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Kind of like situational awareness, I only tell funny stories, they're just better.
We all start off our career in law enforcement in some fashion. Whether your just a civilian
shooter CCW where you are today is going to be different from where you are tomorrow and
in the future right. So we're doing these operations down in South Padre Island. Specifically
helo insertions so they started sending us to shooting schools we're wearing flight coveralls,
balaclavas and MP5s and all this other cool stuff and we're going to jump out of an AH60
and take drug dealers down on the beach. You gotta understand as a young guy I'm like 'oh
my god are you serious' like we're practically a little bit, like this just might make us
more elite than the Eagle Scouts. So I was pretty excited about that right. I think actually
we're the last line of defense, its Eagle Scouts then us pretty much the first and last
line of defense like omega squad. So what ends up happening is we're doing these operations
when you're doing two days in the helo and also doing one day with border patrol. It
was a big organization, customs was there, we had national guard running thermal on the
beaches a lot of different things going on. So my partner was a little bit older than
me, a lot older than me, but not like 'old' now that i'm getting into 40 so he was mid
fifties really experienced salt of the earth good dude. We're driving in the suburban and
one thing you got to understand about border patrol they only know, i *** you not, two
speeds, we're stopped or it's literally pegged past 120 in a suburban with a *** metal
cage where you're getting that sway. I don't know if he's checked these tires. We're on
a two lane old road coming out of Boca Chica Island near the Mexico border. So we're flying,
and we're talking shooting the *** like dudes do, and all of sudden he's like,'did you see
that?!?!' and I'm looking and he's slows down now and I'm like holy *** and I was pretty
much facing this direction because I'm talking to him, what did he see, he must have saw
something, like a guys like 'HAAAA!', maybe there was fire or something maybe a red car,
I don't even know at this point. So he turns around, like dad used to spins that *** around.
We start going down the road and he stops and I'm on this side where he saw it. He looks
over, he's like,'you see that?' I'm young man, I just want to please you and want you
to know I am a ninja. I'll throw it. You want me to sweep the leg I'll sweep the leg. I
am going to bring it at this level, and I can't figure it out, I'm looking and I don't
see *** except woods and the grass and I'm looking. I'm like '***' he's like,'you see
that right there?' and now he's like 'right there' which is another indication that its
actually really close to me which I'm thinking like, I gotta be able to see this, and thank
god he answers his own questions, now he's like,'you see the way that grass is bent down
right there?' I'm now staring at the tall grass that's like this like really staring
at it hard, he says,'see how its bent, somebody's just been through there' I can kinda see that
now, I can kind of see maybe what he's talking about where it goes off into the woods but
my problem is he saw that while we were pegged in a suburban doing about 130 miles per hour.
So when he pulls his gun and got out of the *** car, i pulled my gun because in law
enforcement we call that a clue. He just saw that at 130 miles an hour so when he pulled
his gun I pulled mine, we're going. We start going a little deeper in and I'm thinking
right about now as I'm wearing blue and he's wearing green, i really wish I had some green
on right now as he's wearing complete OD and I'm wearing navy blue. I might as well have
purple on for all intents and purposes, but I'm thinking, maybe if there's some water
nearby, once I dive in that you may not see me ok so this uniform could under the right
circumstances pay off. Well we get up to this location by the trees and boom, Popeye's chicken,
gallons of water, so he's like,'the coyote's been through here. we're close' ok we're close
like close to what, I mean how close are we to whatever this is, I mean obviously we're
talking about people here, and some guys picked people up left food and took off. Where are
the people? This would be a good question right now. So now we're sitting there, we
get to a certain point and he bends down. This is what he does, points to me, and I'm
like I don't know the codes for don't split up. All I know is you can watch the movie
Saw, pretty much any other movie, Predators, Aliens Vs Predators, what happens when those
dudes split up?Meanwhile your like, thats what happens when you split up I know this,
I know this and now he's walked off. So now I'm like ca-caw! (cricket) ca-caw! as if I've
used something on my belt, I don't even know, whether to do a reload right now. so I'm like
moving again silence, he stands up to where the tent is, right over where the tent is,
first thing *** thank god he's alive. during the whole time period i'm thinking
whatever has taken him out he didn't even have a chance to scream, thats when the antis
even worse. Normally you'd have a scream and you'd be like, fuuuu-awwwww right out of the
scenario but now i haven't heard from him, so something got him, and he didn't even let
out a gasp of air cause I would've, let me explain something, i would have heard it.
I would have heard the gasp of air and I would have known, holy ***, I'm leaving right now,
he just got killed. So he stands up and all of a sudden he's like,' mas arribe' there's
like right to where he is where the green shirt is dude these people just start standing
up, and I'm like, hoping they didn't just see what was going on over here. Trying to
pull off hoping that nobody was like,'hey what's this ***'s problem over there man,
you see him do those rolls he's pretty good at them' So the point being sometimes people
don't say anything, things happen, people see different things that are out there. You
know we talked about that OODA loop earlier and reversing the Os the point being is is
that observation is really important orientation is really important decide and act and all
that other good stuff. Sometimes good old fashioned, having a partner who's been around
educated good FTO bringing you into the fold is really important, so I thought I'd share
that one with you.