He's Having A Heart Attack, Where's My Tourniquet?

Napping Street Vendor in Amman

When was the last time that a domestic executive protection detail had to provide medical care while under  attack?  I'm open to input, but I can't think of a single instance.  Then why are protectors so hell-bent on spending money and time on learning tactical medicine, i.e. providing medical care while under fire?  The answer is that it's fun and sexy, but the hard truth is that it's useless for domestic details.

I'm not saying that tactical medicine does not have it's place, but that place is on SWAT teams, and in military and other high risk environments, not on U.S.-based executive protection details. Security details and contracting protecters are waisting their time and money pursuing those skills.

What kills?  In other words, if you were pushed into any emergency room which common afflictions are going to get you seen right now by an anxious physician because your life is in immediate danger? They are:

• Myocardial infarction (heart attack)
• Active seizures
• Suspected cerebral vascular attack (stroke)
• Airway compromise:
• Anaphylaxis (allergic reaction)
• Foreign body (choking)
• Pulmonary embolism (not a true airway compromise though)
• Severe asthma attack
• Hypoglycemic coma
• Severe trauma

That's it, everything else can wait.  Take a seat in the waiting room.

How many of these afflictions are discussed in your tactical medicine course?  Trauma of course, but only as it applies to gunshots wounds while under fire, which, as noted, are exceedingly rare.  The rest, which are infinitely more common, are going to kill your client while you stand by with tourniquet and QuikClot in-hand. 

Transitions

IV bottles hang from a tree branch.  Below, an adolescent boy lays dieing on a make-shift cot.  I couldn't bring myself to shoot the the boy.

Coming home from a deployment is often difficult, especially when you wake-up in some desperate third world country and find yourself going to sleep that night in your own bed at home.  The shock of abruptly moving between the two environments is often dramatic and catches many people by surprise. Aside from your dusty luggage you arrive home still emotionally invested in your previous environment.  For me, I find myself being a bit quiet, withdrawn, hyper-sensitive to sights and smells, and with an overwhelming sense of being "off-balance". 

I often counsel people that I work with to spend a night in a place that is in many respects half-way between the two; a place where they can decompress, have a world-class shower, a solid meal, and slowly turn the lights back up.  Only slightly in jest, a good bottle of wine is also a great help.

In The Blink Of An Eye

 

Cameraman captures explosion near Baghdad's Green Zone

A shopping plaza sits just off the highway in southern Atlanta's neighborhood of Camp Creek, an area that is almost all upper-middle income African American families.  It's on my way home from picking up my son from school, so we stop into Barnes & Noble to do his homework and maybe a quick breeze through the pet store to look at the reptiles; he's six.

On the way into the pet store a man crosses the parking lot and heads towards the store entrance as well.  My spider-sense starts to tingle, this guy doesn't belong.  He's white and disheveled looking, two things that make him stand out among the normal cliental.  He's not a laborer on his way home from work, and his gait is way too strong and purposeful. 

In an instant I switch over, my senses heighten, and I'm totally aware of EVERYTHING.  We enter the store and head to the back, moments later the man appears again, brushing past me as I move between him and my son.  As he walks up the isle away from me he does an odd little twitch with his right elbow that is a common tell-tale sign of someone that is carrying a gun that is not used to doing so. Time to go.  I grab my son by the hand, located the man in the store surveillance mirrors, and find the best way out to the car and away.  

In the car I tried to explain to my son why we left so quickly, but it was beyond him.  I took stock in how quickly I switched over, all of a sudden I was in Haiti, Baghdad, Colombia .  It all came on like a flash of light; skills, senses, angles, egress, contingencies, it was game-on in the blink of an eye.

Finding My Feet

I saw this shot and of a girl on the streets of Port-au-Prince and it absolutely floored me

Today was the first time that I've ever come directly home from a deployment to a third-world country, as the normal practice is to spend a day or so someplace decompressing before you introduce yourself back home to your family.  I landed in Miami airport today, directly from Port-au-Prince, and the first thing that I noticed is that it smelled of perfume, a foreign smell to most parts of Haiti these days. 

Even after arriving in Atlanta I had an overwhelming sense of un-balance, a feeling of being overwhelmed and even foreign.  I know that after I get a full-night's sleep that I'll be better in the morning, but in the meantime I'm continuing to try to get my feet firmly underneath me.

Happy Birthday to my 6-year old son today!!!

Aftershocks

 

The cathedral in Port-au-Prince; the destruction is immense.  Worshipers are camped out around the building throughout the day and night, although I'm uncertain what they pray for.

We've been having a lot of aftershocks lately. I'm not a seismologist, so I can't say for certain that's what they are, but they seem to come at night and violently rip you from your sleep.  Night after night they've been getting stronger and stronger making me consider things before I go to sleep at night, like do I have a clear path to the door?  How many steps is it to the exit, and what if anything should I bring with me?  What are the alternate ways to outside and how do I get to them? I've seen too many flattened buildings, to include hotels, not to have these weigh heavily on my mind.

I leave on Thursday morning.

A Little Bit Of Planning Goes A Long Way

 

A man waits in the Haitian sun to be seen General Hospital 

Yesterday was a lot of waiting around, the bane of the security world.  Most of the my productive day was spent at the airport with a client waiting for their Gulfstream G300 to come in from Florida to take them back to Miami.  When it finally landed it was full of nine medical people and about a thousand pounds of supplies.  What people fail to realize is that Port-au-Prince is a barely functioning airport; there are no ground or baggage services. As a result the nine newly arrived medical guys and their pile-o-stuff just sat on the tarmac waiting to get blown away by the next jet that came by.  I had to laugh as it was evident that the group had failed to plan for even this most basic of contingency. I would have helped by my job was to get my client on that aircraft so they could leave... and that I did. When I left the crew was trying to man-handle a luggage cart across the active ramp to load up their 1,000 lbs of bags, boxes, and water as a Canadian C-17 was baring down on them. 

Incongruences

Saturday night in my apartment. Try sleeping through this. I'm working on my patience :)

Bloomington has a very large and active Buddhist community, and I'm sure that my biggest regret once I leave here will be not exploring and participating in that opportunity more. I need to find a way to make time in my remaining schedule; I've heard so many great things.

I became part of a conversation yesterday as a paramedic was describing a mutual acquaintance of ours to me, "He's a Buddhist, but a little extreme at times. If someone kills a spider or a fly he gets upset and will say something". I smiled and acknowledged the fact that I'm also a practicing Buddhist. The paramedic asked me if I thought the fact that killing a bug was 'extreme'. "No, I stated, that's pretty much it".

All of this led into a discussion on how I could have been a Buddhist and a Army Special Forces soldier at the same time. I often get asked this. I really don't have a good answer, and I never did. Certainly I was not the only one, clearly there are Buddhist police officers, doctors, and others that make life and death decisions on a daily basis. Somehow answering that particular question was never very important to me. I'm at peace with my spirituality and my profession. They may seem incongruent to some, but to me they just... are.

Bodyguards Beware

A media team shoots a stand-up in the Baghdad streets

I got involved in a discussion the other day about Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), protocols, and other cookie cutter procedures that would guide people along the correct course of action. My Scottish security partner came out with a saying that I had never heard before, "Rules Are The Idiots' Guide To The Wise". Huh? In other words, SOPs are put in place to help guide someone that doesn't really know what they're doing in the first place. Wow, that's pretty damning, but it's true.

I've seen guys wrap their head around the minutia of SOPs, writing them down, diagramming them out like football plays, making PowerPoint slides, carrying them around in little notebooks. Come on, either you know what your doing or you don't. If you're confident, knowledgeable, experienced, and calm you will probably make the correct decision every time. If you're carrying around the playbook under your arm and constantly diagramming things out on a whiteboard, well, you might be in over your head.

I know this may sound blasphemous to many in the security industry, but to be honest our ranks are filled with guys and gals that would be lost without their playbook, unable to take the appropriate course of action without the SOPs. They're playing out of their depth.

There's nothing wrong with comparing notes with other team members, but it should be nothing more than an azimuth check. If I've got to memorize a bunch of immediate action drills, then I probably don't have any business being involved in any immediate action.

Iraq Security- The Inverse Relationship

A camera and tripod stand ready for work

There is a misconception here in Iraq among both security operators and clients alike that as the security situation improves that less security is needed. In actuality it's the exact opposite. In the past mobility around the country for many clients has been severely limited or curtailed due to the overwhelming threat of kidnapping, IEDs, VBIEDs, etc.. Unless clients were accompanied by the U.S. military or a small armada of gunned-up PSDs they were not inclined to venture too far for too often.

Now the security environment in Iraq is better, the threat has diminished a bit, albeit there are still bad people doing bad things to clients and their friends. Mobility has increased and as a result clients want to get out of the confines of the safe areas and venture forth to explore and do their jobs. The result is that the security elements are now busier than ever, ensuring the safety and well-being of the clients, coordinating movements, planning logistics, training, and providing close protection. In military parlance, the OPTEMPO has increased dramatically taxing the capabilities of many security details. To evidence this, quality armored cars are nearly impossible to lease in Baghdad right now as they have been snatched up by details that are suddenly far more busy than before moving clients here, there, and everywhere. Some companies are adding several security teams to cover new clients that have suddenly emerged from the ashes and want to move around the country. As this inverse relationship continues it's a busy time for the working security details, much more so than most have anticipated.

Red Flags

If you work in security long enough with various clients and other operators you will inevitably hear the two phrases that cause me the greatest grief; "We've done it before", and "That's the way we've always done it". Whenever I hear one or both of those my bullshit meter begins to peg and I know that there is something wrong. Let me be perfectly clear, just because you've "done it before" and no one had gotten killed, maimed, or kidnapped does not make it safe, in fact it's probably just the opposite. Repeatedly doing something that is intrinsically wrong does not make it right. If as a security provider you accept those statements as valid arguments than you are negligent at a minimum or probably worse. As an example, just because you had a few drinks at a party and somehow managed to drive yourself home once or twice, does that make it right? Does that somehow make it safe to do in the future?

Which Language To Speak?

I'm terrible with languages. It took the military over a year to pound Spanish into my head at the Defense Language Institute, and I've been working diligently on Japanese for many years as well. I barely have a grasp of English. Yesterday I was confronted with the question of which is the best language for a international bodyguard/executive protection agent/security consultant to learn. I believe the answer to be, none of them, and all of them. How's that for a zen koan?

I contend that it would be best to learn a smattering of several different languages instead of trying to wrap your head around just one. When you consider it, how much of your native language do you really use on a day-to-day basis? Studies have shown that people rarely use more than 3000 words, and generally could get by with as little as 500 or so. Thus my advice would be to take five or six languages and work on them simultaneously. I realize that this is heresy to some, but for someone that is going to travel extensively I believe that it has great utility. Things to work on would be:

• Key phrases
• Interrogatives (Who, What, Where, When, How)
• 10-15 verbs with a basic understanding of tenses
• Courtesies (Please, Thank you, Excuse me, I'm sorry...)
• 500+ word vocabulary

Having said that, what would be the languages of choice? Although they are highly debatable, my list would be:

• English
• Spanish
• Arabic
• German
• Russian
• Japanese or Chinese

Spanish will get you close to French, Italian and Portuguese. I believe Arabic has more utility than Farsi. Japanese and Chinese are a toss up, but I don't know many guys doing security work for the Chinese, while there is a lot of work for Japanese clients.

Once you have an understanding of 5-6 languages at an extremely basic level then adding additional languages is fairly straight forward, as is augmenting any one of them with greater skills and capabilities.

Pay It Forward- Karma

A rusted chain sits in an open Iraqi railway car

I often receive emails from guys that are looking to begin working as protectors, or others that are curious about Zen, or if they should join Special Forces or not. I make an honest and dedicated effort to answer all of their questions and concerns from my little point of view. I caution them that their mileage may vary, and ask them to one day pass the favor on to someone else.

After I hit the "send" button I find myself crafting emails to others, people that I have great respect for and are at the peak of the mountain that I wish to climb. Most of these lately are accomplished physicians who unselfishly impart their wit, wisdom and experience onto me, guiding my decisions, answering my questions, giving me opinions from their points of view. They also caution me about my mileage and I promise them that I will pass on the favor to others. It's karma. That's how it works.

Shibumi

There's a Japanese aesthetic known as shibumi (the adjective is shibui) that has to do with understated elegance, things that are so perfect and refined that they hide behind commonplace appearances and do not need further voice. To quote the author Trevanian, "... (deep) understanding rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence". "...modesty without prudency... elegant simplicity, articulate brevity." After considering this for a moment I realized that, among other things, it describes the perfect bodyguard. A protector so skilled in the art that he (or she) hides behind the facade of the commonplace, garnering no attention, no second looks, no bravado. He passes by without notice yet all the while effortlessly maintaining his thought and attention toward one single purpose.

Bodyguards; A Public Perception

Serious looking statue in one of the Charlottetown squares on Prince Edward Island.

I often get asked what I do for work, and my reply is simple; I’m a bodyguard. From that point onward the conversation always goes in one of two directions. The first is that “You must be good at martial arts”, and the other is “Can you tell me who you guard?” I always answer the martial arts question with, “No but I can run fast. I always tell my clients that if you see me running something has gone terribly wrong and you should try to keep up”. Both of those questions highlight the public’s perception of the executive protection industry. One, that you hang out with Angelina and Brad, and two, that you’re something just short of Bruce Lee. Both couldn’t be further from the truth, at least for me.

While certainly some protectors have high-profile, very visible clients, the vast majority of bodyguards provide services for people that no one would ever recognize on the street. From a protection point of view, by the way, that’s a good thing.

The whole martial arts thing always makes me laugh, and while I practice Aikido I have a hard time envisioning when I would use it in a protection role. If I’m whipping out my best version of yokomenuchi kotegaeshi, who’s watching the client? It’s always better to cover and evacuate; Bodyguarding 101.

This leads me to another idiosyncrasy of mine; I’m a “bodyguard” because that gets most people closer to the ballpark than say an “executive/close protection specialist/agent”. To each his own I guess, but every time I’ve ever used some cool sounding moniker I’ve always had to refer back to “bodyguard” in my inevitable explanation which then raises the question, why didn’t I go there to begin with? I guess I’m simple like that.

Honor and Commitment In The Security Industry

Showing the neighborhood kids the magic of digital cameras

I don’t write much on the security industry as a whole, but I had a discussion with a fellow contractor the other day and thought that I would put a few words down for those that were not aware of how things worked.

My beef with many operators working in the industry is their propensity to “jump contracts”, in other words coming over to Iraq or Afghanistan on one contract and immediately start looking around for something better. Once they find a job that might be marginally better in terms of pay, living conditions, or mission, they immediate leave the original position and move to the later. Once there, the process starts all over again. At what point to they give their full measure to the task at hand? For lack of a better term, it’s very mercenary in nature, and it doesn’t bode well for the contractor’s sense of loyalty and commitment. If the individual operator cannot be loyal to his or her commitments what makes anyone believe that they will display any loyalty to their fellow teammates or the client?

To be fair, contracting security companies are often guilty of something similar, knows as “resume gathering”, sort of a form of bait and switch. In order for a security company to bid on a contract it will have to show that it can produce the required number of qualified personnel. As a result, companies make false representations to high-end contractors in order to secure their resumes. Once the contract is in-hand the company hires lower-skilled contractors instead in order to save money or increase its profit margin. Again, if a company shows no loyalty and respect to perspective operators why would anyone think that it will honor its commitments to the client?

Security contracting is a very competitive business. Margins have shrunk considerably over the past years and therefore some of the practices have become less than desirable. You live and die in this industry based on your reputation. If you treat your employer, the client, or your teammates with something other than complete up-right honesty and respect you will not be long in the security world.

Maai

Old broom leans against a tree along a dusty Baghdad neighborhood street.

There’s a concept in Japanese martial arts called, “Maai”, and it has to do with the distance between yourself and your opponent, in other words, how far away can I be where I can attack him, but he can’t attack me? It’s much more complicated than simply distance; it takes into account the size of participants, length of weapons, the terrain, and even the mental state of the opponents. Complicated stuff, but then again it’s Japanese.

Standing in the Green Zone Post Exchange (PX) today I saw a young PSD that could use a little attention to maai. Keep in mind that the PX is considered to be very secure as it’s located behind several layers of security, safe to the point where I would have no problem letting my 4-year old son run around. The three-man PSD was looking after two junior diplomats from one of the western embassies as they attempted to do their shopping. All “kitted out” with radios, ballistic vests, ear pieces, knives, pistols, sun glasses, 5.11 pants and matching polo shirts the team remained within feet of it’s client as they walked up and down the isles.

This is the one huge mistake that young protectors always make. I know, because I used to do it myself, and it’s so obvious to those that have experience working close protection. Give your client some space!! You’re in the PX, there is no threat, give them some distance and privacy to do what they need to do, know your maai.

I’ve never had a client tell me to get closer to him or her, but I’ve heard hundreds of clients complain that their detail is “all over them”. It's the #1 client criticism. If you’re working close protection you have to be realistic about the threat and balance that with your client’s needs. Pay attention to maai, how close do you really need to be given the realistic threat to your client?

PSDs Behaving Badly

My disdain for many of the Western Personal Security Detachments (PSDs) is well-documented in this blog. While I understand their job is difficult and infinitely dangerous I believe that their ranks, the guys behind the automatic weapons, are swollen with Walter Middy types, e.g., way under-qualified, under-trained, scared to death, pretending to be someone that they're not, and praying that they don't get killed in the process.

As I stated above, PSD work is dangerous, but in all honesty they bring most of that danger on themselves by the way they drive and comport themselves. The above now-infamous video is from one PSD company, and will give a viewer a good sense as to what I'm talking about. The footage is shot from the rear vehicles of the convoys, who's job it is to protect the leading vehicles from a rearward attack or at least to provide early warning.

In almost every example it's obvious that the roads are crowded as is the norm on most Iraqi highways. The approaching vehicles are hundreds of meters away from the rear of the convoy and pose no overt threat but are engaged nonetheless by the rear gunner. While I can't say for certain, I'm fairly sure that people died or were severely injured as a result of these actions. The people responsible for this should be in an Iraqi jail right now. There's absolutely no excuse for this; it's murder plain and simple.

My Day At The Foreign Ministry

Another shot from the Baghdad ballet school.

I spent the day at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry (U.S. Department of State equivalent) attending a joint press conference with the French Foreign Minister. I’ll start this off by stating that the Iraqi Foreign Ministry is probably the least secure government building I’ve ever been into. It’s harder getting into any U.S. Post Office than it was the Foreign Ministry. I was completely shocked and awed by the fact that I was standing only feet from both ministers, with a concealed weapon, and no one ever bothered to check to see who I was or what I was doing.

Having said that, the building was also full of personal security details, all trying to out-cool each other. Standing on the sidelines it was humorous watching these very serious guys strutting through the dark interior with their sunglasses on, and every manner of gadget strapped to their bodies. It was an earpiece, Oakley, and tactical vest fest to say the least. Again, no one even bothered to ask about me, they were too concerned about looking cool and couldn’t be bothered.

The Terminator

Today I did a “disruptive employee termination”, not the funniest job I’ve ever done. I get called to watch over a company’s management team as it “terminates” an employee that may have the propensity for violence or aggression. These jobs are not very challenging, and rarely develop into anything dramatic.

I laughed a little today because this particular employee was a very small woman that looked like someone’s great aunt. I think having an armed, 6’ 6”, 215 lbs protective agent there was a little over-kill, but hey, who am I to say?

Doing What It Takes

Cameraman working hard to get "the shot", I think :)

I had a conversation with a friend of mine who is still working as a contractor on a PSD. He was recently involved in a major contact that killed one of his team and wounded several others. As the medic on the scene, he worked on the causalities for 90 minutes until a MEDEVAC finally arrived. In the end, he wondered what more he could have done. During the course of the discussion my friend lamented to me that many in this industry are under-trained, over-egoed, and far more concerned about looking like a miniaturized action figure than actually doing what it takes to become one.

The only thing that separates the real cool guys from the Wal-Mart ninjas of this world is.... training. There is nothing special about the SPECAT, "been-there-done-that", real-deal other than the fact that he's trained his ass off and continues to do so. It's like a professional athlete; those are the guys in the gym or on the field, all by themselves after the crowds have gone home and the lights have been extinguished, working over and over on basic skills. Do you think Tiger Woods got to where he is by putting on a Nike cap and and picking up the latest in carbon-fiber, high-tech clubs? Hell, Tiger could wipe the course with most people with just a Wal-Mart putter and a Putt-Putt golf ball. He's not on-line shopping for the latest cool sunglasses, or hanging out in the club house telling "there I was" stories, he's off by himself on the driving range hitting balls by the tens of thousands... boring stuff, but that's what it takes.

I'm sorry if I sound too critical of security contractors, but the fact is that the vast majority of them working around the world are criminally under-trained, if at all. They spend their efforts trying to look and speak the part, and hoping like hell that nothing happens to them. Clients, for the most part can't tell the difference. In the end, it's the clients that pay the price for ignorance, putting their faith and safety in the hands of some kid that looks like a Blackhawk poster boy, but has no idea of the vehicle dynamics of the multi-ton SUV that he's driving.