AAR # 3 CRCD Class 12/13 Oct

I never knew that Max did a training class. I knew him from picking up “Contact!” via Amazon based only off some website “based on what you are looking at, you might be interested in this” advertisement. You know, the ones you never pay attention to? I thought, surely, no one is really named “Max Velocity:” sounds like a stage name for one of those adult actors or something similar. Read the book, great stuff. Good refresher and new material and very easy to read.

Fast forward to an ar15.com review by someone – the name “Max Velocity” caught my eye and I thought, there it is again, that name. It was an AAR from someone that had attended the CRCD class and had great things to say about it. They talked about what a great time they had and how they’d never experienced anything like it with live fire and pop-up targets. Sold.

Night 1: Rain. More rain. And then some more rain.

Day one: Crawl, walk. 

Day one began with a safety briefing, terminology review, and the basics. It was clear from the beginning that Max was going to cater the teaching according to each participants’ capabilities. We had a mixture of people from various states, some “free” (VA, TN, FL), some behind enemy lines (MD), but all with a similar mindset and goal for the weekend – learning something. We had old, young, men, a woman, father/son, father/daughter (AWESOME), and then a few of us that fit into the feared category of MAM, Caucasian, Christian (now found in official documentation as something to be feared).

Training began with safe loading, solo trip into “Range One” for our first encounter with the pop-up targets. Contact front, left, right. Crawl.

More in the schoolhouse whiteboard (tip: don’t re-arrange the chairs or the magnets on the white board; it impacts Max’s OCD and you may receive a death threat) then pairing up with a buddy. I had the pleasure of working with a US Marine (never “former”) for the paired drills. We quickly got into a groove and worked well together in the two-man drills (contact, move off the X, fire, move, break contact, etc). This is where we established the basics of communications (contact/move/moving). Walk.

Late in day one, a pleasant smell came wafting into the training area; it was a new Marine, coming to help instruct and provide range safety.

We completed Day One with our first four-man team exercise, grouping each pair into a single entity for the purposes of breaking contact. Peeling, moving, shooting. More walk, but a bit faster.

Throughout Day One, Max took the time to instruct, correct, and make sure everyone knew what they were doing and also why. Later, most of the class met for dinner; we had a choice of the Mexican restaurant or the Italian restaurant. We chose the latter; good conversation, like-minded Patriots all.

Night 2: Rain. More rain. And then some more rain.

Day two: Walk then run.

Day two began with more whiteboard discussion (again, don’t mess with the chairs or whiteboard magnets) about breaking contact, assaulting, peeling, getting on-line (no, not the Internet), and patrol basics. Activities for day two took place on the much-larger “Range Two,” which was nice and slick due to wet, fallen leaves and mud mixed in. As with day one, we got a solo run and a taste of fighting at longer distances, still facing contact front, left, right. On to two-man runs, same concepts, but adding communication to the mix. “Ivan,” the pop-up targets, were starting to experience some issues due to the rain, but still awesome.

We ran a few scenarios in two-man teams, then on to four-man teams. I had the pleasure of teaming up with three guys from TN. We seemed to work pretty well together and I believe we did a pretty reasonable job of dispatching Ivan on our runs. I was able to fill in with another team, the one that contained the father/daughter team (again, AWESOME). After we ran the drill and were lined up in hasty-ambush position, we did a check (“everyone OK? need to re-load? etc, etc) and our team leader, the daughter, shouts “are you OK, Dad?” As Max stated in his blog, this was a somewhat surreal moment. It took me a second, but wow, I have a daughter, and all kinds of thoughts and emotions passed through me. HUGE kudos to the Dad in the pair; you’ve raised a phenomenal kid and Patriot – thank you.

Late in Day Two, just like Day One, more pleasant odor appeared in the camp, yet another Marine, coming to assist with instruction and safety. At this point, the smell of victory was now heavy in the air, courtesy of the Corps. Note: despite the number of them, to my surprise, nothing at all was destroyed.

The final event of the day was a bunker assault. I won’t ruin it for anyone, but it involves a “grenade” (max sure you ask for a pin for yours), covering fire, lots of mud, and all around a good time. A taste perhaps of what a patrol class might look like. To me, this was the “run” in the crawl, walk, run sequence.

All in all, a great weekend. My summary of the training event and Max: an “A+.” Would I go to another training done by Max? Yes, without question. On the one hand, a satisfying, fun weekend of camping, shooting, meeting new people. On the other hand, to feel like I need to develop/polish these types of skills means that we as a country are in a really bad spot. 

Most encouraging was the fact that I was not there alone – 11 other people were there, training. I’d like to believe America is full of millions more of them that are prepared to do what is necessary to keep America great. Man, I hope so…

“Pinky”

Si vis pacem, para bellum