September, 2008

SFC HEADQUARTERS DOCTRINE

"Read by Thousands Round' the World!"

28 September 2008: 21st Century Body guardingPart 4

The typical live fire bodyguard courses are all about shooting paper targets and not training in an interactive gunfight with moving, thinking people who are shooting back. Now, this blog is not meant to be a gun-training course, but quickly consider here the typical live-fire range, bodyguard course. Four trainees sit in a car. A VIP sits in the middle of two of them in the back seat. Outside the four car doors are four, mean-looking drawings on paper targets, one per door. On a whistle, the four trainees open their doors, shoot the targets, then get the VIP out and all congregate at the back of the car in their, cool, poster-boy, position sul postures. Another VIP saved from the one-dimensional demons of evil.

Okie-dokie. Now run that same scenario with paint ball, markers or airsoft in the hands of four bad guys who are now shooting at the four trainees and the VIP in the car. I have run this interactive scenario hundreds of times and let me tell you, this mess is a blood bath, with high fatality rate. Doing what the paper target range tells you to do is deadly advice and a bloody mistake. Worse this and other problems are a lot like football plays. The play you ran last time, doesn't work a second time.

I advocate rehearsing all perspective shoot-out problems:

a) Live fire on a range shooting targets constructed as realistically as possible.
b) Interactive sims fire with shooting bad guys.
c) Switch teams, letting the good guys become the bad guys and vice-versa. This switch is a great education.

Do the same rehearsal in non-shoot situations with interactive actors. If your client is a high value, target? Imagine the problem areas, run simulated problems. It will be worth it if the client is worth it.

Searching the Circles-The Grunt Work
These traveling circles of urban, suburban and rural settings must be examined. You search before, during and sometimes even after your client passes through them. Depending upon the client's threat level, the lots, halls, rooms, bathrooms, walkways, stores, etc. must be searched and once cleared, guarded. You search by sight, smell, feel, gut impressions and electronics. You may need dogs to detect drugs and explosives, metal and electronic detectors to find dangerous devices. Every locale is different. One note on bathrooms-as mentioned prior, the most predictable surprise stop requested by your client will be a bathroom run. Identify safe lavatories on your driving and walking routes.

The Team
Do you need a team based upon all the above? How many protectors? How well trained? How skilled must the drivers be? How "hard" will the vehicles be-that is bomb and bulletproof? I usually hire the area police SWAT team along with other people I trust with my expense account. The scope of the person and surrounding events dictate who and how many team members I need.

I will mention here that most significant operations need one or more what I call floaters - undercover lookouts to melt in and observe anything and everything. Floaters. In this vein, more than once I have been paid to escort people to civil courts, many times in divorce cases. A family fears their daughter's angry husband will attack her, or things of this nature. They fear their cars will be vandalized and so forth. At times, the families had money and will pay for several extra guards. One time an attorney wanted to know if a surprise witness would show up. I paid a man on the parking lot to sit, watch and call me if he did show. Not sure why the attorney wanted this news in advance. I mean, he would know in a few minutes anyway when the witness walked into court. He just did and the client paid. So I placed a floater on the lot. Their peace-of-mind requests might not make sense, but their money in my pocket makes sense to me in the end. Roger that.

What do I do on these gigs?
During big events, I myself like to float between all posted assignments and the subject, maintaining mobile phone or radio communication with all points. In any given moment I may be trolling the basement, scoping out the parking lots, or standing right there beside the client. If I get to eat? I usually eat in the kitchen with the hired help. In small events I alone am around the client. I do not watch the show. I do not listen to the speech. I am not their fan. I am their guardian angel.

The Career
We started this article with your ringing phone? That phone might not ring a lot. For an elite few in the United States, this career may be financially rewarding. Statistically, it is not.  Odds are however, that a police and military background will always be preferred, such as my friends retired from the British and Australian SAS, who can work consistently. Vets from the Army, Marines and Navy may work for security contracting companies. How did they qualify? I look at it this way. Before a security company currently sends a vet overseas they have a quick, qualification training course they must attend and pass. If that course is a reminder/refresher to the vet? You qualify. If that course is mostly new material? You probably don't qualify. (Recently, I have heard of some companies getting desperate enough to send unqualified folks over and fill slots.) This jobs are not all glamorous. I have a friend who is paid to guard vehicle air conditioner repairmen work in an interior, safe facility. He sits with a machine gun, six days a week, ten hours a day and watches them work on AC units in cars, trucks and jeeps. So you have "Force Protection" - buildings and people. Next is caravan/transport protection, then dignitary protection.

If you are interested in this, I advise you to first become a police officer or enlist into the military for a job description that offers the experience and contacts to get these jobs. Get experience from the vets by becoming a police or military vet. All too many graduates of expensive, civilian protection schools wind up as minimum wage, security guards paying off education loans, or back at their old jobs with a new piece of paper on their wall.

The Summary
I hope this overview has helped you make decisions or sated some curiosities. Books of instruction cover each general topic I have sketched here. But, this outline and equation has guided me through all the events I've ram-rodded and I've not had one single, serious problem. Solid strategy, redundant planning and good luck. Plan. Hope is not a strategy! You can't control luck, but fortune favors the prepared.

(Starting in October - I'll finish this Bodyguard essay with the the Bodyguard job that convinced me I needed to retire from police work.)

Adios, Amigos

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23 September 2008: 21st Century Bodyguarding Part 3

The ‘Who”, Who are the Enemies of Your Subject

Who is the client? The name of your subject? In all these years interfacing with the US Secret Service, U.S. Military, Federal, Local Authorities and many security firms. None of these have ever referred to their subject/client as the “principle.” The subject is either given a codename, nickname or just called by his or her name. I have instead heard the term used in movies, books, civilian schools and yes - also by some pros in England, Europe and Australia who seem to take the term more seriously. This commercial invasion of the term “principle” has caused newer security companies to adapt the title. But based on my old school experience I will not use the word “principle.” To me it is "corny" and was "wannabe" amongst the old school folks I knew. Any nickname of a VIP will confuse only the most naive opponents not the hard-core professionals seeking to do harm to your client. When the radio transmission declares:

“Wayfarer is coming in the back door now.”

Any secret who Wayfarer is? Wayfarer, principle or whatever term selected is not fooling the professional enemy. Establish a name to refer to your client based on the threat level - it could even be “he or “she” or, even their real name-for all communications and planning. It really depends on the threat level. Sounding professional and being professional can be two different things. I have always felt comfortable with "VIP" or "client." If I am running the operation and we need teams and radios, the name I give the client may vary by situation. For example, with the aforementioned billionaire Swedes with traveling teams, the radio jabber sounded like common-speak and a bit like a CB radio...

"Where are you?"

"We are leaving now. Be there shortly."

"You" and "we."

Which leads us further into the "Who" question. Why does your client need protection? So, first - who is your client? Then who is their enemy? And subsequently, perhaps now your new enemy by way of future revenge concerns and "guilt by association." Who is going to attack Naomi Judd and who is going to attack Rudy Giuliani? What is the level of interest of your subject? Ask yourself who wishes to hurt your client? Generally speaking, you are dealing with 3 groups- political enemies, criminals and crazies.

1) political enemies, (that means soldiers and agents too)

2) criminals and

3) crazies

Once you have identified your enemy, research how sophisticated and dedicated they are and how intricate their attack might be. With your opponents profiled, a level of protective intensity is established. Simply put, will an attacker throw a tomato at your football player? Or snipe your politician? The political and criminal pros set up ambushes, create distractions or strike from afar. Even crazies can be clever, but not too often. They often simply walk up, attack and/or shoot, like deranged fan Mark David Chapman did to John Lennon. Establish the enemy and you'll help dissect their methodologies.

In about 2004, I was hired by security company to coordinate security for America's Mayor Rudy Giuliani on a projected six-to-eight city speaking tour. Rudy was to be their flagship chess piece to appear, draw crowds, then advertise their security and training business to the paying attendees.

Unlike my gig with Jimmy Carter, I spoke quite a bit, escorted and ate with Rudy and he is just a swell and regular guy in my book. His NYPD protection team were very cool and you could tell they loved Rudy, which to me is an insider, character check. (Ask the hired help!) We can't forget he took on the Russian mob as a prosecutor which takes courage and guts.

One time I had to organize a route for Rudy Giuliani from a major hotel to a convention center speech. I would be expected to present this as part of a total, prelim, planning package the next day to both his personal protection team (at the time supplied by an NYPD detachment) and whatever local reps of the large police forces in the area would be coming along for the ride. Between the two buildings was a long second-story glass walkway, that was first suggested to me as the "safe" route from his room to the speech. Ahhh-no way. Standing in this glass walkway I could see about 16 large business buildings, several of them skyscrapers. This was a sniper's dream come true.

Would I walk Naomi Judd, or Jackie Joyner-Kersee through there? Absolutely. But not Rudy! Rudy's enemies are international and militant. The protection you offer is directly in relation to the enemies your perceive. We wound up just walking him out a side, yet main door and walking across the street in a very informal, yet surrounded group. We all looked like professional businessmen in suits, in a brisk hurry. As we progressed? SURPRISE! America's Mayor had to go to the bathroom! And we were all still well outside the searched and secure area and the cleared bathrooms. But we couldn't wait. Several of us quickly cleared the lobby bathroom and off went the Mayor. In summary, I repeat myself, " the level of protection you offer is directly in relation to the enemies you perceive. "You can't over do it, as you will look foolish, nor under-do it, because it is dangerous.


What is your I.A.C.- Immediate Area Circle?
We have just mentioned the searched and secured area. I have always used abstract circles and clocks in plotting these basics. And it really focuses the operation back on the track of physical concerns. Remember if you use the clock, you have instant directional communication with your team, even if they are a team of strangers like the folks I have frequently worked with. The VIP faces 12 o'clock. “His 12.” At times you might have to communicate “my 12.” “12 o'clock high or low can also cover the ups and downs like stairways, ground dips and raises, hills, etc.

One clock circle is the immediate area. This is the calculated range upon which your person could be assaulted by pistol, stick, knife, gas, thrown objects, pushed, shoved…any close quarter attacks. Laid ambushes like bombs may also fall into this range. This circle must include immediate escape routes. Establish each immediate area of travel to and from the main circle on interaction. I often see celebrities and politicians innocently wander and caught in no-escape situations. No door. No hall. Cornered, by a poorly conceived podium placement or perhaps a photographer or fan onslaught. The podium should be placed prior with an eye for cover and escape! That can be planned well in advance. Suddenly being swarmed by the media can be tricky. I recall seeing Angelina Jolie on a news clip surrounded by the media on a walk to a meeting and she was obviously cornered, threatened and panicked. Escape routes abounded! Yet in Angie's case, they were crammed full of people.

What is Your N.I.A.C. - Non-Immediate Area Circles?
This constitutes everything out of the first small circle or clock, into a range-of-vision area. Rifles and lobbed or propelled explosives are a problem. This area includes mapping out larger escape routes. The major highways? Rush hour? At this point I would like to mention that pros always establish and escape route and work to keep it clear. Pros also know the whereabouts of medical help. Where is the closest defibrillator The closest emergency room and hospital? What tactical medicine do you know? Profile the medical needs of your clients and make some "go-to-hell" plans. High level clients like presidents have extra types blood supplies on hand. Your client needs working smoke and fire alarms to escape calamity in places such as hotels. Who responds? How fast? Have you alerted that station. (Beware however that a the simple handle pull of a fire alarm could get your subject exiting outdoors in a sudden, chaotic manner, opening for a attack.)Establish the non-immediate areas of travel, emergency help and escape.

These many circles? Where Will your Client go?
We've covered this earlier. All clients travel. They have itineraries. These short and long-range circles of concern move constantly. They typically need transportation, they sleep, they eat, they visit. Maybe shop. Maybe exercise. Maybe even party. In the scheme of things transport could be golf carts, trains, planes, cabs, cars and least of which-walking. I know agents who have ridden elephants on tour with their subject. Expect anything. Ask, imgaine, plot and run the routes and adjoining areas of expected travel. Evaluate the landscapes. Record the traffic flow. Establish the itinerary.

Usually a client....

Travels in cars or planes

Attends meetings, jobs, duties

Eats

Sleeps

Rests in rooms

Shops

Might exercise/work out

Parties, (maybe)

Coming soon, Part 4

Adios, Amigos

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20 September 2008: 21st Century Bodyguarding Part 2- Wild Crowds and Peanut Shells

The wildest crowds I have seen while working one of these gigs? Cindy Crawford! Men filled the stores buying her new make-up book in rowdy droves, standing in line for autographs, holding their Crawford books. "For my wife," some would say. And some climbed the outside windows of stores just to get a peek at her. Cindy had some "handlers," - her own traveling staff and a woman and a man that were obviously organizing the trips and looking out for here. Both would have jumped in and clocked anybody bothering her as fast as I would.

(no, I did not protect Cindy on a boat, just a short, regional book tour, but gosh-darnit, this was the only photo I could find of Crawford right now. I hope you don't mind.)

Jimmy Carter had written a book in 1999 or so, on who knows what? Poetry? Or something. His momma? I don't know. And he went on a sales pitch tour. The book company told me that since Secret Service teams cover ex-presidents they shan't be needing any my services. But, I knew better. There was a big manpower difference between a sitting president and a past president. There is a whole lot that the S.S. won't and can't do surrounding a trip and appearances. About one month before the Carter tour, Carter's agents sat with the tour people in the home office and started asking the organizers a host of questions.

“Who is handling crowd control?

“Who is handling traffic control?

“Who is working the parking lot?

“Who will keep the limo path open for a quick departure?”

“Who is our security contact point for all your stores?”

“Who is hiring the off-duty, overtime-paid police?”

"Who is....."

The publicity director leaned over his shoulder and asked a worker, “see if you can get Hock on the phone.”

Now, I don't like Jimmy Carter much, and frankly, and in my opinion I think he has a thinking disorder. Carter is a post-Watergate/hate-Nixon phenom, otherwise he would never have been president. So, while I often stood inches from Carter on the tour, I never said so much as said a single word to him. I met with the S.S. filled their requests and requirements. The agents on Carter's team were calm, seasoned, old-timers/old school pros and we worked together just fine. I did as I ordinarily do with high profile/high-risk clients, I hired the local SWAT team to do the visible, guard, protection work, and then regular patrol officers for any outer perimeter work. Plus enlisted on-duty, shift officers to help out and rep the working police shift. I budgeted all their fees and bill the publicity firm, and pay the troops. And the troops want to get paid at the very end of the gig! I always did, so I arranged for that to happen each time, getting the payroll done in advance.

It wasn't all glossy and famous people in my days as a private eye. I have also protected people afraid of their spouses, angry business partners and shielded threatened victims. I have guarded and delivered witnesses in criminal and civil trials. Meanwhile, I worked for a few lawyers offices, got court-appointed by judges on some cases and did mundane, boring other stuff, which might sound cool to some, but ain't really. I moved to Georgia over family matters and let my rather expensive Texas license expire. To this day, I still get the occasional silly and serious request to help and intervene in people's various problems, and if I still do? I'll never tell, but I act as an "event manager," a "concerned friend," and/or a "contract para-legal" for an attorney. NOT as a private investigator as legally defined by the law. Or, I act as a referral which I would rather do since I have grown very, very tired of people's problems, as well as quite impatient with the human race in general.

So, as a cop and as a private investigator, and an "event manager," I've shimmied over into the so-called bodyguard category every so often. Yes, I can clean up and shut up really well and I can get real serious if need be. There is an unwritten code that “what happens while babysitting, stays in babysitting” and I will never tell tales unless the news is rather both old and harmless and/or complimentary to the client. But personals aside, I can speak on the generic essentials of the job, and introduce aspects that most people haven't thought of when considering the profession or reading, outlandish, cliche, novels. I know a little bit about running the routes and as a public service to satisfy curiosities and clear up confusions, I offer this crash course here for you.

Becoming One
To protect people? Some form of experience, time, grade, training, government licensing and insurance is required if you are an officially declaring to be in the personal protection business. This is strictly a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction mandate. So, once you get all that testing, licensing, fees, insurance, etc. You are established. Your phone rings, lets get started…

Coming soon, Part 3

Adios, Amigos

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16 September 2008: Protectively Body Guarding Operators and other Contracting Stories. Part 1

In our fledging 21st century, certainly since the Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars, the once macho term bodyguard has metamorphosized unto a whole other animal, with a whole other look, new gear and yet really many of the same tactics and harsh realities. And all of these changes since about 2002 and the growth of popularized Blackwater and uncovering of other more quiet companies like Dynacorp already in existence.

We have seen a lot of body guard names, courses and associations disappear since the 1980s or maybe morph into “personal protection,” “protection operator” – this term “operator” has become popular – and has gone from a 1950s image of a woman sitting at a telephone switchboard injecting black cords in holes, into someone with a gas mask, knee pads and machine gun. Seems the olden term “bodyguard” has really become passé and unprofessional. Past tense.

“Be your own bodyguard!” was once a fad, course, sales pitch. Emphasize the word “was.” The once, shallow, makeshift, wanna-be groups like the “USA Association of Professional Bodyguards” and groups of that ilk, are all but evaporated. Even personal protection is a misleading term amongst the public now, as civvies seem to consider the title as a self-defense approach of protecting oneself. People instead are fascinated by the new term, contractor. While contractors could be "hit men," but are now also more just a cement mixer and house builder, the new-age contractor may have a checkered scarf, a machine gun with a broomstick handle and a laser light. Its all about the lingo-bingo.

For civilians itching to do this work - how many people do I know that paid all that money since the 1980s to attend that heavily advertised ESI school in Colorado, day-dreaming of babysitting a rock star or pro basketball player? Then wound up right back at the bread factory or working minimum wage as a uniformed, security guard? Many.

(A frustrated student once threw all of his ESI textbooks in the garbage and I said, "hey! Don't do that! Let me look at them!" Those ESI books? Pretty good material, really).

Whatever lingo you want to call it- each state in the United States of America has a mandatory, private investigator licensing law, test, insurance and fees, and then almost all have more personal protection (aka bodyguard) licensing laws and, if you wish to carry a gun while doing so, too? They have an additional, mandatory course and licensing to be an armed, personal protection guard. Each title is more insurance and more fees. And more fees. Did I mention more fees? But, if you go overseas? Naah! You are out of the state jurisdictional loop. And, I have discovered that if you do the really big, multi-state jobs? As I have done with Rudy Giuliani, no one state seems to care or bother about you. Live in one state? Work in another? Whose in charge of what?

For officers of law enforcement agencies, no such extra, legal, bodyguard requirements are required. And that is where I started out in this so-called, protection business. Over the last four decades, I've have many assignments in the protection business and in the beginning they were all generated by my supervisors trying to handle incoming, big guests. Starting way back when as a military policemen near forty years ago I was shipped within a group to work with the Governor of Oklahoma on an military base installation tour. There was no unique terrorism then, no personal threats and if I am not mistaken the country-boy, governor was packen'! I think he carried a big revolver under his sport coat. This good ol' boy could do some protecting of his own self with or without us. He also had a small posse of Oklahoma state troopers. But my young kid ears listened and learned back then on how routes were run, meals were eaten, engagements cleaned and cleared, and how sleep was slept.

Shortly after, a few more group assignments came my way. For example, while in Asia, I was thrust into another group traveling with the Vice President and the SecDef (that's secretary of defense for you draft dodgers out there) on a visit to South Korea. And acting as a very small cog in the big wheel I couldn't help but take mental note of a lot of inner workings. This too was the first time I saw big-league, dignitary, airplane security as we delivered them back to their plane - Air Force 2. I remember the walking guards and K-9 patrols on the airstrip. And, the perimeters to the perimeters of security (run, I think by the Air Force, but not sure about that).

As a police detective, I have been attached to Secret Service details for President Bush (the 1st) on a north Texas speaking tour. Since they assumed I knew many local crazies I was paired up with a Secret Service agent to work the crowds and try to spot them. There I learned the importance of not watching the "show," not watching the Prez and the speakers, but rather watching the faces and hands of the crowd. Looking for bad, make-up jobs of people concealing their appearances, etc. Tricks of the bad guy trade. The usual suspicious, bulky clothing. Hanging out with the teams and their big black, arsenal Suburbans was interesting. I was a little older and a little smarter enough to ask some questions this time around. In one bull session I leaned about Bush's trips to South America and how they never hit the streets in cars - too dangerous - but rather roof-top, hopped in helicopters to meetings and hotels. These guys were either training, shooting, working out or on duty protecting someone. I found the logistics and their stories pretty interesting but never fancied myself being such a babysitter, just a cop. So, they were just interesting. I did not know that baby-sitting was in my future.

There were several short assignments. Such as once, I alone from my department was assigned to Coretta Scott King on a local, speech tour. She had a staff and if any of them were protecting her? I couldn't tell. I and a female college detective were just armed nannies for a day and a half. You do this a few times and the Captains remember you have, that it went rather painlessly, and you got tagged for other ones.

All these experiences taught me that your client/your VIP normally, really does only a few things.

Travels in cars or planes

Attends meetings, jobs, duties

Eats

Sleeps

Rests in rooms

Shops

Might exercise/work out

Parties, (maybe)

Remember this equation. And with this list in mind your job responsibilities become more manage-able and list-able. At times, in the onset of a job, I have quizzed the client about this very list to set up the details. Map all this out in the beginning. Else, you might find yourself jogging in cowboy boots! Or dressed like an old republican in a disco called the Electric LSD Hippyland.

As our north Texas city grew, so did visits from famous politicians, authors, people and musicians. I and others did a gig with George C. Scott in the movie Finding the Way Home in 1991. (The first of several Hector Elizondo trips there. I got to know Hector as he also worked out at Golds Gym. Super person. Very cool.) And well, so many others celebs here and there - I have already written before about some of them, like the fun time I had with Clayton Moore/the Lone Ranger and…there were so many of these types of gigs? Many Dallas Cowboy football players like Roger Staubach. I just cannot name them all. Most were uneventful and forgettable.

But one such overtime, grand slam that stands out was when Hollywood shot the movie Necessary Roughness in 1991 at one of our colleges. It was over-loaded with movie stars and sports stars and the overtime, protection gravy train was an express train to the bank. Our department had to hire county and state police for these gigs too. Too many stars! Too few badges!

I have had surprise protection/bodyguard cases erupt from inside cases I was working. For one example, in 1988 or so, a major international company named Tetra-Pak was raided one midnight by a team of men with long guns, silencers, ninja masks and black outfits. They captured the guards, stole the radio system and some other stuff. The news deemed them the Ninja Robbers and I got the case. All of this happened just a few days before the billionaire, Swedish owners were flying in to visit the plant! I couldn't overlook the coincidence or the possibility that the robbery, and the security, radio theft and who nows what else was stolen at the time, were somehow related to details of their visit. This had the sour smell of an international disaster.

I got my then Captain, Jim Dotson and then Police Chief Mike Jez on board to authorize a protection team for the Swedes for their short visit and I ran the operation with some SWAT members, and some handpicked detectives and patrolmen. We covered the Swedes from the private jet landing at our city airport, to their business meetings, their overnight stay and next-day departure. I used all my experience from prior protection jobs to run the op. Listening and learning from way back when to those savvy Oklahoma state troopers covering their governor, and on up to President Bush gig. The Swedes came. They went. No problems.

And guess what these billionaire Swedes did? Just like the poor witnesses I guarded. Just like Coretta King. And what you do on vacaction or a business trip. The aforementioned equation. They traveled in cars and planes, attended meetings, ate, rested in rooms, slept, (no shopping and no parties, as my ol' cow town would not likely entertain the falooten' tastes of Euro billionaires - though they might have found them some local cowboy boots to beat all).

As an aside, I eventually broke this case of these "Ninja Robbers," one in a series of similar armed robberies in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex to embaress imbedded security forces and then try get the business contract. The crimes were actually perpetrated by a local, karate school/security guard company of weird, twisted, crazy and egocentric people. We arresting the players in a series of raids and chases. I have an inkling to write about the case as it is fairly interesting with some action, but I think some of the bad guys would actually enjoy the publicity too much, so fuck these sick bastards. One of them was already a murderer - someone who killed an Army colonel's son and did very little time for it. Fuck him, them and the horses they rode in on. They can read all about themselves on the walls in Hell.

Back to the superstars! Hollywood gossip! As I have mentioned here before also, it seemed like every other week, the TV show Walker, Texas Ranger was shooting somewhere in our city. Many of us worked security on the set. I think towards the end of the series, they didn't even ask for “protection” anymore as several of our north Texas cities became their quick, back lot for scenery.

They used TV studios in the center of the DFW Metroplex. Chuck brought in a Muchado BJJ brother, set him up in a training room in the studio and gave the family their first foothold in Texas martial arts. But if you wish to see what the DFW area looks like? Just watch about one years worth of the Walker show and you'll get a glimpse of all of it.

Even when not working on the set, I could drop by the set at will, as I knew many of the stunt men and handlers. (Chuck always had time to wave, talk and say hi. No better dude on the planet than ol' Chuck Norris. What a straight-up, nice guy.) I'd like to brag that I was on a first-name basis with Chuck, but you know, everyone is!

I'd met a lot of background people throughout those gigs and when I left the police department in 1997, I quickly got my private investigators license thinking I would teach some hand, stick, knife and gun tactics and also investigate some cases here and there. But these celebrity background people continued to call me for protection and escort work. Mostly, they were publicity agents and firms for the stars, or the bookstore chains and stores like Walmart that also sold books and CDs.

I tell you all of this cop/non-cop, time-split because it is not uncommon for police officers and ex-police officers to advertise flashy, bodyguard jobs that they themselves did not procure, but were merely assigned to by police supervision, as I was so often assigned and I readily identify here. They drop these celeb names as feathers in their professional caps, yet alone they had not the professional chops to procure these jobs outside of police work assigments.

I remained consistently busy on these types of profile jobs for a number of years after I left the department. Tom Clancy, the O.J. Simpson lawyers, John Walsh, Tanya Tucker, Green Day, I tell you that I cannot sit here and recall all the names. It seemed every time a new book or CD came out, there was a publicity tour that covered the north Texas region (though I have worked down south on this route in San Antonio, also). I was in the loop to coordinate and set up security for much of it.

I made it a point NOT to take a picture with people I was protecting, as I thought it felt unprofesssional, but I could not pass up a personal photo with FOX's John Walsh (Walsh and his work in crime-fighting is an American treasure) and I have a great respect for him. And often, as in the Clancy photo above, newspaper photographers snapped pictures from time to time of events and passed them to me. The local newspapers have more incidental pictures of me in the backdrop of famous people. Sometimes I think I might like to have them, but...naaaaah.

And what did I actually do on these jobs? Remember the equation. As I said, we traveled in cars or planes (or helicopters as once I radio station-hopped from Dallas to Ft Worth with a certain singer). Attended meetings or jobs. Ate. Slept. Shopped. Rested in hotel rooms and watched TV. Partied, (sometimes). Exercised some (Sinbad and Kathy Ireland were gym rats). I watched, didn't work out.

It all sounds glamorous? But in the end? It is not. It quickly becomes boring, babysitting.

The wildest crowds I have seen?

Coming soon, Part 2

Adios, Amigos,

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11 September 2008: The Endless Combat Clock

Why invent, re-invent and attempt to create and then memorize new, disjointed, very forgettable, angle systems when the clock and clock face numbers already cover them all, and the clock has been imbedded into our psyche almost since...childbirth?

Often, "new system makers" feel the egotistical need to make up their very own numbering systems. I have seen some weird ones! And never-ending sets and sub-sets of new angles to study...and forget. Angle systems invented by small-minded/limited systems and their perspectives are confining and can be an illogical scourge to the system.

The combat clock. Easy to teach. Easy to remember. Diverse. Generic. The combat clock can be horizontal or vertical, applied to defense and attack. To stillness and motion. To person-to -person combat on up to battlefield maps.

Why complicate? We have little time and lives to save. Unravel. Dispel. Demystify. Unlock. Explain. Enlighten.

(a photo from the upcoming Military Knife Combat Book)

Adios, Amigos,

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8 September2008: Who ya know. Where ya' go?

In the 1980s and 1990s, I toiled away like many of you, running a local martial school inside a Golds Gym in north Texas. But I had a few advantages. I knew the owner very well and the owner liked the idea of having a police detective working on the premises. I guess it was a feather in his cap of sorts. Plus, he called upon me for off-duty help in some problems. He was involved in the oil well industry, and he sold gyms and exercise equipment that often needed to be repossessed. That cost me time, and concentration, so I guess I paid him back in some ways. But my school operation, operating in one of the racquet ball courts, was rent free, for the price of my monthly membership and these off-duty favors. Seminars were in the basketball courts at my beck and call. I also taught for a spell at Texas Women’s University.

So starting in the 80s with Ray Medina, then Randy Roberson, Tom “the Arnold” Barnhart, Jeff Allen as core folks, I operated classes there for almost eight years or so. Maybe 9? I moved south to Dallas and taught at the

DFW Gun Club for two years. Then moved to Georgia. By then the seminar circuit became all too consuming for me to travel, plus worry about running local classes also.

Jason Gutierrez and Me in 1994. Kneeling just to the right of me in blue is ol' Scott Felderhoff who is the "Scott" on the talk forum that reports to us on the gas and oil industry.

It was crazy! Barnhart and I would go to New York and we’d have 70 people in a weekend seminar, then I would return to see a mere 4 people in a Wednesday night class! Crazy. They say you are never a prophet in your home town. But my local message was valued less than a drunk, town crier, least of all a prophet!

Back then I taught it all, Jeet June Do, Filipino Martial Arts, Karate/Kempo, Aiki-Jitsu, Knife fighting...then in 1997 I went almost completely generic, tactical and practical. FREE AT LAST! Through those 1980s and 1990s years? I’ll bet I had thousands of adults enrolled through passing time. Never kids. Well, I suffered through about a six month time period where I was cajoled into teaching two kids of an influential person, in weekly private lessons. I eventually shipped them off to a local karate class. And these days, once or twice a year, I may have some fun teaching a two-hour class of kids somewhere with some politically correct FMA stick work (based on a Remy Presas model) at some seminar schools. Christof Froelich and I in Germany one night, walked into a basketball court in Nuremberg and found ourselves before some 80 people, 60 were smiling, excitied, karate kids. Yikes! None had a training stick or a training knife! None spoke English. I put on my best pantomime routine and using grunts and groans, we taught two hours of...of...something.

If I told you I had hundreds of surprise and weird things happen to me as a local and traveling teacher, it could be a thousand if I set my mind to think about it. But, I need inspirations these days to reopen the dried cracks in the folds of my brain. Driving around north Dallas yesterday, I passed by the infamous South Fork - you know, the ranch on the old Dallas TV Show. Its still a tourist trap. It reminded me that back about 1989, I had a movie and TV stunt man in my classes. He’d done stunts on the Dallas show and he was a tough, wiry bastard. One day he asked me to be a judge in a Texas Stunt man competition. Huh? He thought since I was a cop and a martial arts instructor, I might be an interesting judge. Stunt men would compete in various categories. Movie and TV people would be there. How cool was that! I thought.

My second wife and kids thought it would be cool too. So we all piled up in my gas-guzzling Suburban and drove off to a site near South Fork whereupon I would act as a decisive expert on all things action and stunts. The event lasted two, full, 8-hour days. I was hidiously bored in the first 45 minutes.

Event one had about 75 stunt-men, one-by-one, fall off a giant, highway billboard. Myself and four Hollywood types sat near the thick pads at ground zero and the stunt men on cue - each pretended to be shot, grimaced and howled and fell off the billboard walkway, twisting in the wind. We had to rate each fall from one to ten. I realized this was near impossible, and utterly subjective. It was difficult to differentiate oneself from the previous yelper and faller. Yelp. Fall. Yelp. Fall. Yelp. Fall. Candidate 43. Candidate 57. Yelp. Fall.

All this yelping and falling took about 3 hours. Seen one fall? Seen them all? In the first 20 minutes my kids were eating dirt and small rocks and my second wife - with the attention span of a migrating cricket - were ready to go, go GO!

But, off next to Event Two! Which was "Motorcycle Wheelies!" Who does the best wheelie? Score 8? or 7? Do we know? Do we care? There were bad "bar fights." "Sword fights" and what else? Whew!

I returned the second day, sans the bored fam. By Sunday afternoon the association crowned some long-haired guy the king of all stunt men based on our ramdom scores. We all left by late Sunday night. I tell you I cannot recall the tedious events of what otherwise sounded like a cool weekend. I do recall eating barbeque and drinking whiskey, which made it far from a total loss. The barbeque, smoked by a Willie Nelson look-alike...was a unforgettable 10.

For SouthFork Ranch? Click here

Adios, Amigos,

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6 September 2008: News You Can Use

You know, I just got news and "doin's" from France this morning about Syria and a thought occurred to me that I had better make an announcement concerning news-gathering at the monthly CQC Dispatches. We ship it out to about 17,000 emails a month and thousands more have a chance to read it via the Dispatches page and the talk forum. While only half of the receivers open it up? (I can only presume their testosterone levels are down that month? Other drive-by readers have access to it - our webpage had one million hits in August!)

What makes the monthly Dispatches different is that I do not want to cover what you will already find easily in common TV news and common newspapers as well as everyone else's newsletters, like Blackwater's, etc...why bother? Easy news. I don't want to reproduce that and you don't want to see it again. You've seen it elsewhere.

What I try to cover is the news you will most likely miss or not find easily. One of the first questions I ask when I see a piece of military, police or citizen self-defense news is...

1) Am I interested? If I ain't? I surely know you ain't, because we...you and me? You're reading this right now because we are simpatico.

2) Is it action news or action-related news missed or not covered properly elsewhere?

3) What is the boring factor? How boring is it compared to how important it is to know? Warning I will lean to the boring side to edumacate' you.

Along with my searching, I do rely on people sending in this type of news to me. People like Nick Hughes and Steve Cook and Gerald Barnett send us stuff that I need. So, anyone who comes across this type of information Let me know. Email me at Hock.Hochheim@sbcglobal.net .

Also I need original content articles. But they do have to be DIFFERENT and catch my eye. My eye is my eye and gut and I go with the gut feeling and concept. Completely subjective.

To para-phrase the one and only Kinky Friedman "I am fifty-six years old, but I do read and write at a fifty-eight year old level! I do the best I can.

Adios, Amigos,

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4 September 2008: September CQC Dispatches is Out!

I can only produce so much a month! Click here

Adios, Amigos,

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1 September, 2008 Zodiac Rising...

This very morning, SkyNews reports that the FBI is set to carry out tests which could reveal the identity of the man behind one of America's most notorious unsolved serial killer cases. The Zodiac Killer. I find this timing quite odd. The Zodiac Killer is a serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s. The Zodiac coined his name in a series of taunting letters he sent to the press. His letters included four cryptogram (or ciphers), three of which have yet to be solved.

The Zodiac murdered five known victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa, and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women between the ages of 16 and 29 were targeted. Others have also been suspected to be Zodiac victims. The lack of consensus about the number of victims, the inability of law enforcement to crack the ciphers, and the fact that several people have inconclusively been portrayed as "persons of interest" or possible suspects, has elicited this case's designation as a perfect crime. When the Zodiac investigation was in full swing, there had been some 2,500 suspects to process. Over the years, the police narrowed their search to a handful of men, and the prime suspects had many attributes in common: appearance, displeasure with the police, certain aspects of their lives, specific skills, and a totality of circumstances that logically fit. There was New York copycat killer and a Japanese copycat killer. Most of us around the world heard of Zodiac via Clint Eastwood's 1971 film Dirty Harry which was loosely based on the hunt for the Zodiac killer. Next came the 2005 movie Zodiac.

Why do I find the timing odd? Only odd for me privately that is, because for this and the last month, the 2005 Zodiac movie with Gyllenhaal, Ruffalo and Robert Downy Jr. is on cable TV ohhh...about ten times a week! When the movie first appeared in theaters and later on DVD I snubbed it off as a slow and as an unsatisfying, unsolved mystery. Why make a movie like this? I heard a few good reviews but never watched it. Then last month while channel surfing, I accidentally caught a part. I was instantly and utterly hooked into this well-made, well researched, police procedural, docu-drama. I see chunks of it and re-watch chunks every day or so.

"Are you watching that again?!" Jane asks me from another room.

"Just parts," I answer. I hate to admit I am...obsessed with it. (Actually, I am now writing this essay at 5 am). I planned on waking up this very Monday morning and write a review of the Zodiac movie. I googled Zodiac just to get started and WHAM! I saw the fresh news on the new suspect! I swear! This morning! That is why the timing is so damn odd

Every now and again I either willingly, or I have to, stick my big toe in the waters of police work or some enforcement-related chore. I do so reluctantly. I am also on occasion still offered jobs in it. I could be in New Orleans this Gustav hurricane weekend carrying a shotgun as I was asked last Tuesday. And I know that it is like an alcoholic taking a shot of whiskey. If I am in? I am in and might be "sickly" in. All at the gambling expense of everything else in my life. I have to be very careful where and I how I stick my addicted toe.

"Hello, my name is Hock and I could be addicted to working felonies."

I immediately empathize with the detectives in this Zodiac movie. As Bill Clinton would say, "I feel their pain." A felony crimes-against-persons case was usually an emotional experience for me. Fascinating. Frustrating. Intoxicating. And each LEO character in this movie is sickly into this Zodiac case, and rightly so, and it wears holes in them through the years. In an x-ray? My very soul looks like a dried sponge. And I feel each and every new lead and disappointment they traverse in the film. The challenge, the size of the case, the natural agency lack of cooperation (something we would not quite see today because the media would shame us into multi-jurisdictional professionalism, or solve the case for us - as tried the Chronicle cartoonist Robert Graysmith back then).

Boys and girls you can have the Super Bowl, UFC or your World Cup. That's all just playing. Topics like rape, attempted murder, murder, the Zodiac Killer or Osama Bin Laden are the big leagues. Tension is cut with a maniac's knife and this slice and dice is captured well in this crisp movie.

So today, coincidentally, SkyNews reports that... "FBI agents are investigating whether there is a DNA link between objects recovered from the crime scenes and a Jack Tarrance, a former navy and air force serviceman who died in 2006. The claim that Tarrance may have been the killer comes from his own stepson, Dennis Kaufman. It is based on objects that Tarrance left at his death, including a black hood similar to that worn by the killer when he stabbed a picnicking couple in 1968, which Mr Kaufman found stuffed inside an amplifier."

Anyway, read all about it below in the Zodiac Reader below. The case is a multi-faceted conundrum and if Tarrance (see left) matches any evidence, another epic part of the fascinating story will be how the other major suspect Aurther Lee Allen fits the Zodiac so damn well, yet in the end, was not him? But, he fits so well! What are the odds?

Fascinating. Frustrating. Intoxicating...

YOUR Zodiac Reader

Zodiac Sky News Click here

Zodiac Movie Trailer Click here

Zodiac Movie.com, But this has fanstastic interview video of real people Click here

Zodiac Tru TV Comprehensive history Click here

Adios, Amigos,

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Email Hock at Hock.Hochheim@sbcglobal.net

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