It's finally sinking in to me.
I had this in my notes somewhere.
THE WISDOM (?) OF PAT ROGERS
Gathered at a Carbine Operator's Course conducted by EAG Tactical
Training at the Dane County LE Training Center 13-14-15 May 2007
"How long does a gunfight last? The rest of your life . . ."
“Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.”
“Training is best conducted when the shooter and his gear are in synch.
If any portion of that train rolls off the tracks, the overall quality
of training- for all hands suffers.”
"While shooting is relatively easy to teach, fighting isn’t. This is
especially true for those who have never experienced an emergency, been
in a fist fight and whose exposure to a fight is theoretical.”
"Mindset issues have always been difficult, because only a few are
blessed (blessed?) with that mean gene that permits them to fight other
bipeds to the death without remorse. Not many can embrace the hate
efficiently."
“Theory has a nasty habit of falling by the wayside when the enemy has a vote...”
“At close range, the ability to get a working gun in your hand is a
priority. Unfortunately, a great many have difficulty in understanding
this...”
"Get a working gun in your hand and then continue to shoot smelly bearded men wearing man dresses in the face.
"If you people could just FOLLOW DIRECTIONS ONE TIME my heart would soar like an eagle . . ."
"Don't be in a hurry to do it wrong."
“There are two ways to do most anything, right... and again.”
"Repetition is the mother of skill."
"Like everything, if a particular technique works for you, and it ALWAYS works, then you're good to go."
"If you're a cop, there are 5 major food groups: Eat in. Take out. Frozen. Pizza. Beer."
"In my career, between the NYPD and the Marine Corps, I had the
opportunity to attend lots of training classes. Many of those classes
dealt with firearms or tactics. A lot of the training I participated in
was real good. However, I did discover that after you go to about 12 or
14 shooting classes, you find that you don't learn much new material
from any one class, because your base of knowledge is already
established."
"After you shoot guns enough, it starts to get boring. The point at which boredom sets in varies with the individual . . . "
"In a class, nobody works harder than me, and nobody has more fun than
me. I believe in training hard and having a good time. HOWEVER I am a
safety-Nazi in class. We have to be. We have no tolerance for careless
behavior with firearms. I'm retired from both the Marine Corps and the
NYPD, and in all those years of service I've only been actually shot
once, and that was by a student . . ."
"When I was in Viet Nam at the war, I had the opportunity to be in an
awkward situation a bunch of times, where we were advancing faster than
the NVA could retreat, or we were retreating slower than they were
advancing. Under such circumstances, we got a lot of shooting in. Of
course, I was in the Marine Corps and in the Corps we really don't
"retreat" -- we attack in another direction."
"As a short little Irishman, I have one advantage over you big tall
guys. I can shoot on the move better than you, because my stride is
shorter, and I don't bounce. I'm a more stable shooting platform"
"When do cops usually use rifles? Up close. When do soldiers or Marines
in urban combat use rifles? Up close, across the room, or across the
street. In that application, the carbine is almost used like a big and
more powerful pistol. Under these circumstances, your most typical
distance of engagement is probably going to be from point blank range
out to about 30 yards."
"Since 1939, the average MAXIMUM DISTANCE of engagement for infantry is
about 130 meters. Even for the military, most shooting with rifles or
carbines is done at 100 meters or closer. If the enemy is more than 100
meters away, either you can't see them because they're using
concealment, you can't see them because they're behind hard cover, or
they're moving and you can't hit them. The employment of designated
snipers is obviously different, but for your average operator, the
primary marksmanship skill they really need is to be able to engage
targets out to 100 meters."
"If you analyze the dynamics of a gunfight, whether it's the military or
in law enforcement, the details are usually quite similar. The action
is fast and furious for a short time. The survivors will retreat to
cover and reload. The action may or may not continue on from there. In
this circumstance, your first reload in the fight may be very important
to your continued survival . . ."
Gunfights within the confines of structures are violent and exciting
affairs. The ability to deliver rapid, accurate shots into a threat will
determine whether you will have a war story or a Memorial Softball
Field named after you.
"These guns don't have to be spotlessly clean. They need to be REALISTICALLY clean"
"Don't fall in love with your magazines. They're expendable items. If it doesn't work, get rid of it and buy another."
"If you steal material from one guy, that's called "plagiarism". If you
steal it from a bunch of guys, it's called "research". I'm a researcher.
I've never invented anything in my life, and I've never named anything
after myself."
"Smart people often "over-drive their headlights". Because they have
developed expertise in one area, they make the mistake of presuming they
have expertise in other areas, when they really don't. Wisdom is
knowing what you know, and knowing what you DON'T know."
"In training, there are primary skills and secondary skills. You need to
know the difference, and you need to prioritize your training efforts
to focus on the primary skills. None of us will probably ever have all
the time or the money or the equipment or the ammo that we want, so you
have to make some decisions about which skills you need to devote
valuable training time and resources on."
"Well, that IS difficult, but NOT impossible."
"Make it work and drive on."
"The first rule of training is to survive the experience. When
conducting training, you need to be safe in your procedures. You need to
stay hydrated. You can't get over-heated, you can't freeze, and you
can't get hypothermiated. If you have pre-existing injuries to your back
or your knees or whatever, don't get hurt in training. Participate in
those exercises you can do safely and without injury and press on."
"Here's my best advice. Buy a big goofy happy friendly dog. In the
morning, walk your dog around the neighborhood and let all the kids play
with your dog. That way, everybody in town will think that you're a
hell of a nice guy, even if you aren't."
"If you see Osama bin Laden walking down the street in Washington, DC,
and you draw your pistol and kill him and his two bodyguards, and then
you shoot yourself reholstering, you're still an assclown."
"I like the idea of drugs. It kills a lot of useless people. Just not soon enough."
"I dunno'...seems simple to me."
"Courage is endurance, for one moment more..."
"With the current state of pussyness rampant in this country, most have never actually been in a fist fight.
This also includes most cops."
"The rapidity at which violence occurs stuns most."
S/F
Pat sends
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