with two hands in even the tightest of quarters, all from this 95% muscle memory.

What to do? How to hold one of these nifty little flashlights, yet blend with this uncontrollably urge to shoot with two hands! Despite the fact that prior training always suggested holding the flashlight away from your body. One could hold this small light light at arm's length too, but how can we pull off this two-handed, grip compulsion? The horns of dilemma!

The solution was still to shoot with two..."hands!" That is use your flashlight hand and forearm to support that ever-so-necessary, two-hand grip. There followed a series of "methods" The Johnson Method, The Williams Method, the ..... and so on. The shooting arm rests or is supported by the forearm, the wrist, or the back of the flashlight arm. The techniques were somehow actually named by some guys, as though they were cures for cancer or something! It becomes rather hip in the gun culture to memorize these types of things, spout them off and sound highly macho and educated. This trend perpetrates and soon everyone must be able to take a written test on flashlight holding and their respective, glorious, genius inventors.

WHEW! sighed the flashlight companies, not overly concerned with the old-school, safety factor of holding the light away from the body. There's cake! And we are eating it too! Here! Buy another $300 flashlight! The soundless, on-and-off, flashlight button was quickly added to further limit the light exposure, so a caveman, criminal had less of a chance at impulsively, instinctively shooting at the light source you hold dead-center over your chest in your mandatory, two-hand grip, (as instructed by some guy who has probably ever even played paint ball).

Meanwhile back at the ranch...other experts were questioning these flashlight-hand-supports-gun-hand positions. The dirty little secret among many, respected, shooting experts is that this type of support really doesn't offer all that much support. The gun hand is free to move. No isometric. No solid, cupped-hand platform. But there is more..

Furthermore, other experts stood up and mentioned, Hand Confusion and mental, spatial mapping. This subject came up with bio-mechanical doctors in a recent, police symposium I attended. It seems there is something about cross-hands that confuses the spark plugs in the brain. It is a common knowledge that of you cross your arms or even legs and try to work your hands, fingers or toes, there is a mixed message to the extremities. Experts say that you are likely to flinch your trigger finger on the hand holding your flashlight. This sort of thing.

Plus, they say it has been observed recently in these ever-growing, reality videos captured on police car dashboard cameras, and street and building security systems that officers, starting out using a flashlight and pistol in a cross grip, actually just unfold their wrists in the instant they actually shoot! Such unfolding is considered natural to function fast. It unwraps the brain confusion and puts limbs and things where they should be.

"Its a training issue!" The flashlight companies always declare. Well, so is me playing in the Superbowl! Yet, I and even the gun-god, experts tell you not to pick this, that or the other, Harries Method only or one method only, because you may need all the support positions/methods to cycle through in the chaotic, movements of a dark-thirty search. So train more? In rare training sessions, few train with lights in the dark and few train with just one, cross-over grip method, such as the Harries Method. We are not just selling these lights to special forces operators who train all the time. Billy Bob McDoogle down the street has a flashlight and he only shoots twice a year and on the sunniest of days and best of weather. Training problems? This also sounds like the common police range schedule.

Now, these aforementioned, reality, video observations are just anecdotal thus far. As no such official, clinical study has been made with these gun and flashlight positions. Still, the science of cross-over, hand confusion is a proven fact. BUT! Don't tell the shooters and flashlight companies. Sssshhh! They are having so much fun inventing new names and methods, and of course - selling lots and lots of small, cool flashlights.

 

 

Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com

Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/

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13 March 2007: The Trap of Trapping

I get these questions a lot, and especially lately since Training Mission 9 is being constructed and the official subject of trapping doesn't;t seem to be in it...

"Has Invading Hands been removed from the UC course,

or will it still appear as a separate module?"

 

"When will you do a trapping hands DVD?"

Yes and no to the both of these questions! But...

There is nothing wrong with isolating and developing skills in parts of any training movement, and trapping is a part. It is only when we erect a shrine in that one part, we start to lose our way. I was once in an empty hand system that did over 100 different kinds of trap sets. Trapping consisted of about 80% of the entire system? Where was the space for the ground fighting?

Trapping takes place in less than a camera snapshot of time and on a few, mere inches on the floor - yet for some, trapping gets an entire "range." I have come to think though time, that trapping gets entirely too much attention and many spend a disproportionate amount of training time on it, compared to other bigger, longer events. And the actual four Ps:

Pinning

Passing

Pulling

Pushing

are so very simple when you dilute them into their essence, then connect them to hand, stick, knife and gun. I aim to de-mystify trapping! It is indeed the four Ps in the clock directions. And they are easier and smarter to learn when directly connected to bigger events such as the striking and kicking that comes before them and the grappling that comes after them.

Hand trapping is a very short, brief, bridging event, virtually, seamlessly connected to the bigger events before and after the trap.

In fact, it works for people to remove the "Trapping Range" from their range list and simply add traps to end of long-range, or the beginning of grappling range. Giving them their own range, automatically over-emphasizes them. Over emphasizing traps...is well..a trap...and confuses people and steers them off into too much trapping (see Remy Presas notes that follows)

Most simple takedowns involves a brief trapping entry and/or trapping connection to the body. In this mixed weapons world, I thought it would be a waste of time to just do the hand-to-hand, trapping-only methods, and given the naysayers and criticisms (some just by the way) I decided to bury trapping into the bigger crashing and grappling events.  Naysayers of trapping say-

"That can't work!"

"That won't work!"

They are really observing and commenting on the systems that over-do and over-emphasize trapping at the expense of other range training. YET! These people trap too! And they never make the connection that they do! A UFC fighter will laugh at trapping hand class, yet they do the fundamental moves too! Automatically andseamlessly attached to the end of the crashing and striking range material and the beginning of the grappling range. They just don't travel to a Chinese temple or overdo the study. They seem to do pretty well!

I mean to say that these big crash and takedown fights often contain a quick trap, and in so subtle a fashion, people don't even notice there was a trap involved! Look at jujitsu. It is full of pinning, passing, pulling or pushing the opponent's limbs to get in, get on and do a takedown. Any manipulation of the limbs, these four Ps, are traps, and everyone is doing them as parts of bigger movements. Silat traps. Jujitsu traps, UFC traps, Karate traps...well, everyone traps. But they don't know it? And in this context, the Unarmed Combatives course is already full of "trapping." 

I have once even changed the title of the trapping subject to Invading Hands, to escape some of these blind criticisms in an attempt to re-think the whole subject. Trapping ALONE really has never appeared in my UC course. Yet, the course is FULL of traps as they are seamless attached to bigger events.

Trapping based systems innocently have bongo-playing moves because in the trap-world, people think advanced trapping must therefore lead to 4 and 5 deep bongo-playing on the arms. I think this is a misappropriation of training time. I think what has happened to the Remy Presas system, now almost full time trapping/Tappi-Tappi, and is a classic example of the worst of over-emphasizing trapping. How did that happen? If you spend too much time with the tapi, a Dog Brother is just going to split your head open with a power swing, while slap/tap happy people are waiting to bongo the attackers and go 4 deep with cool, arm manipulations....and BANG! Goes the club to the head! With the over-emphasize on tapi-tapi, you wind up redefining stick fighting and it is well...its wrong. (Old-school Remy was not this way, by the way, only new-school tappi-happy, tapi-tappiers)

Trapping transcends just hand-to-hand, and its movements occur in a hand, stick, knife and even gun (pistol and long gun) fighting. Anytime you do the four Ps. Given this big, mixed-weapon picture there is enough, good important information to justify a whole hand, stick, knife gun study module, where even bayonet trapping is connected to the basic principles used with the hand. And here is the study worthy of inspection to me. So, in answer do those asking, "where did the trapping hands go?

Invading Hands, Sticks, Knives and Guns will have its own Training Mission Theme Module and DVD (like Arm Wraps) http://www.hockscqc.com/shop/product162.html (an arm wrap by the way, is also trap, an immobilization of a limb). In fact, there is so much uniqueness to knife-only, entry, dueling and trapping with knives, it deserved its whole DVD onto itself, but not a whole knife level.

In summary:

Trapping is the pinning, pushing, pulling or pushing of the opponents limbs to clear a path to a better target.

Trapping is mandatory, yet...

Trapping is often over-studied at the expense of other things.

Trapping is better attached to before-and-after methods of a crash fighting

Trapping is simple and needs to be de-shrined.

Trapping is misunderstood and disrespected because of all of the above

Trapping can work and does work all the time for all systems

Trapping involves hand, AND stick, knife and CQC firearms

Trapping is so quick and deeply embedded in these bigger events and systems, unsophisticated people cannot see it.

As I started this essay out...

 

"There is nothing wrong with isolating and developing skills in parts of any movement.

Trapping is a part. It is when we erect a shrine in that one part, we start to lose our way."

 

 

Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com

Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/

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9 March 2007: Division Of Gun Labor

There is little doubt in the minds of modern and progressive shooters that shooting training needs to be two components, separate in many ways and great effort should be made to distinguish the important parts fro each other. These two divisions are:

1) Marksmanship

2) Combatives

In the United States, in the 10-year period 1995-2004, the FBI reports that 268 officers were murdered within 5 feet of their assailant, and 107 were murdered within 10 feet of their assailant. This represents nearly 3 out of 4 (or 71 percent) of ALL officers murdered by firearms (545) for which investigations were able to determine the distance between the officer and the assailant.

In the statistics of actual civilian, police and criminal combats, close up shooting is high probability and a range where marksmanship takes a back seat to a lot of smart, survival tactics. Poor-to-moderately trained criminals do REALLY well shooting down civilians and cops and when they do" train,?" Recent studies report that criminals work on point shooting styles and much lesser on the common marksmanship found at ranges.

New FBI studies show that criminals are very, VERY good at shooting at the head when close-up. Perhaps they fixate on the face? From 15 feet or so they instinctively shoot at the chest and do quite well. At about 21 feet, they really miss a lot, which is bad for collateral damage, as is the people around the target person may get hit.

Anyway, shooters must do both marksmanship AND combatives, but get this. I don't think you can really train combatives with live fire. It has to be done interactive sims training. 15 minutes on the range. 45 minutes shooting at moving, thinking people that are shooting back at you. I have organized the Gun/Counter-Gun course on this premise. Each level requires a live fire course of some type and then a sims/tactical module. See the lists on: http://www.hockscqc.com/gun/index.htm

 

 

Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com

Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/

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7 March 2007: Chuck Remsberg

These last several days I attended a Law Enforcement Symposium based on the latest laws and tactics. It was a class act featuring Dr Bill Lewinski of Force Science, who was full of great, new, bio-mechanical studies and news about adrenaline, the mind, the body, shoot-outs and the body movements and motions of fights and gunfights. This blows the lid off of more than half of these so-called, modern, reality-based fighting systems that are still so innocently based for many on the stale, 1985s model of adrenaline and Hick's training. Folks, its a whole other league. A whole other ballpark. The new world is bio-mechanics (body movement) and the scientifically, clinical studies and research surrounding hand, stick, knife and gun fighting.

Meeting and talking with Lewinski was a blast, but...but, I must say actually meeting Chuck Remsberg, the man who has reshaped the face and form of police tactics and street survival some thirty years-plus, ago. He is the rock star. He's Mick Jager, Beethoven. Thee man.

I would have to say meeting Remsberg and meeting David Hackworth years ago are tops on my meet list, If your heroes aren't in this league? They're just circus acts.

 

Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com

Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/

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5 March 2007: The Bad Ballad of Jimmy Skews, Part 2.

It came as a shock to all of us when we reported in for work one morning and learned that Jimmy Skews was rushed to a Lawton, Oklahoma Critical care unit the night before. Skews tired to kill himself via drug overdose – a handy method for a narcotics officer. The rumor mill at headquarters and the Military Police Investigation building ran amok.

What little we could glean from the gossip was he was with some nefarious guys off post, bought drugs and disappeared into a back room. These guys discovered him hours later, gagging, coughing and near dead. Was Jimmy hanging out with dopers? Was Jimmy a doper? Was he set up?

One thing we did know. Only one of our E-5 Sergeants was there. The E-6, Staff Sergeant in charge of the section, Stan Millions, the Lieutenant and the Captain were at the Provost Marshal's Office. We had nothing else to do but return to our casework, minus the gossip, the supervision and Agent Skews. How is he anyway? We just waited for word.

 

Me in undercover garb and wig, 1975

By late afternoon, we did learn one new fact. Skews pistol was missing! Our sub nose .38 revolvers were issued at our headquarters armory and since we worked so often, we just kept the weapons 24/7, unlike our uniform patrol officers, who checked their .45s in an out of the armory on a daily, shift basis. There was a distinct pressure to get Skew's missing gun back into the armory, as commanded by our head, law enforcement official, the Provost Martial.

“Why not just ask Jimmy where his gun is?” I asked a senior detective in the hallway.

“Jimmy's in a comma.”

I spent the next few days working my cases, with the Skews matter nothing but a distraction. But Skew's pistol was still on the ‘missing-in-action” list. I'd heard Millions and the Captain searched Skew's apartment in Lawton. No pistola.

Then one afternoon a few days later, I got a call from some private in a transport unit. The caller asked for me specifically.

“I need to see you,” said the voice.

“Why?”

“I have something for you.”

In a world of confidential informants, such meetings were usual. Informants come forward like this for a whole host of reasons, most often some level of revenge as motive. And if they want to talk in person, we've got to go. I got the address of the unit and where and when in the building I should meet him. I was there in an hour, standing in an all-wooden, office, looking at the caller. This soldier was tall and thin with a hairdo that was a short version of a "hippy hairdo." How's that? Hard to describe. Think of the comedian Carrot Top's trimmed down to an inch. This guy was a freak that was stuffed into fatigues and joined the Army.

“You, Hock?”

“Yup.”

“Okay, here…” he reached under a stack of paper files and slowly pulled out a revolver by the barrel. He handed it too me.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Jimmy Skew's gun. When the ER people took Jimmy out of that house? He handed my buddy his gun. He told my buddy to give Hock his gun.”

“Me?” I opened the cylinder. Six bullets sat in place. “Who is your buddy?”

“I'd rather not say. Let's say it was me, if you have to say who.”

I shut the cylinder and dropped the gun into my jacket pocket.

“He knew you dudes would be after his gun. He said you were cool and to get the gun to you.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“There was a party, man. Jimmy bought a shit load of downers from some dude and he disappeared into a back room.”

“He party there often?”

The private only smiled.

“Did your buddy say Jimmy was depressed or something?”

“…or something.”

That pretty much signaled the end of the conversation.

“It may come to pass, “ I said, “that the powers that be may come to talk to you.”

“Whatever, man. I don't know nothing.”

I drove back to our Military Police Investigation building, half thinking I could go straight to MP armory and turn the gun right in where it belonged. But, I recalled the mounting pressure Millions was under to find this gun. I walked into MPI, down the hall and knocking on Million's partially open, office door.

“Yeah, come on in.”

“Sarge…” I said as I pulled the gun. “A guy gave me Jimmy's gun.”

“A…guy…..” Millions stared at me and his face turned red. His features flattened out and he looked like a man who lost a big bet on his favorite, football team. I am no psychic, but I smelled green, rotten, jealousy. He started asking me the details in a voice of forced politeness, inspecting the weapon. He didn't ask to talk to my hippy private informant.

“I'll take care of the gun,” he said. “See ya' later.”

No "good job." No "good work?" I was young then and liked, even needed to hear those words. As I grew older, I needed less and less of this type of approval. I am at the ripe age now that I only seek approval from my proctologist (am I okay, Doc? Am I good?). But, back then, I left the SSGT's office with mixed feelings. In the drug office, I told the others what had happened and one of them told me Millions had worked non-stop trying to find that gun. This helped explain his red-faced reaction. But, I thought, he can't be that shallow and petty and dumb? Oh, no? No one could….? Roger that.

But looking back, I can easily imagine how that Millions/Provo meeting went....

"I returned the gun to the armory, sir." Milliions would say.

"Great work, Stan. However did you do it?"

"Well, Sir...some jack-ass, virgin, rookie of mine had already created an intel network superior to mine and some guy just called him up and handed him the gun, and after I looked for it day and night for three days."

"Oh...."

No "I owe you a favor now, Stan." No "good work," Stan. "Stan, someday they will base a whole TV series on you." Just an..."oh," from the big guy. Just an "oh." And I guess, "ohs" run downhill. He got an "oh" and I got an "oh."

I never saw Jimmy Skews again. None of us did. He recovered and received a medical discharge. Jimmy was just a depressed cop who tried to do himself in, then left us. His reasons were his reasons. But he had left me with an internal problem. I had just created an enemy in my office, and he was my boss! This came back to haunt me time and time again. I had to cover my back not just from the thugs below, but from the shallow jerks above.

But, this brought a deep and vital lesson to me. Your network of information. It is a life blood of an investigator and a street cop. You never knew how, who you meet might know something you need. This creates a rule of thumb for you to treat everyone, victim, witness or criminal, fairly and without malice. This can be very hard and I have failed at this sometimes, but as a professional you have to keep trying. This includes co-workers, as Skews thought of me to turn his gun in to. The network. How big is it?

Oh yeah, try not to accidentally shoot your co-workers. Its a real network shrinker.

 

 

Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com

Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/

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3 March 2007: The Bad Ballad of Jimmy Skews

The first officer I almost shot by mistake was Jimmy Skews. It happened in the first week of my detective/plainclothes assignment working MDDS - Marijuana and Dangerous Drugs Section for the US Army at Ft Sill, Oklahoma.

For training in this new position, they bounced me around with several of the other narcotics guys to learn the ropes. Eventually, there was an Military Police Investigations School. This post-Vietnam army was chock full of drugs, drug dealers, and civilians and hookers/dealers working their trades. We had a heroine problem and cocaine was around then but very expensive. But the heroin and coke we found must have been cut down for affordability. Needless to say, there was tons of marijuana everywhere. Tons.

In MDDS, we worked drug cases but mainly we were supposed to generate drug informants, arrests and respond to drug calls and also for MPs making drug investigations and drug arrests. We were, sort of the first-filter, first-investigator, responders to the drug world so that the CID (officers and warrant officers) might stay in their cozy beds at night. This working relationship alters from base to base, but that's how it usually works.

This by the way, was 1974 and was my first week ever as a plainclothes detective. As a rule, were not to reveal our Army rank, so that we could deal with generals and enlisted folks alike. A natural rebel, this suited me just fine. This also suited one of the other MDDS investigators, a Jimmy Skews. He was E-5 buck sergeant underneath his sport coat and tie. He was about eight years older than me, and a natural con man, fast talker and method actor - all essential skills of the drug investigator, well, even for that matter, even a car salesman, huh?

We received a phone tip that a soldier was selling drugs to a group on the second floor of an infantry barracks. Jimmy said, “Let's GO!” and we hopped in his Rambler Ambassador (that's an extinct car in case you don't know) and darted across the base.

The barracks was a large, two-story building, shaped in a way, like giant country barn. At 7 pm, it appeared abandoned as the inhabitants all had better things to do than sit in this barren, wooden place, unless of course you were picking up your drugs from your friendly, neighborhood, doper.

“You go in there, “Jimmy ordered, pointing to the front door, as we pulled out our snub nose .38s revolvers. "I'll go in another way."

“Okay,” I said, and dashed inside the hall, and then mounted the two flights of stairs. I had already learned from past mistakes to take very DEEP breathes on stairways, else you will need scuba tank of air if you suddenly took action when you got where you were going. Stair climbing for Action Guys and Gals? BREATHE deep and slow as you climb.

As I topped the stairs I saw groups of soldiers milling about the center of the bay between two rows of beds. Kneeling and standing. It was getting dark and the stairway and attacked hall was dark. They could not se me easily. They were either shooting craps or spreading out drugs! I moved across the stairway hall and a man with a gun came though a hall window! The pistol was pointed at me, and I turned to him and pointed my gun.

It was Jimmy Skews! He aimed his pistol from me. He had climbed a fire escape and scaled the side of the barracks. As we closed in, I could see his face. I think he almost shot me too! But, we ignored the moment and charged into the room. So after the stairway rule? Action-Guy rule number 2 is don't shoot your partner when he comes in from another entrance. This is easy in planned raid, but life is so..sudden.

“Hands up! I yelled. And Skews and I arrested about 6 guys. On the floor was hash, marijuana, needles, pipes, etc. We called he MPs for transport and did about 4 hours of paperwork and evidence processing. We questioned each soldier for Intel info. I can't remember what they told us, hell, it was over 30 years ago. But, we always tried to develop leads and cut deals with everyone we arrested. The motto was, “work up the chain. Get the dealer. Then get his dealer. ” (Narc Action-Guy Rule 3 of today's lesson).

Skews and I worked quite a bit together, so it was quite a surprise for me when he tried to kill himself! And, his gun turned up missing! My senior investigators and supervisors scurried for the gun on and off-post, under the demanding heat of the Provost Marshal-the military equivalent of a Police Commissioner. Yet, I found the pistol, causing some serious problems for me.

See Part 2 coming next!

 

Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com

Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/

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2 March 2007: True Military Knife Fights (the series continues)

"Just a few days ago, I had witnessed Bode take out a VC sentry with his K-Bar. He came up behind like a stalking leopard, grabbed the man's chin with one hand and jerked his head back. Butting his knife against his belt, he used the enemy's own weight to drive home the steel. He twisted the blade, severing the man's spinal column. 'Slit throat, slit spine. Same-same.' Bode said, "Then take ears."

Roy Boemn with Charles Sasser, First Seal, Pocket Star Books

Excerpt from Hock's, 1990s, out-of-print, Military Knife Combat book. All of these, some 50 true stories will appear again in a future Knife book. More next month.

 

Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com

Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/

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1 March, 2007: CQC Group Rank, Instructorship or Just Train, 4 -Day Combat Camps-2007

Let's start the month off just right, with listing the first half of the 2007, 4-day camp, news. No matter what your current status is - rank Beginner? Basic? Advanced? Expert? We will cover material you need to move up and onward. Or simply train for knowledge and exercise to add-on or build your own self, your way.

 

Cincinnati, Ohio, March 8-11

Gent, Belgium, March 30-April 2

Frankfurt, Germany April 6-9

(all seminars build the ranks for the CQC Group AND

the SFC Hand, Stick, Knife, Un and PAC courses.)

 

 

 

Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com

Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/

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