Fistfights and Firefights
When I was commanding 2nd Squadron, 13th Cavalry and a new Lieutenant arrived, I would always have the same conversation beginning with the same question; “Have you ever been in a fistfight before? Not boxing and not Army hand to hand training, but a real fight. Like, with someone you don’t know who is really trying to hurt you.”
As a guy who had been enough of these types of scrapes as a kid, it was shocking to me that the vast majority of the time the answer was “no”. There were plenty of football players, former West Point cadets who had participated in boxing, wrestlers, and even some UFC aficionados who came through the office, but what I was looking for was that experience where there was no referee to blow the whistle to stop the beating and definitely no one coming to their rescue.
What I was trying to get them to understand was the first time they were shot at in combat, was a lot like the first time you get punched in the face for real. If you’ve never been punched in the face, there is a flash of white behind your eyes. Your ears ring. You lose situational awareness very quickly. I would tell them that boxers stand in the ring and take shots like this and keep fighting because they are used to it. It was as much about their experience as it was them being tough. Firefights aren’t all that different. Neither are rocket attacks. Or IED explosions.
When you’re in a fistfight and you take a shot in the face, you are just trying to defend yourself long enough for that situational awareness to return so you can maybe go on the offensive and get in a few shots of your own. In that moment, though, you are just trying to survive. You and just you.
When you are a Lieutenant and you start getting shot at, you are still just trying to survive but it is no longer just you. You are responsible for a whole platoon full of people that are counting on YOU to keep them alive. Those people don’t have time for you to shake out the cobwebs, collect yourself, and decide what to do next. You have to get used to getting punched in the face so you can react quickly, maneuver, return fire, and gain some advantage.
That’s what I was always trying to accomplish, whether it be in training or on the athletic field. They needed those types of experiences to make them better and to help them keep their people alive. They needed to know there wasn’t someone with a whistle to stop the beating when it started.
Everyone needs training and needs experience to perform well, especially when lives are at stake. Police officers, firefighters, first responders, servicemembers all go through a lot of training. Equipment training, procedural training, scenario training. They all do it. It’s all geared toward saving lives. It’s easy to look from the outside and say “but that’s their job” or “I can’t believe they did that” or even “why didn’t they do something?”.
But, unless you’ve been there and taken that punch in the face, give those folks a break. Or step in the ring and start taking those punches yourself.