Here at Center Mass Group we support the Wounded Warrior Project and we want you to support them too! This weekend, we are giving away a Wounded Warrior blanket to one lucky winner. It’s our way of saying thank you for supporting those who protect our freedoms.

Starting today, May 18th and running through Sunday May 20th 2012, you can enter to win a Wounded Warrior Project blanket.

To enter, go to our Facebook Giveaway page:

1. Like the Wounded Warrior Page tagged to the left.
2. Share the giveaway announcement note on your timeline.
3. Post a comment on the giveaway note: “I support the Wounded Warrior Project!“ or something else that shows your support.

Rules, Details and Prizes

• Only one entry per person. Winners will be pooled and drawn at random.
• Open to US addresses or military PO boxes only.
• All entries must be received by Sunday, May 20th, at 11:59 p.m. pacific time. Any entries after this cutoff will not be counted. Winner announced Monday, May 21st.

And the winner is…

Congratulations on the drawing! It was completed on Monday, 23 April 2012 at 03:48:50 UTC.  The winner was drawn from a list of entrants using true randomness at random.org.

You will find the permanent record of the drawing here:  http://www.random.org/draws/details/?draw=9872

Thank you very much to all who entered and a special thanks to our friends at 5.11 Tactical for supplying the party favors!  We hope to be offering regular drawings in the near future, so stay tuned!

Tamara, you’re gear is on it’s way (Once we get your address)!

5.11 Tactical and Center Mass Group want to say “Thanks” to all our blog readers, Facebook fans, and Twitter followers by giving away an awesome prize pack to one lucky winner!

The past year has been a great start for Center Mass Group and now we’ve partnered with 5.11 Tactical for our first giveaway for all our loyal supporters.

Starting today, Tuesday April 17th and running through Saturday April 21st 2012, you’ll have 3 chances per day to win this awesome prize pack!

3 Places to Win: Here, Facebook and/or Twitter…

You can get entries here on our website in 1 of 3 ways:

1. Leave a comment below…Any comment will do! -OR-
2. Add a link to this page on your own blog or Facebook page. (put link to your post in comments below to get credit!) -OR-
3. Post a comment to any one of our other articles the website (other than this one).

To get entries on Facebook, checkout our 5.11 Tactical Giveaway note on our Facebook page.

1. Like the page of each company tagged on the left of the note.
2. Share the Facebook giveaway announcement note on your timeline. (One entry each day you post to your timeline)
3. Post a comment on the Facebook note: “Hooyah Center Mass Group! “

To get entries on Twitter:

1. Follow @centermassgroup and @511Tactical
2. Tweet about our giveaway with a link to this page (include @centermassgroup in tweet to get credit!)

Rules, Details and Prizes

- One entry per person, per day on each social media outlet. Winners will be pooled from each and drawn using random.org

- Open to US addresses or military PO boxes only.

- All entries must be received by Saturday, April 21st at 11:59 p.m. pacific time. Any entries after this cutoff will not be counted. Winners announced Monday, April 23rd.

5.11 Tactical Prize Pack!

The prizes pack includes: A Min Pin Folding Knife, an ATAC A1 Flashlight, and a CAVU Half Frame Sunglasses.

Min-Pin Folding Knife

• Liner lock folding knife
• Blade: Plain edge modified Trailing Point blade with Black Oxide coating
• Blade Steel: AUS8 heat treated to HRC 57-60 hardness
• Blade Length: 2.85”
• Handle: Textured Injection Molded FRN Battleship  Grey with slotting for added grip and pass though Black Oxide coated liners
• Clip: Black Teflon® Coated clip with Right and Left Carry Options
• Mike Vellekamp design

ATAC A1 Flashlight

• Aerospace grade aluminum
• 1 AA Duracell ®Batter Included
• Regulated Circuit for Maximum Output
• Cree ® XP-E LED
• Gold Plated Contacts
• Intelligent Switch with High/Low/Strobe
• Momentary On Switch
• Stamped Metal Pocket Clip
• Black TPR Soft Touch Anti-Roll Ring
• Break-Away Lanyard Included
• Water Resistant Construction

CAVU Half Frame Sunglasses

• Half frame design includes three sets of lenses: Smoke, Ballistic Orange, and Clear
• Smoke lenses allow light transmission of 14%
• Ballistic Orange lenses allow light transmission of 56%
• Clear lenses allow light transmission of 90%
• Gloss Black frames with TPR inserts on nosepiece and bayonet temples provide a secure fit and excellent peripheral vision
• Distortion-free lenses provide 100% UVA and UVB protection and are scratch, crack, and craze-resistant
• Exceeds ANSI Z87.1-2003 and EN 166 (F) High Velocity Impact Safety and Optical Standards
• Replacement lenses available separately

5.11’s manufactures a full line of Tactical Shirts, Tactical Cargo Pants, Tactical Flashlights, Tactical Knifes, Tactical Sunglasses that enhance the safety, accuracy, speed and performance of law enforcement and military professionals. To learn more about 5.11 click HERE.

On Monday February 13, 2012 I was lucky enough to see an advanced screening of Act of Valor.  I was invited by the Cinema Society of San Diego in return for sharing my thoughts of the movie with their organization following the screening.  Most of those in attendance were members of the society, though I did see a few (5 or 6) frogmen faces I recognized, which were easy to distinguish from the regular patrons of their group.

I arrived a few minutes early for an introduction from Cinema Society director, Andrew Friedenberg. He talked about the unique access the production company had to the SEAL community and paid patronage to Navy SEALS and the military in general.  He explained that in 2007, Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh of Bandito Brothers Production filmed a video for the Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC) which led the Navy to allow them to use SEALs. After spending so much time working closely with the SEALs, McCoy and Waugh conceived the idea for a modern day action movie about this covert and elite fighting force. As Act of Valor developed with the SEALs on board as advisors, the film makers realized that no actors could realistically portray or physically fill the roles they’d written and the actual SEALs were drafted in to the film.  The Navy agreed to the making of this film to “right the wrongs” made by past attempts to portray Navy SEALs in film (Navy SEALs, Silver Strand, GI Jane, etc) and allowed unprecedented access to our world.

Filming took place in Cambodia where an explosion was shot in Phnom Penh with 300 children as extras.Scenes were shot in San Diego at Blue Foot Bar and in a house in the North Park area. Other locations included Mexico, Puerto Rico, Ukraine, Florida, and at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The crew filmed at Navy training sites to provide realistic settings, such as a drug cartel base, a terrorist camp on an isolated island, and a smuggler’s yacht.

ACT OF VALOR stars a group of active-duty Navy SEALs in a powerful story of contemporary global anti-terrorism. Inspired by true events, the film combines stunning combat sequences, up-to-the minute battlefield technology and heart-pumping emotion for the ultimate action adventure.  Although this is “docudrama,” the tactics are real the action is some of the most realistic I’ve ever seen on film. If you’re familiar with recent heroics and tragedies of our community, you will see many of these played out in the film and will draw raw emotion from the viewer.

The movie not only includes active duty Navy SEALs, but I noticed that a few of the support staff were also people I’ve worked with in the teams, such as a very well respected intelligence officer who works with Naval Special Warfare.  The movie also does a great job of showing the emotional side of deployments and the brotherhood in the Teams.  Although the action and the tactics are very realistic, Navy SEALS who view the movie will see a few things they know are not right, but the rest of the audience will not notice.  I know some of my tactical brothers will hate when they see a grenade thrown and it causes a huge explosion (this is not what really happens), but I find it entertaining and love seeing those made-for-movie effects.

In the end it’s a great action film and the SEAL actors actually did a great job on screen.  I personally do not think the Navy should be making films about SEALS or have them on screen, but I hope that that this movie will help show that SEALS are just regular people with extraordinary skills and a desire to serve and protect our country.  I also hope that those who have never served in the military or spent a day outside the safety of our boarders see that there really are bad people in the world who wish to bring harm to our great nation in the name of their religion.  I highly recommend seeing this film, but please don’t bring any children.  It’s rated R for graphic violence including torture, and for strong language.

ACT OF VALOR is a Relativity Media Release and opens commercially in San Diego on February 24th.

Running time: 101 minutes

I just went through my phone (New iPhone 4s), which I’m still learning and found information on one more booth someone asked me to check out…

New from LWRC

Image from http://www.lwrci.com/LWRC

PSD (Personal Security Detachment) Rifle: The PSD is an ultra short barrel carbine with an 8-inch barrel and Magpul CTR stock. Derived from the M6A2 Carbine it comes chambered in 5.56mm or 6.8 SPC. This fills the gap between compact size and long distance accuracy.

image from http://www.lwrci.com/

M6-IC (Individual Carbine):  This rifle was designed for the US Army and has quite a few new features.  The new lower is completly ambidextrous. I like switching shoulders whenever needed and think this is a great feature.  It has a 2-position gas block, which can be set for normal or suppressed fire.  Finally it’s got a specialized coating to make it blend in when seen with night vision.

My pics came out pretty bad for these items, so I had to grab some from their site.  This is all I have for the SHOT Show until next year!

2012 SHOT Show

Today was my last day at the show.  Had a great time seeing old friends, meeting new ones and wishing I was rich.  Next year I’ll have to come up with a plan of attack so I can see more of the show.  Aimlessly walking  around was fun, but I know I walked past Glock about 20X!

A few new items that I checked out:

Crye Precision

Adaptive Vest System (AVS): Buy one, get three set-ups.

Airlite Plate Carrier: They say the lightest carrier in the world, but what about just rigger taping the plates to your chest? (CMG, Patent-Pending 2013) New carrier uses new laminate fabric.

I’ve got more that I’ll try to post this weekend.

Day one of the SHOT SHOW involved a LOT of walking.  I heard it was big, but that’s an understatement.  I walked about 10 miles surrounded by every piece of tactical gear on earth and think I only saw about half of what’s here.

Today I had breakfast with Zach from Helix Arms an online retailer that specializes in Military, LE, and Private Security Gear & Accessories and Nathan from Schott Tactical Procurement and Consulting Services who offers affordable off the shelf and customized tactical products.

The rest of the day involved me walking the Sands Expo and meeting a lot of great dealers and fellow firearms enthusiasts.  Now that I’ve got the layout figured out, tomorrow I’ll be scouting the latest and greatest gear in the industry. I’m also meeting with Mark Schindel, President of Schindel Associates .  Mark is a PR and Marketing guru and is going to take me to the news room to meet with several writers from major firearms publications.

I saw so many Team Guys here that I think this could easily be considered the 3rd SEAL Team Reunion!  Looking forward to a full day of guns and gear and meeting up with more of my comrades.  Make sure you’re following Center Mass Group on Twitter to get our play-by-play updates this week and let me know if there is any new gear you think I should check out.

If you’re here at the show, send me tweet or post to our Facebook page and we can try to meet up and put a face to our online personas.

GUNS!

Like most of you, I’ve heard about the SHOT Show for years, but up until this year I have either been deployed or training (or delivering my first son) and have yet to attend.  Even this year almost never happened…I was scheduled to run a course this week for 28 federal LE agents, but I got someone to cover and I’m on my way!

For those of you who don’t know, the Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show (SHOT Show) and Conference is the largest and most comprehensive trade show for all professionals involved with the shooting sports, hunting and law enforcement industries. It is the world’s premier exposition of combined firearms, ammunition, law enforcement, cutlery, outdoor apparel, optics and related products and services. The SHOT Show attracts buyers from all 50 states and more than 100 countries.

During the show I’ll be “Checking in” on Facebook and Tweeting about what I see and do.  I’m not a journalist and I’m sure there will be a hundred people there doing the same thing that actually know how to write, but I’m cooler!  So follow me on Twitter and like us on Facebook to keep up with where I’m at and what I’m doing.  I’d really like to meet some of you guys too, so keep an eye out for me and I’ll be checking posts for you too!

I can’t wait!  Bags are packed and make the 5 1/2 drive in the morning.  Hope to see you there!

Look for me at the SHOT Show!

Final Report

My last day in Richmond was a rainy one.  Its been dry up until now which was good since I chose not to get a rental on this trip, but luckily I always have rain gear in my bag and it’s hard for a little rain to upset a former Navy SEAL.  It did change the local street life with a drastic reduction in numbers and the ones that were out were on their feet.  I guess those “homeless” must have a home to stay in after all!

Last night was the Awards Banquet and I was fortunate enough to spend the night with several distinguished gentlemen.  Can’t say that I was too impressed with the fried chicken and mashed potatoes, but luckily it was free. They had several great door prizes including a complete AR and a Remington 870, but I’m never lucky enough to win such things and my luck didn’t change last night.

Today I attended “SWAT Selection and Training”, the last course of my trip.  It was taught by Steve Smith from Lenexa PD and an NTOA instructor.  Although it was a very good course, much of the information was of little use to me in my current position.  The reason being that most of the groups I train do not have the luxury of selecting who they have on their teams.  Although it’s hard to believe, this is the current reality we have to work with.

Topics covered:

• The SWAT selection process
• Physical fitness qualification tests
• Oral board questions
• Legal aspects of selection
• Establishing an annual training calendar
• Developing safe and realistic training
• Documenting training

The reason that selection of any tactical law enforcement team is critical is that these individuals will one day face criminals or terrorists who have received more rigorous and intense selection and training than they have themselves.  This is why standards need to be kept high and free from any social or political agendas.  The success of any tactical unit depends on a team being well trained and up to the task at hand.  This will help ensure the survival of the officers and those they are charged to protect.

Those in a position to make these decision need to realize that low selection standards or unrealistic training will eventually lead to liability and this fact is supported by established case law.  When management tries to create an equal playing field for social or political reasons, this will eventually lead to a demoralized team and a court case in the making.  We need to have a set standard for what’s required to do the job and stick with it.

When it comes to physical training standards we need to have one set of standards, no matter your gender, race or any other division you want to come up with.  In the end, there are requirements for everyone going through the door and you would be putting everyone in danger by having lower standards for different groups.  We shouldn’t have to look at who’s in the stack and worry that they don’t have the physical strength to pull you out if you go down in a gun fight.

The same holds true for oral board questions.  Have one set of questions with acceptable responses.  Anything less is putting the team in jeopardy.

The legal aspects of selection need to be thought of from the, “what happens when the SHTF?” mentality.  Too many times leaders think only of what happens when this person doesn’t get selected, not what happens when this person gets someone killed.  As a leader in this position you need to ask yourself which one is more important and judge your selection accordingly.

The discussion of an annual training calendar emphasized the importance of actually having one.  Too many units don’t have a forward thinking plan or don’t train what they actually do throughout the year on calls.  If you haven’t fast-roped or repelled in a real operation in the past 15 years, you shouldn’t be wasting your training time practicing these skills.  The skills you use on a regular basis may not be as glamorous, but they are much more important.

Finally, when it comes to documenting training, it’s important for several reasons.  First off is that you can learn from your past training by regularly reviewing what you’ve accomplished, and secondly case law is well established that failure to document training is the same as failure to train.  If you didn’t document it, it didn’t happen.  The other reason it’s important to document training is that it tracks the skills of individual team members.  Do you have someone who shoots non-threats during training exercises?  How many times have units had someone who they wanted to get rid of only to find out no one has documented their mistakes for the past 2-years?  Once again, no documentation, no event.

That’s it for this years NTOA Tactical Conference.  It was great to be able to spend time learning from these tactical professionals and seeing things from their point of view.  I really learned a lot and hope to be back next year!

Before I get started on today’s lessons learned, I’ve got to make a quick comment about the local panhandlers in Richmond.  Like most cities in the United States, there are people with their cardboard signs on every street corner asking for spare change and adding some reference to God.  I’m from San Diego and I’m against giving any of these people money.  Just like anything else you feed, it will grow.  I wish I could put my hand out and not have to work, but if we all did it there would be no one to give us their hard-earned money.  Anyway, the street people in San Diego AT LEAST stand-up and ask for your money.  Every single person I walked by while I’ve been here was sitting on their ass!  Come on, get motivated if you want money!

So today was spent in two separate Lessons Learned briefings presented by two very experienced SWAT leaders.  The morning session was Lessons Learned from Hostage Rescue Operations, while the afternoon session covered Lessons Learned from Barricaded Subject Operations.

Both of the sessions covered a lot of overlapping material with the main difference being that Hostage Rescue Operations obviously have someone being held against their will and all the additional problems that come with that.  There is a much higher consideration that must be given to the speed of the operation and the decision to make entry to defuse the situation.

Lessons Learned

One problem common to SWAT operation is not understanding or underestimating the threat. Some common thoughts are:

• “No one’s in there”
• “We just need two guys”
• “They don’t have any weapons”
• “They’re not trained like we are”
• “We’ve never been shot at before”

To be effective at what we do, we need to train for, plan for and expect the worst case scenario. But the other side of this tactical coin is overstating the threat. Some common statements might include:

• “There must be 100 guys in there”
• “These guys are ready for a fight”
• “The guy refuses to come out or comply”

Without the action-imperative that I talked about on day three, make sure you understand the true threat before making any tactical decisions.  You need to be fully trained and ready to execute multiple options in any tactical situation.  If the only tool you have is a hammer, every situation you’re presented with will look like a hammer.

Look at other options available before making a dynamic entry:

• Robots
• Breach and hold
• Diversions
• Tactical canine
• Negotiations
• Time

One of the biggest links to operations gone bad is poor training:

• Not training with outside sources
• Not consistent
• Lack of specialized training
• Over emphasis on certain topics
• Training on topics that will never be used
• Poor use of time
• Lack of realistic training program and oversight

The next problem is poor communication.  We all know that communications are the first thing to go wrong in any operation, but do you train with comms? Is there a requirement?

One of the most dangerous times during any operations is during the transition from movement to the threat to commencement of actions on objective. How much training do you do for this part of tactical operations?  Is it even a requirement to practice this vital step in your training?

That’s it for today.  Tonight I’m attending the Awards Banquet and hoping to win one of the guns they are raffling off!