Living in Condition Yellow - Part 2

think the best part about Front Sight was the people I met there. Every instructor was not only down-home friendly and informed, but they all knew exactly how to do what they were telling us to do. Every time I saw an instructor take his gun out of his holster and aim down range, I knew that I was going to watch the bullets go right where they wanted them to, and right quick too. These guys have their shit together. My favorite instructor by far was a man named Craig Bishop. He was ex-Army Special Ops, born in Texas and living in Utah, and he was exactly what I wanted out of a firearms instructor: a funny, leathery, tough son of a bitch who broadcast orders and instructions in a booming drawl. Bishop calls dinner “supper,” jokes that he needs to take off his boots to count past ten, and can definitely kill me one-handed even though he is multiple decades older than I am. In short, I wish Bishop were my father. The other instructors all like to talk in rhetorical questions like, “Does practice make perfect?” Not Bishop. Rhetorical questions aren’t straightforward enough for him.

My training buddy was Mike, a 27-year-old father of two from Humboldt County, California. He’s completed a combat tour of Baghdad with the Army and isn’t planning on going back. There was an earnest, apple-cheeked young kid named Tyson who was, just a short time after we finished at Front Sight, to begin Navy SEALS training.

I also became friends with a group of five buddies from the Bay Area who were there training together. One of them, Trevor, has founded a motorcycle club, a fight club, and a knifefighting crew. As in a crew of guys who fight each with knives. For fun. His back is covered in one massive tattoo of his gang’s colors and when I asked him what kind of knife he liked best, he whipped out this state of the art thing that was beautifully crafted, felt like it was molded just to sit in my hand, and probably cost more than a month’s rent on my apartment.

Another member of his group was a marine who took a shit in Saddam’s toilet during the early days of the Iraq War and also almost broke a pregnant gypsy’s wrist for trying to mug him in Albania. He was shipping off for another tour later in the week.

Over beers on our motel balcony one night after training, they told me that they had started a pool over when Jan (not her real name), a spooky woman in our class who was the polar opposite of a natural with a gun, would accidentally shoot me (she stood next to me on the line the first couple of days and it’s true—every time I looked over she was fumbling with a jammed Glock, furiously attempting to rack the slide so she could see if there was a round in the chamber or not, all the while pointing her muzzle directly at me—I am actually really surprised I made it home without taking a bullet from her).

Now, don’t get the idea that these new friends I made were a bunch of gun-toting Neanderthals. Far from it. They were a hilarious, well-educated bunch of sincerely bro guys who just happen to have hobbies that some people might consider scary. So what? I’ll be visiting Trevor’s bike clubhouse next time I’m in the Bay Area for sure. And, apart from this smattering of military and tough guys, most of the students I saw at Front Sight were middle-aged husband and wife teams. They are the uncles and aunts, moms and dads, and co-workers of Middle America. They are a bunch of damn nice people, too.

Is going to Front Sight for a long weekend of intensive gun training that focuses on exactly how to shoot and stop, and hopefully kill, random street criminals a bit intense? Yes. Is living in Condition Yellow going above and beyond what the average citizen might need to do? I’m going to have to say that it definitely is. And is it a little jarring to hear the instructors talk about attempted muggings, home invasions, and hostage situations in terms not of “if” but of “when”? Kind of. I mean, who is the last person you know who got home-invaded? I only know a few people who’ve even been mugged, and I live in the biggest city in the country. Then again, I’m one of the people I know who’s been mugged—at knifepoint. Then again again, it was an 18-year-old jittery kid who did it, and would I have shot him even if I’d had the means and the training at that point? No way.

So why are John and Jane Average in the middle of Oklahoma so convinced that they are going to have to defend their homestead from marauding gangs one day? I don’t have an answer for you—I’m seriously asking. Maybe it could be that they really will have to. I mean, we’re running out of oil rapidly, right? And we’re more overpopulated every day, right? I don’t know. I can’t help but shake the feeling somewhere in the back of my mind that yep, the survivalists are right. There is a major collapse of society coming, and a gun (along with some piping hot Condition Black Combat Mind Set) is going to come in really handy.

But the people at Front Sight aren’t survival nuts. Or, if they are, they keep it really well hidden. All I saw there was a bunch of gun enthusiasts and second amendment champions and I’ll stand up right beside them and say, “I like these people. I agree with, hmmm, 85 percent of what they say. I’m 85 percent onboard.” You’ll only get my gun when you either: A. pry it from my cold dead fingers or B. the rental agreement runs out and I have to return it if I want my driver’s license and my deposit back.

LIVING IN CONDITION YELLOW

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