Student Review: Serj’s Open Letter to His Kids: Combat 2 Gun February 15: Serj

To the Reader,

I chose to write the following MVT C2G student review as an open letter to my kids. Please feel free to share it with anyone who loves their kids, and can therefore relate.

Kids,

You three are super-awesome and your Mom and I love you forever.  We love you enough to do anything we can to keep you happy, healthy and most of all, safe. I know you feel happy when you get a toy, and we pay for health insurance so we can take you to the doctor if you need that.

But how do we keep you safe?

You know we teach you that you shouldn’t cross streets without looking both ways or holding our hands.  Also, you know not to get in a stranger’s car or let anyone touch you that shouldn’t, right?  You don’t play with matches, or run with scissors.

Those are all great ways to stay safe, but Mom and I have seen enough bad things in the world (like being right near where those bad guys flew the planes into the big building) that we know that crazy people in this world can do crazy things.  In fact, we are honest enough with ourselves to know that if a bunch of bad things happen all at once, the world itself could become a pretty crazy and dangerous place.  Even places where people think “it could never happen here…not to me”…could become dangerous.  I’m not telling you this so you get scared.  It’s the opposite, I’m being honest with you about this stuff so that if you ever face a scary situation, you will be confident. You’ll be confident that Mom and I have made it through tough stuff before and will keep you safe through whatever is happening around you.  No matter what.

But how can we keep you safe?  Maybe we could use our magic wands like in Harry Potter, right?  Well not really, since that’s just pretend.  We can’t rely on make-believe or wishes to protect you. If we are going to keep you safe, the first thing we’d need to do is AVOID any problems.  That’s why I always tell you to be nice to everyone, all the time.  So that we don’t give anyone a reason to be bad to us.  But some bad guys will still do bad things to good and nice people.  So what would we do if a bad guy was trying to hurt you?  Well we’d fight them of course.  But how?  Hopefully we could fight them by calling the police, who would come and put them in jail.  But what if the police were absolutely nowhere around?  Then I’d fight them by shoving them away…but if they kept coming back and attacking you, I’d have to knock them down onto the ground and hold them there, until the police finally came.  But what if they had some extra bad buddies who were trying to hurt you while Mom or I held one of them down?  Even worse, what if their bad buddies had guns?

We know that these kinds of scary sounding things have happened to normal families in the past and could happen in the future.  And so that’s why we know it’s our responsibility as your parents and your protectors to not only own a gun, but to know how to use it safely AND effectively.  And that’s why I spent that whole weekend away from you guys…so I could go to a special school with a special kind of teacher.  This teacher, Mr. Aaron, is also awesome like you guys.  When he was 18 years old, he volunteered to keep us all safe by serving in our country’s Army.  And then he was sent to dangerous places in the world THREE different times to protect us here at home.  He is super-smart and really excellent at teaching people how to be safe and good if they ever needed to use a gun to protect their kids.  He started by teaching us LOTS of safety rules and he KEPT reminding us of them through the entire school.  He was really serious about those safety rules and so were me and the other students. Then he taught us all kinds of ways to fix a gun if it stops working…because if it is not working, how would it be able to stop bad people from hurting you? Once we knew the quickest and smartest ways to fix things that go wrong with guns, we learned how to safely shoot, move and communicate.  Mr. Aaron told us about real things that he saw and experienced in those dangerous places and we listened and learned.  He’d show us how to do something, we’d try it and he’d teach us how to do it even better…just like your excellent teachers in school.  He also made it super-fun since he is a funny guy and could make us laugh when it was time to relax.  He had seen a lot of good movies and repeats some of the funny lines from those movies.  Most of all, Mr. Aaron was a professional.  That’s someone who is so good at something that they get paid to do it.  Like your violin, jujitsu and pre-school teachers.

So we, as a family, made a decision to pay some money so I could learn from Mr. Aaron, and it was some of the best money we have ever spent!  We got what’s called a great value, which means we got even more good stuff than we normally would for that much money.  It cost less than a fancy TV, and we are fine with the TVs we have, right? But the things I learned at this school, I’ll always know now.  Hopefully I’ll never-ever need any of the skills I learned, but I’d rather have them and not need them, than really need them and not have them.  Right?  Yes.

That’s why I’d tell any other nice, honest, Moms and Dads who take their jobs as protectors seriously, that they should “go for it” and sign-up right now.

But just like violin, art, jujitsu and video games if you don’t practice, you forget how to do it right.  That’s why there will be other weekends where I (and hopefully Mom too…Mom, what do you think?) can learn more from Mr. Aaron and Mr. Max.

Oh? I haven’t mention Mr. Max?  That’s true. Well let me finish-up by telling you a little about him.  He is a leader.  A good leader is someone that people want to follow because they do the right thing. Mr. Max lived in a good country called England and did the right thing there by joining their Army to keep that nice country safe.  Then he moved to America and AGAIN volunteered to join the Army here to keep us safe.  Next, he realized that there are good & normal people in this country that want to learn how to safely and effectively protect their families, so he’s dedicated his time and talents to helping them learn.  That is a good thing for communities in America.  So Mr. Max is doing what I also always tell you to do: be a good member of your community, and help people that need it.

I’m so proud of you kids for all the good things you do and I’m also sure that Mr. Aaron and Mr. Max’s parents are proud of them too.

When you guys have your own kids, teach them to be nice, confident, honorable and able to protect the people they love. It’s the right thing to do.

Serj