Carl asked me to post this on his behalf since he successfully graduated from his Defensive Handgun 1 (DH1) course on Sunday and now is transitioning to his three day basic and intermedate level course on
Wilderness and Urban Survivial for a Potentially Hostile Environment. His Wilderness training requires this course as a Prereq since they'll be training & living with firearms in addition to learning other survival skills.
A lot of people talk about what to do in a SHTF, Katrina, Econonic Meltdown, H1N1 Freakout, or other hostile environment/situation....well Carl isn't talking about it...but is actually
"doing it" in a simulated setting! Starting on Monday Carl will be living out of his bug out bag for three days while operating with a team of other students in a simulated hostile environment! He will be learning more than how to procure food for long term survival but will also be learning how to function/operate in a hostile environment (urban or wilderness) as well as successfully defending and protecting his family in this situation!
Carl is training at Oregon Firearms Academy (OFA) which is located on 1200 acres. OFA is an international Defensive Small Arms and Survivial Skills Academy with over 1200 students annually making the trek to attend over 35+ courses in survival and self defense.
http://www.oregonfirearmsacademy.com
Carl graduated from DH1 which is considered at OFA as a "basic" (not beginner) level course. Carl graduated at the highest level of qualification which is the same as the state of Oregon Law Enforcement Officers are required in order to carry their defensive handguns on duty or off duty. Carl met and exceeded the qualification standards for safety, tactics, time and marksmanship. While the qualification course is not a "cake walk" it is "do-able" after 7 hours of training. In his course there were a mix of current law enforcement, former law enforcement, others from professional "survival skills" backgrounds and private citizens from all over the US.
In this course there are three levels of qualification/graduation - bronze, silver and gold (being the highest). Carl qualified at Gold.
Here is Carl after checking his "Six" or doing an "After Action Response" after training to defend himself against a simulated threat.
Here is Carl learning how to shoot single hand both with his strong hand and support hand - in the event one hand is either injuried or is being used to move a love one out of harms way for example.
Learning about the effective use of cover or concealement in a defensive situation...Carl being coached by Little Joe during a practice on the use of cover/concealment. In the foreground you can see the simulated threats which all have a weapon on them so students have the justification to use deadly force to stop these threats.
While Carl's Defensive Handgun 1 course did involve a review of "how to shoot" a handgun the primary focus and emphasis of the course is in the "defensive use" of a handgun for personal defense. Carl was trained on how to use verbalization techniques and skills, legal ramificantions and mitigation, scanning and searching for additional threats, team tactics, combat reloads, tactical reloads, the ready postion, single handed shooting, close quarters defense, phase one and phase two malfunction clearances just to name a few!
