Foreword for Training at the Speed of Life - Vol. One

By Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

Ken Murray: Renaissance Man and Pioneer

Ken Murray is one of the great pioneers in the field of law enforcement and military training. More than any other human being in my lifetime, he has helped to make possible a true revolution in law enforcement and military training.

With David Luxton at the helm, Ken was the co-founder of SIMUNITION^®, which was originally a subsidiary of The Armiger Corporation in Ottawa, Canada. Building on their early IMPAX marking cartridge technology, Armiger developed FX^® Marking Cartridges as well as other advanced training munitions, later popularized under the brand name of SIMUNITION^®. Shortly thereafter, Ken was to develop the original SIMUNITION^® training program, and following the acquisition of SIMUNITION^® by SNC Industrial Technologies, Inc., he maintained an association with them as their Director of Training for several years. Through his groundbreaking training concepts, Ken was to usher in the renaissance in training that has popularized force-on-force combat simulations with paint bullets. Along the way, he and I co-authored the entry on Behavioral Psychology in the Academic Press Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict, and he has become established as one of the great minds in the field of military and law enforcement training. To truly understand Ken's contributions and the tremendous importance of this book, you must first understand what we have achieved through the use of the training tools that were pioneered by David Luxton and Ken Murray.

Projectile-Based Training and Stress Inoculation: It is to the Warrior What the Flame House is to the Firefighter

A training sergeant from one major Western city told me how his department had been having a significant problem with officers firing far too many shots, with drastically low hit ratios. On the firing range his officers could achieve approximately ninety percent hits, but on the street in real gunfights, they were lucky to hit with twenty percent of the bullets fired. When the sergeant was ordered to call major police departments around the country to see if others were having the same problem, he found that the vast majority of departments were. One agency called it the “metro spray.” He also found that a small minority of departments had fixed the problem and were getting over a ninety percent hit ratio in real, life-and-death shooting events. The California Highway Patrol, Salt Lake City PD, Toledo PD, and other pioneers across America are now reporting extraordinary hit rates, while firing very few rounds. One of the key distinguishing characteristics that differentiates these departments from others is their training. In particular, in-service training that provides stress inoculation with marking projectiles or some other kind of force-on-force, projectile-based training. There is solid evidence to demonstrate that the problem of multiple shots with few hits is partly the result of a fear-induced stress response. The solution, therefore, is to inoculate against the stressor to prevent or reduce the fear. Force-on-force projectile-based training does exactly that.

After using this kind of training in one major Ohio police department, its hit ratios were so high and their fire was so deadly, that:

Sam Faulkner, Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy

Many elite military and law enforcement organizations have applied this type of training with remarkable success. Sometimes we see SWAT teams and special ops units whose members think they are good, but they get a rude surprise during their first force-on-force scenario when marking projectiles are used. But then they get better. Much better.

One of Gavin de Becker’s trainers clearly articulated the value of this training when de Becker’s elite team of world-class bodyguards had been trained using marking cartridges:

Prior to each student going through the scenario, I noticed that they were very calm. However once the training began, we could tell that the stress level was higher, either due to anticipation of what was about to take place, or because of the realism of the scenario. Realism meaning, most people in my opinion, military or not, rarely point or get a real weapon pointed at them where they know something is going to come out and hurt them or the individual. In the military, most soldiers use blanks where they know no one will get hurt. In [Reality Based Training,] we use our personal weapon, the same exact weapon we are going to use to protect our principal, our family, and even ourselves. We know it can kill an individual, and we know it can kill us. So when one of the students actually picks it up and points it at someone, I notice how much they hesitate to pull the trigger when their stress level is heightened, and their muscle memory tells them that this is a real gun; that something is going to come out and someone is going to get hurt. I mention this because I think it is one of our beginner class benefits. I believe it will save them if a situation ever arises and they have to use their weapon to defend their principal or themselves. What I believe to be the most important lesson is that you are not ‘dead’ until you are dead. During training, a few agents would ‘die’ after being shot or after feeling the pain from the round. We would tell them that they are not ‘dead’ until they are dead. [Using marking cartridges in] training allows us to train them to continue on after they are shot, and after feeling the pain from the round. I believe the pain from the [marking projectiles] instills a muscle memory that is beneficial, because if they are ever in a situation where they are shot at and they feel some pain, they will continue on to safety instead of stopping to see if the pain they feel is indeed a gunshot wound.

There is a powerful obligation to participate in this type of realistic training. There are many officers who do not want to participate in projectile-based training for fear of having to lay their training skills on the line in front of their peers, fear of feeling the sting of a round impact their skin, and a general fear of having to function outside of their comfort zone. Yes, these factors do exist in this valuable, realistic training - but they also exist in a real gun battle.

Let’s say there is a group of firefighters who have been going into dangerous fires and responding inappropriately. We discover by looking at their training records that these firefighters have never practiced in a real “flame house” training environment. Firefighters who have never been in a real burning building! Whose fault is it that these individuals are performing poorly? Ostensibly, the culpability may lie with the trainers and the administrators who had not given them that important, state-of-the-art training resource despite the fact it is readily available and is now the “gold standard” for training.

Likewise, if there are law enforcement officers confronting life and death shooting situations and responding inappropriately, whose fault is that? Whose fault is it, when there are readily available state-of-the-art resources that prepare and inoculate officers for deadly force encounters, but those resources have not been provided? If it is the trainers and administrators who have failed to provide them with the resources to do their jobs as best they can, then the blood is on their hands. When it comes to preparing officers to “face the flames” of their existence, it appears that Reality Based Training is exactly such a resource. It is to the police officer and the soldier exactly what the flame house is to the firefighter.

Training and the Warrior Renaissance

There is evidence that would lead us to believe that this quality of training has reduced the fear-induced spray-and-pray response, and increased law enforcement hit rates (as opposed to firing rates) from around twenty percent to approximately ninety percent. I had the privilege of training numerous combat units associated with the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines as they prepared for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. All of these troops had extensively incorporated the use of marking cartridges in their training to inoculate themselves against combat stress. Additionally, the U.S. armed forces and its allies have integrated state-of-the-art video firearms simulators and LASER engagement simulators into unit training.

This comprehensive adoption of a Reality Based Training paradigm through the systematic integration of simulation technology has made it possible to achieve combat performances such as this:

Gene Edward Veith, Worldmag.com

This is an achievement that is virtually unprecedented in any previous small unit engagement in recorded history. You simply cannot make a ratio out of two hundred-to-zero. And there were many similar achievements during the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. There can be no doubt that these new forms of training have provided a startling new revolution in combat effectiveness on the modern battlefield.

In the end, it is not about the “hardware,” it is about the “software.” Amateurs talk about hardware, or equipment, and professionals talk about software, or training and mental readiness.

In my science fiction book, The Two Space War, I depict warriors six hundred years in the future who refer to the period at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century as a “Warrior Renaissance.” I sincerely believe that future generations will come to think of this period as a renaissance, a period of remarkable progress in which the full potential of the human factors in combat began to be realized. And Ken Murray is one of the key people who helped make this renaissance possible.

Training: A Two-Edged Sword

So, a renaissance in warrior training is upon us. Ken Murray and his fellow pioneers in this field have placed powerful new tools, lifesaving new weapons, in our hands. But, they must be used safely. Like every weapon, Reality Based Training is a two-edged sword. If this tool kills warriors through negligence and neglect in training, then we have taken the lives of our brothers and sisters just as surely as the enemy or the criminal. If our negligence kills our students, then we have blood on our hands; we are the criminals, and everything we have worked for has come to naught. Ken's training concepts, which include safety as a “ritual,” must be integrated and ingrained at every level of Reality Based Training, and ultimately, in the real world.

In violent, desperate times, we are training as hard and fast as is safely possible. We walk a fine line, training to survive; training to save the infinitely precious lives of warriors and innocents locked in mortal combat. But we must conduct that training so we will never take those infinitely precious lives through training accidents. Ken Murray's book serves as the definitive map to guide us along that fine line, the most powerful and vital of all lines; the line between life and death.

This book is THE template for simulated engagements; an indispensable textbook for revolutionary new warrior training. Read this book. Tab it, study it, and apply it. Make it your Bible for Reality Based Training, and do not deviate from the words of the “master” and pioneer in this field. Read and heed, lest you have the blood of your brothers and sisters upon your hands. Train, my brothers and sisters. Train, for the day will come. Train at the Speed of Life.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman
Author of "On Killing" and "On Combat"