What Are You Going To Do And They Come For You? Part 1

It is 9 PM, and you have a big day tomorrow, which starts at 6 AM, so you have to be out of bed by 5 AM tomorrow morning. And you have to be on your best game tomorrow, because it is a very big day for you. As you close the bedroom curtains, you pause for a brief moment glancing out the window, pondering tomorrow's meetings.

Tomorrow is your day…the day you close the deal you have been working on for over a year. Everything else in your life has been put on the back burner for this deal.

As you look outside, you notice that there is no moon, the sky is heavily overcast, and there is light rain. “Wow…it is so dark out tonight that if it wasn’t for the street lights and my porch light, I couldn’t even see my front lawn or my driveway!” You are in bed and sound asleep by 10 PM.

Then you are jolted out of your deep sleep by loud noises. You roll over and glance at your bedside digital alarm clock, and you can’t see it. Then you notice that the nightlight in the hallway outside your bedroom door, which paints the path to the bathroom and its nightlight, isn’t working either. “That’s odd” you say under your breath. You glance at your digital wristwatch, and when you press the button to activate the dim light on the dial, you see that it is 2:30 AM. “2:30 in the morning!” you mumble under your breath so as to not wake your wife.

You are very groggy as you lay there in bed staring into the complete darkness, unable to see anything. You struggle to get your wits about you and figure out what that rumbling noise is about and why there are no lights on.

Then like a flash, you come to the very startling realization that these noises sound like heavy vehicles rumbling down the street outside your house. “Who and what is making this rumbling racket?” You reach for your bedside lamp and, in the pitch dark, manage to get the switch on, only to remember that no lights are working. “Duh!” you mumble under your breath. You then fumble around in the pitch black dark and finally are able to grab your flashlight off the bedside nightstand and, in the process, nearly drop it on the floor. Then you flick it on and…nothing. You bang it against the palm of your hand and...nothing. A brief thought goes through your mind; “How long has it been since I used this flashlight?” Then it dawns on you…thank God it didn’t work! You remember reading somewhere that lights can very easily become bullet magnets.

Your next thought is to arm yourself. You get out of bed and crouch on the floor, feeling around in the dark to find the pistol size gun safe that is bolted to the floor under your nightstand. That is where you keep your new 9 mm Glock and one magazine. But you cannot get the keypad lock to work because you can’t see it in the dark! The guy at the gun store told you that this safe is the best and safest place to keep your new Glock!

Then you notice that your breathing is becoming much more rapid, and your pulse is starting to pound in your neck! “Am I getting lightheaded?” Am I hyperventilating? I’ve got to get a hold of myself and calm down! I must NOT panic!” you chastise yourself as you force yourself to maintain control and slow your breathing.

You start groping around in the dark, trying to find your way to the bedroom window to see what is going on outside. In your haste, you stub the toes of your left foot on the end of the bed frame and muffle a string of cuss words as you almost collapse on the floor in agony. “It feels like I either broke a couple of toes or maybe dislocated them! Oh, my word, that hurts horribly! It’s hard to get around. I don’t know if I can walk.” But you gut it out and limp towards the bedroom window in agonizing pain. You slip the curtains apart just enough to be able to peek outside. It is completely dark outside. The streetlights are no longer on, your porch light is out, and there are no lights on in your neighbor’s homes for as far as you can see in both directions. You can’t see anything…it’s like having a black bag over your head! Then it dawns on you that there’s no electricity. The power is out everywhere. There are not even any city lights to be seen on the horizon! There is no moon, and the sky must still be heavily overcast. It is pitch black, and the rumbling noise is still going on.

And now you can hear what sounds like big diesel engines running. You are just barely able to make out raindrops on the window. “It has been raining for weeks! When will this let up?!” you mumble under your breath, as a way of complaining more about the excruciating pain in your foot rather than the rain.

Then out of your peripheral vision, you see the most horrifying thing that you have ever seen in your entire life. You are so startled by what you see that you look directly at it, and then it vanishes. You had just a brief glimpse into the impenetrable dark night. Your mind starts to reel. “What was that? Am I seeing things that are not really there? Am I panicking that bad?” You look out of the corner of your eye again, and you can just barely make it out, but only by not looking directly at it. But there is no mistake about it. There is a column of tanks, armored personnel carriers (APC’s), and trucks rolling by on the street in front of your house with no running lights of any kind!

Tanks! You nearly yell out loud. You can’t see who they are. Your mind starts to reel with questions that have no immediate answers. “Is it the US military, UN troops, the Chinese military, the Russian military, or some combination of those? Oh My God…it is happening!

We are being invaded!”

In a near panic, you hurriedly try to make your way back to your side of the bed, and in the pitch dark, you stumble over the end of the bed and wake up your wife. “Honey, what are you doing? What is the matter? Are you OK? What is that horribly loud noise outside?” You respond in a very worried and fierce whisper, “Shhhhh! Get up and get dressed right now! We have to get out of here!” “Why?" she asks, not too quietly. “Keep your voice down! No time to explain. We MUST go right now or we might all be dead in the next few minutes. We have to get the kids out of bed and leave…NOW…GO, GO, GO!!”

You ask yourself, “Where are the car keys? I am always misplacing the car keys! Car keys? The car is not going to do us any good!

The streets are blocked with tanks, APC’s and military trucks. How am I ever going to get my family out of here??!!. I will never forgive myself if they are harmed or killed because I could not protect them.”

You start looking for your clothes and can’t find all of them. You can’t make heads or tails out of what you have in your hands or if it is even right side out or not. Your wife is having the same problem.

Your toes hurt so bad it is making you nauseous. You can’t put weight on your left foot…but you have to.

“Where are my shoes?” you ask yourself. “Where are those 72-hour bug-out bags that I bought? Are they in the car, the hall closet, or the basement? I didn’t put them in the attic, did I? Where did I put them? I don’t remember where I put them! How will I get my pistol out of that damn safe without a flashlight? WHERE ARE MY SHOES? I can’t find ANYTHING. What do I do now?”

(End of Scenario)

“What do I do now?” is a critical question at this juncture that requires immediate answers. However, there is another far more vital question that should have been asked and answered long before this! And that question is, “What do I need to do to be ready?” If that question had been answered many months ago, the answer to his immediate question would be far easier. In fact, it would not even need to have been asked because he would have already been in right action!

In the above scenario and any other scenario where you have to either bug out or shelter in place, there are things that should become second nature to you. How do they become second nature (e.g., a built-in muscle memory response)? By practicing. You have all heard the phrase “practice makes perfect,” and that is very true indeed. However, if you practice things that will not work in a real-world situation, then your “practice makes perfect” will only have built-in a muscle memory response which will become a perfect failure. In other words, if you practice something that will not work in a real-world situation, you will only become perfect at failure! And there are situations in life that you cannot afford to be a failure at. And the scenario above is one of them.

Practicing for a proper response needs to become a way of life for you. It is very easy to adapt to your normal everyday routine. In no particular order, here is a list of things that you need to practice all of the time. Please understand this is not a complete list, but it will help you get started! I will first show you the problem and then give you the drill that will become a way of life for you. That, in turn, becomes a built-in muscle memory response …which one day could very well save your life and the lives of your loved ones.

Problem: Your flashlight does not come on when you need it to

Solution: Always check to see if your flashlight works before you go to bed. Check it every night! If the light is getting dim then change the batteries right then. No matter how tired you are do NOT put it off until tomorrow, because you might desperately need it tonight.

Problem: You can’t retrieve your weapon from the gun safe because you can’t see the keypad in the dark to enter the combination. (Or, in your panicked state of mind, you can’t remember the combination.)

Solution: If you insist on having a pistol safe next to your bed to keep your gun “safe,” then take your weapon out of the safe BEFORE you go to bed! I can hear it all now…in fact, it sounds just like the ad you saw for your pistol safe: “Our super secure pistol safe (picture sexy dark-haired beauty in tight camo pants pointing at the safe) is used by many Hollywood celebrities. And when you own one of these and keep your pistol stored securely inside, you have time to think before you pull your weapon, so you don’t shoot an innocent family member.”

If you are that trigger-happy, then you need a lot more training. And if you are so worried about accidentally shooting a family member in your house at night, then leave the magazine on the nightstand beside the pistol with the chamber clear (no round in the chamber). That way, you will have time to decide if you need to defend yourself or your loved ones as you insert the magazine and remember to rack the slide to bring it into battery.

That will work right up until the time you wake up in the middle of the night and there is some home invasion gang banger staring down at you with a gun or knife in his hand. Do you really think that you would have time in your near panic state to fumble around (even if your nightlight is working), grab your weapon and the magazine (without dropping either one of them), insert the magazine into the gun, and rack the slide, then shoot the bad guy before he stabs you from three feet away? This isn’t a TV program or a video game! Face it, you would not survive that scenario.

How would I know if someone got into our house in the middle of the night? Very easy, actually, and it would not be with some annoying alarm going off. Instead, I would be woken by the screams of the scum bag as our German Shepherd tore him to shreds. Our dog is a push-button trained close personal protection dog from Germany. He does not bark unless I give him the alert command. He just nails the person and growls fiercely during the attack. If the bad guy hears our dogs’ footsteps, it’s too late.

How do you keep a dirt bag from sneaking into your house without you knowing it? Get a very well-trained close personal protection dog that will protect you and your family. Then train with your dog at least once a week. (I train with our dog every day.) It is fun to do! A well-trained dog (that you know how to handle) is the best insurance policy in the world for you and your family. They are flashing between conditions yellow, orange, and red 24/7/365. My life has been saved twice by one of my dogs. You would not be reading this if it wasn’t for that dog! My favorite breed? Hands down, it is an import German Shepherd. But your dog will not stop the tanks and APCs outside in the street.

A couple of more things about your weapon:

· Always have several magazines in the same place as your weapon. A bare minimum is one in the weapon and two more spares

· Rotate your magazines out every three months, so the mag spring does not take a set (become weak and cause your weapon will malfunction).

· Have a good quality holster and magazine pouch. You will not get far with the pistol stuck down the back of your pants. That only works in the movies!

· Gets some excellent high-quality tactical pistol training from someone that has survived gun battles! You do not want someone trying to teach you how to survive a gun battle that has never been in a gun battle!

· If you can’t reach your gun from where you are standing, sitting, or lying down, then you are unarmed. Never be unarmed!

Problem: You can’t find your clothes and/or you cannot get dressed in the dark

Solution: Every night when you get ready for bed take your clothes off in the same order. Then put them neatly on a chair by your bed in the same order that you took them off. Always lay your clothes on the chair in the very same manner every night, everything always facing the same direction and the same side up. Then practice getting dressed in the morning in the dark, with no lights on. When you get so that you can repeatedly get dressed in the dark without a hitch, then practice getting undressed in the dark and putting your clothes on the chair in the same manner as you do when you can see to do it in the light. Then practice getting dressed faster each morning. Set speed goals and then go past the goal. Then set a new speed goal.

If you wear a suit and tie to work every day, then I encourage you to keep a set of outdoor-type clothes by your bed at night and practice with them. You will not get far in a bug-out situation wearing a three-piece suit, tie, and dress shoes.

Practice this until it becomes an everyday habit. It will help save you in nearly any situation where you have to leave your house in a big hurry; earthquakes, tornados, floods, house fires, hurricanes, a bomb threat, a terrorist attack, or a large-scale bad guy attack you cannot fend off.

And here is one more thing. Hide a set of clothes (for every family member) outside your house or apartment in a very good waterproof bag. Change the clothes out as the seasons of the year dictate. This way, if you ever have to leave your home before you can grab your clothes (e.g., a house fire or earthquake), you are not going out the door naked or in a thin pair of pajamas. If you ever had to leave your house like that during the winter in a northern climate, you would be in massive trouble within 60 seconds and dead in less than five minutes!

I will post more Problem / Solution to the scenario above in Part 2. Stay tuned

Be Bold, Be Courageous, Be Safe Dangerous.

May God Bless you and yours in these trying times,

Stryker, out

“Men like me are impossible until the day when they become necessary”

Victor Hugo

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” Albert Einstein

Stryker is the call sign of former law enforcement and security contractor working in hostile theaters. He has lived, traveled, and worked in the remotest regions of the Alaska Bush, off-the-road system, during the winter and summer. Most of his time in Alaska is spent in the Arctic, the Interior, and on the Alaska Peninsula. He has traveled extensively in the Alaska Bush via snowmobile, dog team, snow-cat, swamp trucks, ATVs, jet boats, ocean-going boats, helicopters, and airplanes. Stryker spent ten years in the Arctic learning about Arctic survival from Eskimo Elders. Stryker has also traveled extensively through 11 African counties, (some on the US State Department “don’t go there list”) and has been in two others. He has been in life-and-death survival scenarios where his years of training and practical application have saved his life and the lives of others. He is a bush pilot and regularly flies his Piper PA-18 Super Cub in the Alaska Bush, landing on gravel bars and ridge tops on tundra tires and skis. After seeing people die needlessly in the bush due to a lack of training and being poorly equipped, Stryker and his team have decided to share their vast knowledge of survival with a select few people.

You can contact Stryker at this email: contact [at] aw-sog.com