Your Pro Citizen Newsletter 69: Adapting Military Tactics for Citizen Use; Weekly Discount Code

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What the heck are we doing?

I want to refer back to day one of The Professional Citizen Project, back to our roots as it were. Int he community we are still seeing a lot of madness and wasted effort. Folks are still attempting to copy and paste doctrine and tactics used by conventional forces. Taking existing doctrine and attempting to overlay it on an irregular Citizen set of requirements. This is a thinking man’s (and woman’s) game, we have to do better. The bright spot is we are doing better than some of the things we saw just 10 years ago but we aren’t out of the woods (into the woods?) yet.

The Problem

Sorting through the massive amount of tactics and preparedness information is overwhelming. There has been a trend for years on social media and video hosting services to provide an indiscernible mix of relevant and irrelevant information to Citizens. This content had components of absurd and unrealistic levels of expectation right alongside valid, usable info. It has been an embarrassment of riches; a mountain of information that could not be distilled down to something usable. People seeking echo-chamber validation for their purchases and other folks with a legitimate desire to learn are both trying to drink at the same watering hole. Content watchers (and even students at some classes) were fed an unending stream of shooters banging away at 7 yards with magazine fed carbines and iterations of team CQB with flashbangs. But the normal US dad, mom, wife, husband, brother, son etc were (mostly) treated as an afterthought, left with no real way to sort through the mess and find a starting point. Available print references were in a similar state, many focused on executing tasks with a government level equipped force…or digging a bunker out in the back 40. There were alternatives, however none were squarely focused on translating military tactics and techniques directly to applicable Citizen requirements.

Hotspots

Dudes with time under a ruck will immediately activate their PTSD with this word. A hotspot is a small (hopefully) area of the human’s skin that is friction disturbed. They can be recognizable during the activity and negatively impact performance, or they can hide in waiting for an unjustifiably painful appearance under a shower stream. These community hotspots are no different; some are obvious, but you keep driving on and some are not so noticeable but will reveal themselves when you need skill performance. Let’s take a look at a few that are still showing presence in the readiness community:

Gear Centric Approach. This is not as bad as it was during the GWOT heyday with influencers and operators banging away on our eyeballs with the latest hotness. I am glad much of that has disappeared, just how many models of plate carrier can there be that “the unit” or NAVSPECWARGRUDEVCOM used in combat anyway? We can all be victims of this terrain, none are exempt. We ae still only one youtube video or forum post away from being exposed to the “what pants are those?” discussions. Next thing you know you are finding yourself lying in wait to intercept the UPS guy before your wife sees your $300 pants purchase. Maybe $500. It is ridiculous. Four years of inflation and a craptastic economy helped quell this geardo culture, but the desire to buy what the “real guys” use (which is not true in most cases anyway) is a less than desirable approach.

Failure to Adapt. This is a big one. Outside of blowing your budget and getting yourself in a financial bind this is THE big one. We are still seeing well meaning people trying to wholesale apply tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) from the military to their set of circumstances…current and anticipated circumstances. Some things are indeed a direct lift. It could be argued that most things are when it comes to true small unit tactics and foundational skills at the individual level. However, there is still a tendency to do the copy/paste and attempt to replicate tactics and doctrine. Use what works and adapt existing approaches. We always say we must have “tactical common sense” and make necessary changes for our circumstances. As long as it makes tactical sense and works (admittedly that is the hard part to measure) there are plenty of right answers that do not directly align with military doctrine.

METT-TC Failures. Context man, context. Your set of conditions and anticipated challenges are different from someone in a different region. Your family situation will be different from mine. One of the best examples is rifle/optic selection. We discussed this a couple of weeks back with the DMR fallacy discussion. A long range shot for someone living in the swamps of the South will be quite a bit different than a Citizen living in the midst of bean fields of the frozen midwest. A single dude living on the high plains does not have the convenience of copying four-man stack room clearing doctrine for a high rise building. A group with five solid participants cannot occupy a platoon patrol base. Failing to apply METT-TC (or whatever you want to use) to your set of conditions is a recipe for disaster. Wasting time, effort, and resources on non-applicable tactics will take time away from legitimate pursuits.

Physical Fitness Failures. This continues to be a challenge in the community. This is one that can be a direct fit from military approaches. Don’t get me wrong, big Army gets this wrong but the idea and tenets of physical fitness should be carried forward. If you mess this one up there is no amount of training or tactics adaptation that can overcome it. And it doesn’t matter how old you are, there are reasonable expectations and even if you are advanced in age (older than 24) dudes will give you a pass if you aren’t the fastest or strongest as long as you are still capable of doing the work.

Summary. Requirements son. Always focus on your requirements. Some of my circles consist of men who are true warfighters; infantrymen and Marines who know and have executed tactics with great expertise. But guess what? They use that experience and knowledge, but they understand how to adapt what they know to their requirements. The community as a whole must do the same. You don’t have to be a contrarian just to prove you are doing your own thing by totally disregarding proven tactics, but you must find the middle ground between current doctrine and what applies to you.

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