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Was going to title this one "Working at night" so as to not so sound tacticool but I figured some might not view it thinking I meant that four letter word- work.
So this last weekend I attended Max Velocity Tactical Combat Patrol class. It was a great class and I'm going to post an AAR here and all over the net about it soon.
What prompted this thread was the rememberance of many a night spent in the woods in the long long ago. These nights were usually spent amongst groups of others, although often times alone as well. This was in the days before night vision devices were very common. Even then, as a 16-21 year old, buying one wasn't exactly an option.
Unfortunately too often now a days people seek their "solutions" in GEAR instead of in training. Yet the most awesome PVS14 will only do so much for you at O'Dark Thirty in the depths of the West Virginia jungle :) IF your mind is out of touch with the situation.
What does that mean? It means if your mind/psyche isn't CALM, you really won't operate effectively.
You'll be the guy that even if he has the ability to "see" at night better via NVG's, is too freaked out to get their full potential out of them. Or the guy that can't get to sleep in the woods and loses that critical rest and is worth little more than a zombie the next day due to lack of sleep. "For want of a nail the horse was lost....." type of thing. It DOES cascade like that.
We walk around normally relaying on our eye sight for a large majority of our sensory input. And we CAN still use our eyes at night if we know how. However we have to learn to kinda "mix" our sensory inputs at night and relay on some of our other senses and feelings as well. I mean more than just using your ears correctly. Often times it's that proverbial "six sense" wherein you can't describe it but you "feel" someone walking up towards you, that sort of thing.
First and foremost at night we have to slow down. Slow down our actions first and foremost but also slow down our minds. It's very easy for a mild sense of panic to set in at night (limited sensory input) in the middle of the woods (unfamiliar place, weird sights and sounds) if your not careful.
In the long long ago, pretty much every new person we brought out to the field experienced this at least once early on. We countered that by making sure no two new people were partnered together- a new person was always partnered with a seasoned person. We had a lot of teenagers and early 20's guys out then, so we would partner a younger guy with an older one if possible. This sense of "I'm not alone" or "well at least this guy knows what he's doing" helped many a panic situation.
More than anything we need to show confidence. Not a BS false confidence that people can see through, but a real confidence built from experience in the field. Don't afraid to use humor- "alright guys, we aren't technically lost, we just don't know where the hell we are!" type stuff. Be truthful about the situation- people can smell through the BS. But above all be confident.
Sometimes just knowing others are there, "have your back" etc. is enough to calm emotions. Their is a certain social pride amongst groups of men that help this sort of thing. Just like pairing the younger folks with older ones that are confident. Keep in mind the last part of that- "that are confident." An older, seemingly experienced person can go "full retard" in the woods at night as easy as a teenager. Case in point-
A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away- five of us were tasked to do an individual land navigation about 2 miles in duration. The entire group had patrolled out to an area most of us were unfamiliar with. Then individuals doing the land navigation were tasked to set out at different times from different locations in the same general area. The idea being so that it truly was an individual course.
So my luck prevailed (all bad LOL) and I was tasked as the last one to leave on the course. Sitting around freezing till around midnight and then starting out. Full dark, no moon, no white light allowed and of course no NV equipment.
A couple hundred yards from the starting point I neared a road intersection. I needed to map check anyways so I first took a knee and watched the area. The chances of getting jumped by a friendly were always high when we did these sorts of things also- to add to the realism. So just before I began to move I start hearing what sounds like an elephant crashing through the brush to my right. I sat tight and listened and watched for a while. Another guy's silhouette finally comes into view and from the looks of it he's been moving frantically. He comes to the center of the road (duh) and stands there. He's breathing heavy and looking around a lot. I finally realize who it is by his height and build.
"Barney, it's Rob" pause.
Head is spinning wildly, thankfully his rifle isn't moving.
"Rob? Where you at?"
"I'll come to you."
So I link up with Barney. He's got a very mild case of shock going on. He calms down just being around another person. Then he tells me that he "overshot the hide by a couple hundred yards."
He's completely incorrect, thinks he's PAST where he needs to go, yet I just left not that long ago and have only traveled a couple hundred yards. I tell him this.
"No, I've been moving since about 10, I was the first to head out." He argues with me about our whereabouts.
I show him on the map- "we are just about here." He continues to tell me no that we are past the objective, etc. etc.
I notice there is a road that intersects the road we are near, show him these things and again where we are on the map. He's adamant- "there are a dozen intersections like that" he tells me.
"Alright, let's walk over to that intersection and see what we can see" says I. As it turns out, their is a curve one way in one direction and a curve another way in the other direction. There is NOTHING else on the map that matches up with that. He replies "Damn. I thought I was over here" pointing to a feature way way further than we were.
It's very easy to get turned around, to get frustrated at night. The guy in the example above was no new person, neither was this his first time out alone at night.
Slow the mind, slow the body and think. Think sane rationale thoughts. Correlate information- just like I correlated the fact that I hadn't been moving that long, the road intersection and then the road intersection and the curves. Get input from others in the crew if they are calm also.
It's important to understand that their is some natural "fear" involved working at night also. I know that doesn't sound high speed low drag tacticool and manly, but it's there and for many it's a real thing. Fear of the unknown, fear of not being able to "see", fear of getting lost, fear of being by yourself, etc. Just try to calm down and breathe- I heard it helps ;)
Years later I was beginning to train my nephews. They were pre-teens at the time. First night I had them out I could feel that they were getting freaked out. I told them -
"You guys play in these woods during the day all the time and aren't afraid of anything. There is nothing out here at night that isn't out here during the day...... Except that axe murderer that likes to cut up little kids." I was a good uncle like that :)
But that brings up an important point- there really isn't much out there at night that isn't out there during the day. A big part of confidence in night work is getting confident during the day. This means developing your day senses in the woods. This means getting familiar enough with your gear that you don't have to search for things extensively.
A lot of us talk about doing dry work at home between live fire classes or training sessions. A good portion of this work should be in the backyard in the dark with little or no light. Can you change mags with no visual input from various firing positions? Transition from rifle to pistol? Do shoulder transfers? Once these are drilled- and drilled correctly- enough you will develop a "feel" for them, which will help dramatically at night.
Finally, remember to breathe. It's very common for a mild sense of panic to come on when your lost, fatigued, etc. in the field at night. Just take 4 or 5 good deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. Calm your mind, get your bearings and move forward.
So this last weekend I attended Max Velocity Tactical Combat Patrol class. It was a great class and I'm going to post an AAR here and all over the net about it soon.
What prompted this thread was the rememberance of many a night spent in the woods in the long long ago. These nights were usually spent amongst groups of others, although often times alone as well. This was in the days before night vision devices were very common. Even then, as a 16-21 year old, buying one wasn't exactly an option.
Unfortunately too often now a days people seek their "solutions" in GEAR instead of in training. Yet the most awesome PVS14 will only do so much for you at O'Dark Thirty in the depths of the West Virginia jungle :) IF your mind is out of touch with the situation.
What does that mean? It means if your mind/psyche isn't CALM, you really won't operate effectively.
You'll be the guy that even if he has the ability to "see" at night better via NVG's, is too freaked out to get their full potential out of them. Or the guy that can't get to sleep in the woods and loses that critical rest and is worth little more than a zombie the next day due to lack of sleep. "For want of a nail the horse was lost....." type of thing. It DOES cascade like that.
We walk around normally relaying on our eye sight for a large majority of our sensory input. And we CAN still use our eyes at night if we know how. However we have to learn to kinda "mix" our sensory inputs at night and relay on some of our other senses and feelings as well. I mean more than just using your ears correctly. Often times it's that proverbial "six sense" wherein you can't describe it but you "feel" someone walking up towards you, that sort of thing.
First and foremost at night we have to slow down. Slow down our actions first and foremost but also slow down our minds. It's very easy for a mild sense of panic to set in at night (limited sensory input) in the middle of the woods (unfamiliar place, weird sights and sounds) if your not careful.
In the long long ago, pretty much every new person we brought out to the field experienced this at least once early on. We countered that by making sure no two new people were partnered together- a new person was always partnered with a seasoned person. We had a lot of teenagers and early 20's guys out then, so we would partner a younger guy with an older one if possible. This sense of "I'm not alone" or "well at least this guy knows what he's doing" helped many a panic situation.
More than anything we need to show confidence. Not a BS false confidence that people can see through, but a real confidence built from experience in the field. Don't afraid to use humor- "alright guys, we aren't technically lost, we just don't know where the hell we are!" type stuff. Be truthful about the situation- people can smell through the BS. But above all be confident.
Sometimes just knowing others are there, "have your back" etc. is enough to calm emotions. Their is a certain social pride amongst groups of men that help this sort of thing. Just like pairing the younger folks with older ones that are confident. Keep in mind the last part of that- "that are confident." An older, seemingly experienced person can go "full retard" in the woods at night as easy as a teenager. Case in point-
A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away- five of us were tasked to do an individual land navigation about 2 miles in duration. The entire group had patrolled out to an area most of us were unfamiliar with. Then individuals doing the land navigation were tasked to set out at different times from different locations in the same general area. The idea being so that it truly was an individual course.
So my luck prevailed (all bad LOL) and I was tasked as the last one to leave on the course. Sitting around freezing till around midnight and then starting out. Full dark, no moon, no white light allowed and of course no NV equipment.
A couple hundred yards from the starting point I neared a road intersection. I needed to map check anyways so I first took a knee and watched the area. The chances of getting jumped by a friendly were always high when we did these sorts of things also- to add to the realism. So just before I began to move I start hearing what sounds like an elephant crashing through the brush to my right. I sat tight and listened and watched for a while. Another guy's silhouette finally comes into view and from the looks of it he's been moving frantically. He comes to the center of the road (duh) and stands there. He's breathing heavy and looking around a lot. I finally realize who it is by his height and build.
"Barney, it's Rob" pause.
Head is spinning wildly, thankfully his rifle isn't moving.
"Rob? Where you at?"
"I'll come to you."
So I link up with Barney. He's got a very mild case of shock going on. He calms down just being around another person. Then he tells me that he "overshot the hide by a couple hundred yards."
He's completely incorrect, thinks he's PAST where he needs to go, yet I just left not that long ago and have only traveled a couple hundred yards. I tell him this.
"No, I've been moving since about 10, I was the first to head out." He argues with me about our whereabouts.
I show him on the map- "we are just about here." He continues to tell me no that we are past the objective, etc. etc.
I notice there is a road that intersects the road we are near, show him these things and again where we are on the map. He's adamant- "there are a dozen intersections like that" he tells me.
"Alright, let's walk over to that intersection and see what we can see" says I. As it turns out, their is a curve one way in one direction and a curve another way in the other direction. There is NOTHING else on the map that matches up with that. He replies "Damn. I thought I was over here" pointing to a feature way way further than we were.
It's very easy to get turned around, to get frustrated at night. The guy in the example above was no new person, neither was this his first time out alone at night.
Slow the mind, slow the body and think. Think sane rationale thoughts. Correlate information- just like I correlated the fact that I hadn't been moving that long, the road intersection and then the road intersection and the curves. Get input from others in the crew if they are calm also.
It's important to understand that their is some natural "fear" involved working at night also. I know that doesn't sound high speed low drag tacticool and manly, but it's there and for many it's a real thing. Fear of the unknown, fear of not being able to "see", fear of getting lost, fear of being by yourself, etc. Just try to calm down and breathe- I heard it helps ;)
Years later I was beginning to train my nephews. They were pre-teens at the time. First night I had them out I could feel that they were getting freaked out. I told them -
"You guys play in these woods during the day all the time and aren't afraid of anything. There is nothing out here at night that isn't out here during the day...... Except that axe murderer that likes to cut up little kids." I was a good uncle like that :)
But that brings up an important point- there really isn't much out there at night that isn't out there during the day. A big part of confidence in night work is getting confident during the day. This means developing your day senses in the woods. This means getting familiar enough with your gear that you don't have to search for things extensively.
A lot of us talk about doing dry work at home between live fire classes or training sessions. A good portion of this work should be in the backyard in the dark with little or no light. Can you change mags with no visual input from various firing positions? Transition from rifle to pistol? Do shoulder transfers? Once these are drilled- and drilled correctly- enough you will develop a "feel" for them, which will help dramatically at night.
Finally, remember to breathe. It's very common for a mild sense of panic to come on when your lost, fatigued, etc. in the field at night. Just take 4 or 5 good deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. Calm your mind, get your bearings and move forward.
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