Making Decisions

My last content post was on June 11: ‘Training, and how it relates to the Four Stages of Competence.‘ Since then I have been up at site for 10 days on a private class, and doing various admin and site cleanup and improvement since then. It’s been busy, but it has been very rewarding. The training on the recent private class was excellent, with a 3 day Combat Team Tactics (CTT), a 3 Day Combat Patrol (CP), followed by Force on Force Team Tactics (FoF) training and a final exercise utilizing UTM ammunition for various activities such as an ambush and dawn raid onto live OPFOR volunteers. This training is very rewarding for both the students and cadre. If you have not been to an MVT class, or it has been a while, then I am at  a loss for words because of the training opportunities you are missing. I could not be more happy with the advances we are making with our training classes and teaching techniques, and I simply want you to experience the benefits and be a part of it.

I plan on discussing a little bit about decision making in this post. In doing that, I will relate it to combat but I will deliberately keep it away from the doctrinal rabbit holes that formal military discussions about this topic often follow; this is designed to be about you, not  a military unit. So let’s talk about decision making as it relates to you and potential life threatening situations that you and your family may experience. I have seen many comments regarding a section of the ‘prepper community’ being very analytical, with the whole ‘list of lists’ thing, and this is something that can be a problem, and this type of mindset can result in much being analyzed and little being done: analysis paralysis. Analyzing and making lists may be a comfort blanket, but it will not be the solution when the hammer falls.

It can be argued that the primary issue faced by those who suddenly face a need to make a decision, is understanding that they have reached that decision point, that point at which a decision must be made. If that decision point is not recognized, and a relevant decision is not made, then we are in big trouble, and we have certainly handed the initiative over to the enemy. Denial of a developing situation is often to blame for this. In our everyday lives, nothing happens that fast, and there is often little consequence to decisions that must be made. When things of significance, perhaps life threatening, happen, then you will most likely find yourself in a time crunch, with the situation having ‘turned left.’ This is where denial comes in: you cannot do it over again, once it has happened, as much as you may perhaps want to.  This denial, and wish for an alternative course of events, is what contributes to the freeze response to a situation, as you wish that it just goes away and you can return to your normal pattern of life. Without even relating this to combat, we can easily relate this to a sudden life threatening situation, which you may see develop very rapidly, such as a threatening approach by some muggers. But, you are just leaving the movie theater and you have a plan for a relaxing romantic evening! No. That wish will not make the threat go away, and you have to be able to recognize that the situation just took a left turn, and that you have reached a critical decision point, and you must react to it. If they are psychopaths, then you cannot rely on appealing to their better nature to resolve the situation, because your lives are nothing more than the wrapper on the way to the candy that they want, to be torn open and discarded.  Make a decision, and execute.

Many people spend a lot of time worrying about, and preparing for, the ‘collapse.’ Ok, so, you are sitting here reading this post, and suddenly

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Why is most of this article missing? Because the full article can be found on the MVT Forum HERE. Why? Because the MVT Forum is a $25 per year subscription service. This keep it as a high quality, rational, sensible discussion venue which also serves as the library for all MVT Articles. If you are serious about becoming tactically proficient we would like to see you on the MVT Forum.