It’s a normal sunny day. You and your spouse decide to go
shopping. You pull into the parking lot
at the local “Wally World” and experience the normal amount of bad driving and
rude motorists that occurs in a shopping center parking lot. The store is bustling today with all the
shoppers picking up school supplies for the fast approaching school year. You go in, grab a shopping cart, and wander
around the store. You’re trying to
remember what it is that you needed to get from the gardening section before
they close out all the gardening supplies for the year. Nothing unusual really seems to be going on
today. It is just a lazy day of browsing
and trying to figure out what to pick up to make for dinner.
Then, all of a sudden:
“What’s
that noise?” “Is someone
lighting off fire crackers in the store?” You hear screams. You see people running in every
direction. Then it dawns on you – there
is an active shooter in the store. It could
be someone robbing the place, or perhaps just some poor misunderstood lunatic who
came in to cause some random chaos. You
just see the confusion in their eyes, overwhelming the people around you. “Where do I go?
What do I do?”
Same “Wally World,” but this time it’s a bit overcast
outside. The clouds are building, and
the wind is picking up. You heard there
might be rain in the forecast, but that is really nothing out of the ordinary
for a late summer day. You are in the
store when all of a sudden the lights go out and you hear severe shaking and
loud snapping coming from the rafters above.
People are running looking for cover from the falling light fixtures and
ceiling pieces that are raining down.
The tornado sirens are going off.
Once again, confusion sets in. “Where do I
go? What do I do?”
In this day and age, even going to the store is a risky
undertaking. Albeit that the risks are usually
small, there is still a certain amount of anticipation that goes into our
everyday lives. Whether we know it or
not, risk analysis is something that even everyday citizens do naturally in
order to make decisions about where to go, what to do, and when to do it. If I don’t go to the store right now, my risk
is that I won’t have anything for dinner.
But if I do go to the store right now, the place might get robbed while
I am there. If I don’t go to work
promptly at 6:30am on Monday, the risk is that I’ll get fired from my job. But if I do go to work on time, one risk is
that a disgruntled employee will go ballistic and tear the place up. If I walk down that dark alley to get to my
car more quickly, the risk is that I’ll be robbed and hurt.
Shopping centers, schools, and places of worship are all prime
targets for acts of intentional violence.
Natural disasters can happen anywhere and at any time. But what separates total chaos and disaster
from survival is your ability as a sheepdog to know what to do in those
situations to get people to safety and minimize casualties. This is where proactive risk analysis and
purposeful awareness really play a part in your ability to survive and get
others to safety. I’d like to take you
through a journey in this article to show you a technique known as “war-gaming,”
which is really just a partnership between proactive risk analysis and
purposeful awareness. War-gaming has
been used in many different situations to play through some potential crisis
scenarios, and to help responders figure out what to do in response, and help
predict possible outcomes. As a
sheepdog, you too can take advantage of war-gaming as a method to add to your
preparedness toolkit and be the difference between chaos and comfort.
Proactive Risk
Analysis and Purposeful Awareness:
Part of having a normal risk analysis mindset is asking the
“what-if” questions. And it’s this risk
analysis mindset and asking the “what-if” questions that can be a huge asset in
surviving an unexpected crisis situation. Proactive risk analysis, then, simply means
that you are asking these “what-if” questions well in advance of a possible
event, and beginning to formulate in your mind some possible reactions to those
events. Proactive risk analysis also
means that not only are you thinking about the most likely risks, but that you
are thinking of a few “off the wall” risks as well.
Awareness is also an important aspect of being able to
anticipate and quickly react to an emergency situation when it happens. You have to be aware of your surroundings and
what is going on around you at all times, and be able to focus that knowledge
in order to take the proper action. This
is something I like to refer to as having a “purposeful sense of
awareness.” Having a purposeful sense of
awareness does not mean that you are living in the land of paranoia, nor does
it mean that you have to make the act of shopping into a well-planned combat
mission. So while having an elevated
sense of awareness just means that you have to keep your mind out of your
SmartPhone while you are walking around, purposeful awareness means that you
know what is going on around you AND you are using this awareness to
recall what you mapped out during your proactive risk analysis processes.
The Sheepdog and the
“War-Gaming” Mindset:
If we couple proactive risk analysis with an improved and
purposeful sense of awareness, we then have the ingredient’s for what I refer
to here as the “war-gaming mindset.” And it is this mindset which is a vital
tool in the sheepdog’s toolbox, and necessary in order to anticipate solutions
to a problem. In proactive risk
analysis, you are thinking of some likely things, and possibly some not so
likely things, that may happen in a given environment. In war-gaming, you are taking what you
thought of during those possible risk scenarios, and now thinking about what
you would do if they happened. And just as with risk analysis, where you
were thinking of different possible scenarios, you are now also thinking of
different possible solutions and outcomes. With purposeful awareness, you are
completing the war-gaming mindset by actually putting yourself in the
particular location or environment that you had envisioned, and injecting
real-time observations to narrow down the likely risks. In other words, you are using what you see NOW
to inject information into those “what if” questions to narrow down possible
reactions. This is also a way to keep
your risk analysis and response information top of mind so that you already
have a plan even before the chaos happens.
The War-Gaming
Toolkit:
Know Location Layouts and Features: Be familiar with the places you frequent in
order to think through your risk analysis and response for a crisis
situation. Do you know where the
emergency exits and storm shelters are in that “Wally World” store? How about store rooms and other secure areas
to which you can direct people and keep them safe in your favorite grocery
store? Have you become familiar with all
the exits, hiding places, and even the severe weather shelters in your
church? Do you know where the most
likely place is where the emergency first responders will arrive, and can you
safely get someone reliable to that location to direct them and describe the
emergency? Knowing all these things can
help you to more effectively and more purposefully direct others to safety and
minimize casualties. Explore and take
note of emergency exits, safe areas, storm shelters, and other egress routes in
the places that you frequent most.
Training in Emergency Best Practices: Before you can effectively war game responses
for many of the scenarios for which you are trying to prepare, you must first
have some idea of what are considered to be “best practices” for dealing with
an emergency situation. This is no time
to “wing it” and hope your ideas are going to work. Your responses need to be based in sound
principles and tactics. It’s important
to realize that not only are you trying to help the people who are in immediate
danger, but you are trying to assist law enforcement and emergency responders
by doing the things that they would ideally expect you to do to prevent further
casualties, and to prevent endangering them also. And we’re not talking about lengthy, or even
expensive advanced emergency responder training here. Much of what you can learn that will help you
a great deal can be done by taking short online or live instruction
courses. Many of these courses are low
cost or even free.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), for example,
has developed a number of very good online training courses through their Independent Study
Institute, and these courses are all available for free to the general
public. Below are some links to these
courses that you may find valuable in helping you to learn some of the
fundamental concepts of emergency response:
- IS-360, Preparing for Mass Casualty Incidents: A Guide for Schools, Higher Education, and Houses of Worship
- IS-906, Basic Workplace Security Awareness
- IS-907, Active Shooter: What You Can Do
- IS-915, Protecting Critical Infrastructure Against Insider Threats
Scenario Based Training: This will help a great deal
with needed skill development, and then helping you to visually see some things
in 3-D action so that you can more effectively visualize and think through what
skills will be useful in which environments and in which scenarios. Much of this type of training would ideally
be live, instructor based training, in which you would actually role-play
various scenarios. In many cases, live
fire and what we refer to as “force on force” training is appropriate to the
scenarios for which you are trying to prepare.
Standing in front of paper targets just doesn’t prepare you the way that
actual live scenarios will prepare you.
Many firearms instruction organizations (including Northern Colorado
Firearms Safety Training) have training to help you meet this need. Don’t stop at the basic training. Seek out the training that will help you to
practice actual scenarios.
Keep Studying, Keep War-Gaming: Every trip to the store can be a “lessons
learned” experience. In all of your
proactive risk analysis, you may not have thought of some things that finally
dawned on you this last time at “Wally World.”
Add those new ideas to your war-gaming scenarios, and ask yourself what
you would to if that thing happened. Keep
a journal, if that helps you retain information. Look at your notes from time to time and
revisit those thought processes. Keep up
on current events, and use those “lessons learned” that you are able to infer
from the incident descriptions. Many
publications, such as those from NRA and USCCA, present reports from various
incidents, and give information as to where the events occurred, and what was
done in response. Use that to help with
your own war-gaming efforts.
Wrapping It All Up:
Being a sheepdog is a lot of work, if you expect to be able
to make a difference. You are most
likely not law enforcement or emergency medical personnel. Most sheepdogs are just average people, with
average lives, but some not so average skills.
You may be the first one on scene in an emergency, and you have no idea
how long it will be before emergency services arrive to help. In the meantime, you need to be able to get
others to safety and prevent further casualties. It may be a violent attack. It may be a natural disaster. But either way, if you want to be effective
at helping others, you need to have some ideas about what could possibly happen
and how to respond BEFORE those things happen.
Proactive risk analysis and purposeful awareness combine to help you
“war-game” these potential scenarios so that you are already armed with
knowledge and a plan when the time comes.
Additional training is a plus, and applying critical thinking to your
environment is a must. Knowing some best
practices in dealing with these types of situations is vital. And practice, practice, practice.
Be safe out there, be proactive, and be purposeful. You may be the sheepdog who is called upon to
save others someday.
