The Bracken Anthology (7 page)

* * 5 * *

Which brings me at last to Sakharov's Immunity. Andrei Sakharov was a Soviet physicist and a primary inventor of the H-bomb. When he went off the Communist reservation in 1967 and became a dissident, the regime made his life miserable but they did not kill him, which was certainly in their power to do. His death under such circumstances would have proved the very points he was making about the illegitimate Soviet regime. They moved him far into Siberia to keep him isolated from intrepid foreign visitors, but they did not sprinkle radioactive Polonium dust on his salad. The introduction of that deadly form of Russian salad dressing was left for a later strongman, Vladimir Putin, formerly of the KGB.

And there are many other means of assassination. The Soviet KGB could not assassinate Sakharov's reputation; it was above reproach. But in the modern era, with the elite liberal media serving as the Obama regime's willing propaganda organ (birth control, anyone?) this is easier to arrange than ever. Popular media icons can be and have been driven off the airwaves by the full-court press of the Media Matters smear machine, in coordination with Valerie Jarrett at the White House War Room. And does anyone believe that the vicious smear campaign against black conservative Republican candidate Herman Caine was not orchestrated in the War Room of Gangster Government, Inc?

Or the regime can commit an "Economic Waco," the way it has recently done to the Rick and Terri Reese family of Deming, NM. Read about this case, and ponder this federal engine of total destruction being turned against your family. At the same time the secret federal "law enforcement program" [sic] of walking thousands of guns directly to Mexican cartel killers was official ATF policy, and nobody has even been charged with a crime.

Obviously, taking a defiant public stand against Gangster Government Inc. and its complicit elite media minions comes with some risk. They can drop a large building on you if they want to, just as they did to the Reese family in New Mexico, and grind you under their boot heels.

So why do I stand and point my accusing finger at Leviathan? Perhaps those dissidents with a sufficiently high profile will earn some measure of Sakharov's Immunity, at least for a while. Certainly keeping a low profile is no guarantee of protection from being railroaded and destroyed, as the gut-wrenching case of Rick and Terri Reese clearly demonstrates. Needless to say, the elite liberal media has no interest in covering their physical and economic crucifixion by the federal government. Please read about their case; it will make you sick to your stomach that this kind of official abuse can happen in the United States of America.

So if maintaining a low profile does not promise safety from the organs of state destruction, perhaps keeping a high profile will. I am pinning a lot on this Sakharov's Immunity idea. But if it is my fate to serve as one of the canaries in the coalmine of freedom, so be it. I am in good company, standing with many genuine heroes. You already know many of them, but it is not for me to name them here.

[March 2 addendum: One of them, Andrew Breitbart, died yesterday of "natural causes," at the unnaturally young age of 43, while alone on a walk near his home.]

* * 6 * *

And a final note to federal law enforcement officials and special agents: More than any other group of Americans, I wish that you would please read my 2003 novel Enemies Foreign And Domestic. (If you know a federal law enforcement agent, please forward this essay to him or her.)

I know that most of you depend greatly on your federal paycheck, and look forward to receiving your federal pension. Millions of us are in a similar boat. We all have bills to pay and kids to feed. However, while you ponder your need for your federal paycheck, please remember that the FBI, the flagship of federal law enforcement agencies, also stands for Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity.

If you are being asked or encouraged to perform dishonorable or unconstitutional acts, remember, it often takes a lot of bravery to remain faithful to your core value of personal integrity. Remember always that you swore a solemn oath to defend not a Fuhrer, or a Fatherland, or even a desired ideological outcome, but the Constitution of the United States.

This means that if you are instructed by a supervisor like the fictional Wally Malvone to engage in dirty tricks and black ops (like those that actually took place under Operation Fast And Furious, AKA Murdergate), you are both duty and honor bound to blow the whistle, like the brave ATF Special Agents who remained faithful to their oaths and preserved their integrity. There can be no more of protecting killers because they are federal law enforcement agency "informants," like the members of the Whitey Bulger Irish mob in Boston, or the FBI "informant" who was the likely assassin of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona.

As a faithful agent who believes in your oath, it is your duty to root out and extirpate the rot and filth of political corruption, which is far more dangerous to our Republic than the corruption of mere personal greed. You must remain vigilant to the danger that your agency will become fully politicized, transforming over time into an American KGB or Stasi. Please reread the oath you swore before accepting your gold shield, especially the part about domestic enemies. If you willingly become a Stasi or a KGB man, if a job is a job and you just follow orders, then that domestic enemy is you, and trust me on this, many of us are watching these developments very carefully and with great trepidation.

You see, countless tens of millions of us also took our own versions of that same oath when we joined the military or law enforcement, and our oaths did not come with an expiration date.

Matthew Bracken

February 29, 2012

#9

August 2012

Night Fighting 101

THE BASICS

Would you like an all-expense-paid week of training at a tier-one tactical shooting academy, taught by a Nationally Famous Big Shot? Would you like to ramp up your “operatorship” a few proficiency levels, but you can’t afford the time or the expense of top-flight training?

Well, I can’t offer you such a free ticket, but I can tell you how to improve your operator skills just as significantly, and it won’t cost you any money or even much of your time. You, yes you, can become a deadly night fighter in your spare time. If you are already a hunter who frequently stalks into position long before dawn, much of this will not be news, but for most folks, undertaking this self-training can make you a much more competent post-SHTF survivor.

How can it be so simple to become an effective night fighter, that it can be taught in a mere essay?

Allow me to explain. In all forms of combat, the warrior who perceives the other first has an enormous advantage. If he is clever, he is able to stay inside his unsuspecting adversary’s OODA loop, before either slipping away undetected or applying the coup, as circumstances dictate. On the other hand, the combatant who sees his enemy second, often gets no second chance. It is better to ambush, than to be ambushed. A lot better! (If you are unfamiliar with Colonel Boyd’s OODA Loop, you should look it up and become familiar with its concepts.)

So how do you become a self-taught deadly warrior of the night? You begin in the daytime. Lay out a walking path through your neighborhood “Area of Operations,” a path with plenty of transitions across all types of urban, suburban and rural terrain. Culverts, gullies, overgrown chain link fences, woods, meadows, railroad tracks, bridges, power line right-of-ways, abandoned commercial properties and fallow fields will be your classroom.

To begin, mark your route every twenty or thirty yards. Small torn rags stuck on fences and tree branches look fairly natural, and won’t be noticed. Walk and crawl through thickets, under fences, over walls, through the doors and windows of closed factories or falling-down barns. Travel your path in daylight both ways, several times. If it’s summer where you are located, dress for bugs, thorns and mud, but stay inconspicuous.

Then come back after dark on a moonlit night. Your mind and memory will already know the route very well, but the darkness will swallow up much that was plainly visible by day, while revealing new folds and textures of light and shadow. Your rag markers will help you to stay on course. You can also blaze a temporary trail with a small bag of baking flour, leaving a white pile at intervals.

Try the path again on an overcast and moonless night. Where you must, use the minimal amount of flashlight necessary. A single-bulb LED powered by a single AA or AAA battery can be filtered and shielded to provide just enough light to avoid tripping. A humble mini-compass with a glowing North arrow can keep you on course. Try difficult terrain with and without the penlight, to understand how night movement in pitch-blackness is still possible, and also to understand its inherent limitations.

Next, try a new route for the first time at night, under the moon. Then return during the day to examine the new path you had first explored in semi-darkness. Did you leave a trail of footprints that a blind man could follow? Finally, explore new routes on overcast moonless nights. The idea is to reach a merger point in your mental processing of various types of terrain as perceived in daylight and in varying degrees of darkness. When you achieve this breakthrough, you will be far above the mass of humanity when it comes to night fighting.

Where it’s appropriate and inconspicuous, bring your tactical white fighting lights, and visible laser aiming devices. If you own any night vision gear or an IR laser, bring them too. Use every tool at your disposal, and learn their best uses and worst limitations. Does your red or green laser light up a quarter-mile of tree branches and other foliage, pointing in a direct line to your position? Does your 200-lumen tactical light serve as a beacon for miles around, while also killing your night vision? (Hint: one-eye-open.) Properly used, tactical lights and lasers can end a fight quickly and successfully, but they must be understood as two-edged swords.

NEXT, BRING YOUR FRIENDS

Now that you are becoming an expert at stealthy night movement, initiate some friends and relatives to join your nocturnal habits, and teach them what you have discovered. Their learning curves will be more rapid, because they will benefit from your prior experience on your established land-navigation routes. Teens often take to this like ducks to water. Practice using hand signals, and the least and quietest mouth-to-ear whispering possible to communicate. When you have brought a few buddies up to a certain standard, the highest level of learning can begin. Force-on-force tactical training! “Top Gun,” down on the ground, in the darkness. Man, this is so “tier-one training,” that you should send me loads of money just for giving you this idea. (Or, just buy my novels.)

Since all of your night movement is made in ultra-stealth mode, as silently and invisibly as an Indian (and I mean that in a very admiring way), you will be able to conduct training even in urban and suburban areas. While the placid sheeple in your AO are sleeping, you and your pals shall be creeping, sometimes even right between their houses, (but more on that later).

Okay, on to force-on-force training at night. You will need a few acres or more of mixed terrain where your occasional lights and lasers won’t cause distress. Abandoned commercial property often works well. Or your local woods and fields, or whatever available terrain that you have nearby that combines open areas and areas with limited sight lines such as buildings or woods. Designated roads, fences or streams can signify out-of-bounds.

If you need to keep both hands occupied to “keep it real,” then tape your light or laser to a walking stick, but leave your “M-Forgery” at home. Since you might be sneaking around on land that you don’t own, you might just end the night talking to someone in authority. A light or even a laser you can explain to a corporate security guard or even to Officer Friendly, but a few “deadly high-powered assault rifles,” no way! Plus, going gun free while night training avoids the sticky area of certifying every firearm as perfectly, virginally, ammo-free. No guns, no negligent discharges by gung-ho but careless buddies. But hey, it’s your life, so you decide. Nobody knows your AO and your friends better than you do.

NIGHTTIME FORCE-ON-FORCE TRAINING

There are many force-on-force scenarios you can cook up or adapt depending on your AO and the number of participants, but this is a simple one to start you off. Two players begin on a time signal at opposite corners of the several-acre site. The boundaries are clearly known to both. Both are given identical marching orders.

“This is your land. Violent prisoners have escaped from a local penitentiary after killing the guards. It’s post-SHTF, so no police are available to search for them, but one dangerous killer has set off an intrusion alarm, and is believed to be roaming on this very property. You have fifteen minutes to find him and light him up, or he will leave this area and invade the home of one of your relatives nearby, and do terrible things there. So if you don’t find him in fifteen minutes, it counts as a loss for you.” (Depending on the terrain, you might want to make this a half-hour period.)

The reasons for the time limit and the rapid rules of engagement (ROE) are to ensure that one or both parties don’t simply go to ground, finding optimal ambush locations, while waiting all night for the other to stumble by. This results in a snooze-fest and no contact. Both players must be put on the trail of the other to ensure that fairly rapid contact is made.