Bullets From BananaLand

This piddly epistle is a followup to “The Greyhound Rules,” posted earlier. If you missed it or it has slipped from your Teflon-coated mind, it’s posted HERE.

Re-read that piece and you’ll note both sides screwed up before the first shot was fired. The Good Guys, lulled by a bright warm morning and pleasant company, were mentally in “training mode,” not possible-threat mode. I’m convinced the Bad Guys had reconned the site, and didn’t expect any interference until they approached the building complex where the small “organic security” detail hung out. As a result, neither side anticipated what they ran into where and when they stumbled into it. Upon confrontation there was a mental stutter-step or two. Fortunately, “Mutual Stupid” affected both sides for a couple of seconds.

Bullet #1: If you live with a gun, be ready to engage anytime, anywhere. If that training had occurred in the US, I know we would have been wandering out to the bushes for that potty-call with empty sidearms. The thought gives me chills.

Lots of poor choices were made about position and “cover.” Some Bad Guys fled into vehicles, where they were trapped. The BG’s really blew the whole concept of “cover,” with deadly results: glass and thin sheet metal won’t stop rounds. Good Guys who should have known better stood up to fire over chest-high flatbed trailers, leaving their lower bodies exposed. Both sides occasionally left feet, hands, knees and elbows stickin’ out from cover, and a few paid dearly for that.

Bullets #2, 3, and 4: Ordinarily, distance is your friend, but the urge to put distance between yourself and muzzle blast can override your good sense. “Know cover,” or it’s no cover. Most walls ain’t cover a’tall. If you have any doubt that what you’re hunkering behind will stop slugs, it prob’ly won’t. Be as aware as any human experiencing “Pucker Factor 9.7” can be of exposing stray parts of your body. One of my standing rules is, “If all you see is a piece of your target, shoot the piece! Shoot it to pieces. Then shoot the pieces to pieces.” Your opponent might have the same policy. Don’t show him your elbow — or even an earlobe. He might be good.

Combat Cool & The Samurai Class

The most striking thing about the Bus Farm Fight was the “combat cool” exhibited by the Hard Hombres. I had seen veteran fighters engaged all over the world, and few had the uniform cool of this thrown-together group. Wounds were expected; death was casually considered. Should they be maimed or crippled, they would be respectfully cared for — even lauded — by extended families and their villages or towns. They knew and embraced how they would live and quite possibly die.

An absolute of their lives was that they would fight well and never yield — never. More than anything else, it was this cool and this refusal to yield that won the Bus Farm Fight.

If not born to it, they had become a Samurai class. I learned something about it, and that’s a tale for another time. But let’s close with this: the Hard Hombres’ combat cool had less to do with how much actual fighting experience they had, and more with how much time they had been tumbling “fighting” around between their ears.

Connor OUT