Reviews

***Warning for those with a delicate sensibility, there are big boy words in this review.***

MVT Texas week three
After Action Report

In the words of our notorious MVT Alumni leader…”WHAT THE FUCK”.

I decided to participate in week two as well as week three this year of MVT Texas Alumni Training. It was an easy decision when presented to me as an option. I figured, fuck it! Business can be handled without me this time of year and why the hell would I not want to do this training back-to-back? Thankfully I did, because the week would have had a total of eight students without me, and eight is a real shitty number for Max to deal with when assault cycles and satellite patrols come into play. In fact, it doesn’t work!!! I’m sure Max would have changed his approach and made something out of it, but for those eight it wouldn’t have been the same experience overall. Also, this was the first time that three of my friends from our Colorado group had ever been here, and I hoped to help lead them through it.

When week two ended I was excited to experience the transition into the following one. Some of the dudes that were leaving looked tired as fuck, and others you could tell wanted to stay for round two but couldn’t make it happen because of life responsibilities or whatever. Personally, I felt great. I’d just finished blowing through roughly 2200 rounds, had a badass week with my brother, and was pumped about how well the rest of the week two crew kicked total ass.

Everyone is jacked to the max when they arrive on Saturday after a couple of days of travel. Spirits are high as fuck! I compare it to arriving at elk camp. If you’ve hunted elk in the Rocky Mountains, you can certainly relate. That first night we had the usual dinner at Mac’s, which to me is an awesome way to do a meet and greet while enjoying the “best” barbeque that Texas has to offer. LMAO…I like Mac’s for what it is. It’s a halfway decent place where you can order a beer and a whiskey without stopping by the local packie and bringing in a brown bag sixer to your table feeling like a hobo. This is a thing in Brady. Some restaurants serve booze others don’t, but the ones that don’t let you BYOB. Must have been a COVID thing that stuck?

Day 1: TCCC

I’m not going to go into detail here. All anyone needs to know is that this eight-hour casualty care class is awesome. Thank you again William for traveling back to the lodge to put it on for a “third” time in three weeks. That’s some B.D.E.

Day 2: Let’s see where we’re at gents

This is the point where I have to stop myself and attempt to relay the “WHAT THE FUCK!” Look, I’m not going to
sugar coat this AAR, I simply can’t do it. I’ve participated in five training blocks with MVT and there are three things
that Max and or Scott hammer home in every class I’ve ever taken with them.

1. All around safety with your rifle. This is my rifle; this is my gun…ha-ha. Seriously though, know your shit
   when it comes to your rifle and how to safely handle it.
2. Situational awareness – watch your safety angles while moving.
3. Individual physical fitness – Don’t be that guy!

If any of the above are lacking things can go to complete shit very quickly. Overall safety with your rifle and situational awareness can be learned and hopefully fixed with proper training. Both of which Max is extremely good at teaching and correcting if needed. However, physical fitness is on you!!!

Unfortunately, many of the week 3 folks were lacking the fitness piece. Some had completely gassed out legs after day two. It might have been day one, I can’t fully remember. What I do remember is this quickly became a serious fucking problem. If every time you take a step or go to a knee your legs feel like a pecker that won’t stiffen up it affects your speed and your mind. Lack of speed affects safety angles and if your mind is overly worried about the pain in your legs from doing 400 lunges it affects your situational awareness. All you can think about is YOUR FUCKING LEGS!!! All of which is no bueno and being that Texas is live fire training event it can turn into a shitshow Mad Max scenario rapidly, which unfortunately it did.

To clarify before I piss anyone off that attended. My review here has zero to do with individual skill sets in this or any tactical setting. I feel that everyone in the class is extremely capable of performing these drills successfully, but holy shit did their legs and physical unpreparedness get the better of some of them. I even heard chatter from some of the guys saying , “fuck, what did I sign up for?” To be fair, yes this was the first time that seven of the participants were experiencing MVT Texas and I get it, a lot of it can be very overwhelming.

Day 3

At the end of day three Max could obviously see what was going on. He gathered us together for a brief after the last drill for the day, told us to download or shit and meet him at the top of the hill. When the crew arrived Max was staring into the distance, thumbs tucked underneath his suspenders, as usual, completely silent. He let the silence linger for a minute, maybe a little too long, and then said, “alright guys, the enemy we’re after is headed towards the last hill we can see on the horizon to the south. What would we do if we had to go after them?” Nobody said a word. The furthest rolling hill we could see was roundabout 20 miles away with massive obstacles between us and it. Then he said, “we couldn’t go after them because our physical fitness as a team wouldn’t allow us to.” Hmmm…think about that for a minute, let that shit set in. What if the San Francisco cannibal cocksuckers had captured your wife or your daughter and they were headed to the hills in the distance. Would your level of
endurance and your physical fitness keep you from saving them? This is a question everyone should ask themselves in my opinion. Especially, if you’re training in these tactics with the hypothetical mindset of “what if.”

As the week progressed, I feel that most students dug down deep inside and gave it everything they had. Through sweat and pure grit, I feel we were able to walk away feeling like the time spent was one thousand percent beneficial, eye opening for some, and for lack of a better word fun. I hope that the guys who attended this class for the first time from Virginia, Indiana, and Texas will continue to train on these tactics. Actually, fuck the guy from Texas, he sucked! A **** hard suck. Who the fuck decides it’s a good idea to not show up to dinner when the owner of the ranch is joining us for the first time ever in ten years of MVT training there? His response, “I didn’t feel like it.” FUCK THAT GUY! I know our Colorado crew will push harder and harder and fucking harder until each of us feel confident in our own abilities. Remember, these tactics cannot be done with a pickup team, and I feel blessed to be part of a group of like-minded dudes and badass chicks that understand the mindset and skills needed if SHTF. Much love to the three Colorado guys in week three. You guys stuck with it and in the end fucking killed it.

To end this, MVT Texas Alumni training is incredible. It could be equated to going through a condensed army ranger school, or a Brit’s mini–Para Regiment school. It’s not for the faint of heart and will test the shit out of you physically and mentally. I’m already looking forward to 2025.

Thank you, Max! I’ll handle the bangers situation in the future and put your fucking chaps on please when attempting to be a chainsaw operator. Remember, if your chain is not on a positively identified piece of wood, the safety is on. Looking forward to seeing some of you in September for squad tactics.

Max adds: In my view, the Texas class isn’t that physically hard. I don’t want people to be put off by this review. We even run a ‘Gimp Squad’ where we take into account peoples injuries and have them not kneeling as applicable. The problem comes when people are getting gassed out by simply running the basic fire and maneuver drills, mainly because they have ignored the MVT functional fitness test, which itself is a bare minimum standard. The bottom line is that tactical training = cardio, it may not be that long lasting, but unless you can briefly alternate taking cover with moving in short bounds, you will suffer.. That applies to this training, and the conduct of real tactics. Movement is life, and unless you can move tactically, you are wasting your time with tactical preparation. We have a big issue in this country with a mixture of being overweight, combined with a lack of cardio fitness. It isn’t going to end well.

Here is a two year old video of one of the drills in Texas: