28 August 2001
Ken, How goes the wars? I just finished reading your article in the SEP/OCT issue of American Handgunner, excellent work! I really like the part about opening your mind to new and different ideas! Also, a page or so over is a full page ad for xxxx products showing a guy cringing from a bright light and it reminded me of an incident that happened on one of our FMPs not to long ago. As the Ground Force Commander on a hit I usually get to set out side of the objective and provide command and control. It's a good job but I'm often times not in on the action guy stuff. The other night we were doing a hit and I decided to mix it up a bit. I put one of the Captains (I think he would be a Lieutenant in the Navy, 0-3 anyway) that works for me as a Detachment Commander, who commands my assault team, in as the GFC and made his Warrant the Assault team leader and yep you guessed it just put myself in the stack as another shooter.

It was a Simunitions hit and went as planned. You know the normal chaos after the door charge goes off, people running and shooting, dealing with problems. Anyway I wind up as the number one man on this room, me and my number two enter and start the clearing. As I'm moving to my point of domination I catch movement and bring my M4 with Mr. M3 Millennium mounted on it and light the movement up. Wow! It's this big ass CPT who is an MP on post here that somebody has recruited as a role player for this hit. I mean this guy just won the post bench press competition with a lift of 440lbs. I thinking man I'm going to hose this guy hard to make sure he goes down and stays down. I want no part in a wrestling match with this guy. Of course all of this blasts through my mind in about .01 seconds and as I working the safety on my M4 to hook this guy up he throws up his

I guess the lessons learned from this are ones that we already knew. The M3 lights are the heat and good training works! I hope that you take both of those as the compliments that they are intended to be.

Please feel free to use this little anecdote or pass it on to whoever might find it of interest, but do me a favor and sterilize my name/unit from it. You know the deal, operational security.

Anyway, I've rambled long enough. Take care!
xxxx STRENGTH AND HONOR!

I am a Lieutenant in the Morris County Sheriff's Office currently on loan to another agency for a Task Force. I've been a member and Team Leader on our County Tactical Team "SERT", since 1988. As a member of the SERT, I've been on calls where shots were fired at my team, have gone against suspects armed with knives, have taken a suspect into custody who was intent on blowing up his house and neighborhood and many, many more. Over the years I've received training from a number of Local, State and Federal Law Enforcement Agencies as well as other companies.

None compare to the Low Light Instructors Course put on by STRATEGOS that I just completed. I not only learned valuable tactics for using light and dark to my advantage in tactical situations, but I also learned some Defensive Tactics that actually work. The tactics learned were proven in my mind during an exercise where you close your eyes and defend your handgun against attackers, one after another. I felt comfortable and confident and the tactics we were taught actually worked. As for the Low Light Tactical training, the scenarios we went through taught me that a lot of the training I've received over the years has been flawed.

Using Simunition and Paintball, I learned that if my team members continue to use the tactics we were taught up until I attended this course, someone is going to be seriously injured or worse. I Highly Recommend this training to every Tactical Team Member or Patrol Officer. You'll work hard, but it's worth it. During the first few days I considered calling it quits.

I wasn't ready for the Defensive Tactics training and figured it would be just like the half dozen other courses I've been through. By the end of the week, I was exhausted but glad I stuck around. I've never met more dedicated Instructors during my 17+ years on the job.
Thank you and feel free to post my thoughts.

Sincerely,
Lieutenant James K. O'Brien