Yes.
Served in the Army
Why? at least one person in my family in ever generation going back to colonial days has served, I was raised and determined to carry on the tradition.
I was supposed to go in to fly helicopters but the day before my final review board the program hit it’s cap and was closed.
This completely crushed me and for the next few month’s I was directionless.
Over the summer I watched friends of mine killed in fights, DWI’s, was involved in a huge brawl where one of the opposition was killed on main street.
I’m keeping count and wondering where I’m going to end up if I stay.
It got worse as the summer got hotter.
Went back to my recruiter towards the end of August and told him straight up if I stayed in the area six more months I expected I’d end up dead or in prison before it was over.
Told him to sign me up for the toughest physical and mental challenge he could. Since I’d only missed 2 questions on the ASVAB I was in the 99th Percentile and qualified for any MOS they offered.
Off to Infantry Basic/AIT Ranger Training, then back for Airborne, got sent to Europe and immediately turned around and sent back to JSOC and spent my career there.
Why did I join USCCA. As an NRA Instructor, RSO, CRSO I ws part of a good program for beginners but honestly felt it was really lacking for practical self defense training and the progression was expensive and extremely slow.
I signed up as a member of the USCCA for the online training and protections that come with membership and the more I went through reading and watching the videos the more it appealed to me as I felt like the advancement was much faster paced and honestly offered much more of what I consider to be the key element in self defense which is mental training.
I truly believe after years and years of instructing and dissecting both successful and failed self defense shootings that successful and lawful self defense is about 90% mental. Knowing first the law and knowing it well and understanding how it applies in every scenario you can imagine.
If you spend all the time you can examining self defense scenarios the odds of you finding yourself in one in which you are completely suprised and ill prepared to react are very slim.
If you understand the law, truly understand it, not just the statues but how they have been applied in prior shootings your odds of having a failed claim of self defense due to making a mistake are astronomically low.
If you understand exactly what to say when police arrive and when calling it in, your odds of starting off with a bible self defense claim go up astronomically. If you keep running your mouth beyond the basics, they go up again geometrically.
If you understand that the gun is not a license to shoot (neither is your LTD/CWP or whatever it is your state, and that when carrying you carry a much higher level of responsibility than the general public, your mental attitude is likely to keep you out of trouble.
If you understand that with that duty comes the responsibility to modify your behavior, to avoid conflicts whenever possible, to never let your temper get the best of you etc, your odds of ending up in a self defense situation that is indefensible go down dramatically.
All this takes a far higher level of dedication and mental training than most bachelor’s programs in college. Unlike college this training can literally cost you your life or decades in prison when not learned, and can keep you out of prison and out of the graveyard when the lessons are learned so well that your decision making and reactions are all but comletely automatic and correct if/when you find yourself in a potential self defense scenario.
Anyone can learn to pick up, handle safely, load and shoot a firearm accurately enough to pass a qualification and even to ahceive a fair level of competency.
Not everyone will ever develop the proper attitude or develop the proper knowledge base and experience to not only survive such encounters but to walk away from them completely innocent and avoid charges altogether.
Why the USCCA? Over all the programs I’ve been through in the last thirty plus years it does the best and preparing you for both the physical and mental training necessary, but if/when you do find yourself in a deadly force encounter prepares you to walk away the “winner” both on the street/in your home, and at the PD/Courthouse following your use or threat to use deadly force.
Last, the USCCA is not stagnate, they are always trying to improve the courses from top to bottom. To that end they listen to every student, instructor candidate, instructor and TC’s which is why it constantly is updated and improved.
Every student, every class, every instructor/TC is part of making it a better organization from top to bottom and bottom to top.
Sorry for the long windedness but this is something I’m rather passionate about.
(You probably won’t be surrounded by crowds of fans after this tribute, but I know some don’t like sharing too much personal information - and we honor that sentiment.)
