(Continued from Part 3.)
In 1989, I took a job as the police chief in a small town in Eastern Oregon. I had also completed my training with Executive Security International (ESI) at that time, the world’s best place if you wanted to do bodyguard work. I had completed their 650-hour home study course and then needed to complete two weeks at their school. There, I met John Farnam, who taught the firearms training portion, and to this day, I honestly believe that Farnam is probably the best firearms trainer there is. At the end of my training, I was offered a position as a personal bodyguard to “Elizabeth Taylor’s best friend”. They wouldn’t tell me who it was – but I knew that Taylor’s best friend at that time was Michael Jackson. There is no way that I would have worked for him. Still, that training was the best in the world and I’m certified as a Protection Specialist in Colorado.
FILLING IN (MOST) OF THE BLANKS
Over the past half dozen years, I’ve had several strokes, with several of them taking place in the past year. Plus a host of other medical problems, that simply come with age. So, I thought I’d try to fill-in some of the blanks – if possible.
I grew up in the 1950s and it was a great time. I was raised on cowboy shows – I loved them all. That is when we had a working television. Back in those days, televisions worked with vacuum tubes that were not very reliable – so there were a lot of times we went without television for months at a time.
in my opinion, some of the best music entered in the mid-1960s and early 1970s. What they call music today – isn’t. This rap isn’t music no matter how you look at it. One of my favorite groups from the 1960s was The Peppermint Rainbow and in the past half dozen years I became friends with several of the former band members, in particular Bonnie Lamdin who was a vocalist, along with her sister Pat. If you’ve never heard of them, check out YouTube, some of their personal appearances can be found there.
You were the kid on the block if you had some kind of transistor radio. Back then, a lot of cars didn’t even have radios. I still remember the little crystal radio that I had. You could attach the antenna wire to a metal fence and you could hear music with no battery – wow!
I didn’t know it way back then, but I was blessed to have a grandmother who instilled Christian values in me, and the Lutheran high school I attended – who instilled a lot of values in me – period.
I was trained by the US Amry Marksmanship Unit unit back in 1970 and became a certified rifle and pistol instructor. It was an intense two-week course, and I’m still fortunate to have that training certificate.
Over the years, I was involved in several different types of martial arts, and I hold Black Belt rank in five different styles. With my highest black belt being a 5th degree black belt. I was actively involved in the martial arts for 35 years. At one time, I was operating 5 martial arts schools, one in Idaho and 4 in Oregon. Now, later in life, I’m paying for it. This was a time when we didn’t wear any protective gear and my body knows it. I’ve broken my right hand at least half a dozen times, my knees bother me quite a bit. I also had to have surgery on my right elbow – tendonitis. Also, a torn rotator cuff on my left shoulder had to be repaired. My right hip was replaced six years back. However, that was from a birth defect that no doctor caught it until I saw a specialist. Just too many health problems aren’t worth mentioning at this point, but had blood poisoning, and several strokes – and I had real problems that it took numerous trips to the ER and hospital stays to figure out. I had severe bleeding from the colon, and I was given at least 21 pints of blood before they determined the cause. I also have high blood pressure, Diabetes Type 2, and most recently Bell’s Palsy – which causes many problems.
The Brawls
I was in more fights than I care to remember. Many of these incidents were described in my online book, Street Combat – This Ain’t No Game! This book had never before been published elsewhere, and was serialized in nine parts on SurvivalBlog:
if you haven’t read it, then check out the free reading. I rarely started any fights, and tried to avoid them it possible, but I managed to get involved in quite a few fights.
I also worked as a police officer for a time in Questa, New Mexico.
I trained the Victor, Colorado police officers in SWAT tactics, and was a member of their Police Reserve.
When I lived back in Chicago, Illinois for several years, I discovered a quasi-private group called the 77th Special Operations Group. It was run by a Green Beret, who was still in the US Army Reserve. It provided better training than I had received in the military. Our group was about 35-40 members and we trained and operated like a Special Forces “A” Team. One evening per week, we had classes. And one weekend per month we were an aggressor force for an Army Reserve unit. They never beat us. We also trained some police departments on SWAT tactics. Half the group were prior military and the other half had no military training at all. Still, I would have gone to war with them. We were NOT a mercenary group, and there was NO talk allowed about trying to take over the country or anything like that – if anyone brought that up, you were out of the group. We even had some police officers in our group. I hated to leave them, when we moved to Colorado.
While working full-time for the Illinois National Guard, I served in several “civil disturbances”. I also took several military leadership courses via correspondence, and I obtained the rank of Sergeant (E-5) for my efforts.
My Knife and Grip Designs
On my knife designs: I felt I could design a better double-edge fighting knife, than the Applegate/Fairbairn (A/F), and I believe I did! I thought that the A/F was too light in weight and it couldn’t double as a survival knife. My OC-3 was a collaboration between myself and custom knife maker Brian Wagner. I had seen some of his designs at a knife show in Portland some years earlier, and I liked what I saw. He made no-nonsense fighting knives. It took several prototypes and over a year to come up with exactly what I had in mind. After I submitted the prototype that Brian made for me, it was another two full years before we got it off the ground and into production.
My “Code Zero” 1911 grips: I wanted some G-10 grips with just enough of an aggressive texture, but not so much as to make them “bite” back. It took a year for that to happen – most of that time was spent getting a program to come up with that. It was basically using the letter “Z” on the grips. They are still being produced by Mil-Tac.comOur Beloved Dogs
At one point I took my first German Shepherd for obedience training and got to be friends with the guy who ran the place. I worked for him for a while and he taught me all about obedience training as well at training in personal protection. After that I worked for another company on a part-time basis – training dog owners to train their own dogs.
At one time back in the 1990s, we had seven German Shepherds in our home, and we also raised German Shepherds. I obtained my main dog through an importer who got my dog from Slovakia. He cost me $4,000 and I wouldn’t have taken a million dollars for him. He only had basic attack training. However, he bonded to me like no dog ever had. We shared a brain, but I think he was actually smarter than I was. He could anticipate what I wanted him to do. He went with me to almost every place I went. I tried leaving him at home a few times and he broke out of the house and tried to find me. When it came to attack training, I completed his training and he liked hitting the bite sleeve, hard. Sadly, I had to put him down when he was only 7 years old, because he had kidney failure. That was one of the hardest things that I’ve ever had to do. We are now down to only one German Shepherd, and he’s nearing 12 years of age.
Back in Chicago, I used to train security officers who wanted to be armed. Back then it was only a 30-hour course. The last I heard it was at 40 hours. Here in Oregon, I was certified to be an armed security officer – one of the few in all of Eastern Oregon. My oldest daughter also got certified and worked with me at times on my security patrol business – where we would patrol businesses at night – we’d drive through the parking lots and then get out with my dog for closer inspections.
(To be concluded tomorrow, in Part 5.)