I have been more alert to my surroundings than most folks, I think, since that weekend in North Carolina when a wife-beating fellow Marine got it in his head that I’d run off with his wife. No blood was spilled, but it made a lasting impression on me. Cooper’s color codes of awareness have given the average person a model, or paradigm, of how to quantify our alertness (though we have probably misused the code to a great extent.)
However, when I was asked, “What are you alert to? Or what are you aware of?” I just sort of blinked and stared like a cow at a new gate. It occurred to me that this is not a small matter. It’s one thing to look around, but quite another to really see things around you.
“Left of Bang” originated in the Combat Hunter doctrine used by the US Marines since about 2006, after General Mattis requested, “…a program to instill a hunter-like mindset in Marines, train Marines for increased situational awareness, proactively seek threats, and have a bias for action. Mattis wanted Marines to be the predators, not the prey.”
The title comes from a traditional time line, in which time zero - the beginning of the frame – is on the left. A critical event – BANG! – is in the middle, and everything that happens after bang is to the right. Much of the training and doctrine delivered to American forces started at bang, but the problem with that is it means starting with dead or injured Americans. Mattis wanted to take control of any situation by getting into the game to the “left of bang” - To be the predator who says when “bang” happens, not the prey who says, “What the hell just happened?”
The authors present the subject in a very straightforward way, with mostly simple, declarative sentences. They have avoided the jargon- and acronym-swamped idiom that makes much of modern military writing virtually indecipherable to anyone on the outside. They start with a certain number of points, then break those down into subpoints. Then they reach back and grab a few more points and break them down, and then – and this is the good part – they tie all those points together. Then they start again with new points, but they always tie the new stuff to the old. Everything in “Left of Bang” is tied to everything else. Part A not only stands on its own, it supports and amplifies Part B, which also supports and amplifies Part A. On and on it goes, and what would otherwise be a staggering mash of details and abstracts becomes an amazingly unified and coherent whole. It’s good, straightforward English– not flowery or overblown, but rather like a bayonet thrust in prime – to the point.
“Left of Bang” makes some points that will be considered heresy, if not downright apostasy by some. One of the first of these, and one that comes up time and again, is that there will not always be a perfect solution, no matter how much time we take to analyze and cogitate. Time, in fact, is the one thing Marines and cops on the beat are guaranteed to not have enough of. Ever. This makes doing all we can do to the left of bang not only important, but as precious as life, itself. There are solutions that are good, and hopefully good enough. Perfect is a luxury at best, and probably a myth.
Another sacred cow that is sure to send some folks into apoplexy is profiling. The Combat Hunter is the Combat profiler, using knowledge of human nature, as well as the idiosyncrasies of culture, to spot anomalies in a population. “Anomalies” is a fancy word for “People who may want to kill you.” Whether you’re in a market in The ‘Stan or an alley in Chicago, you don’t have time to get to know that guy over there. You don’t have time to meet his family or his kids, or read his master’s thesis. In fact, if you aren’t right on the ball, you may not even have time to get your sights on him and drop him before he does it to you. “Profiling” is not a dirty word. We do it all the time – even those who weep and howl most about it. (If you would like to test this, find a bunch of liberal academics and walk in front of them wearing a Trump hat. See how long it takes the hypocrites to profile you.)
Van Horne and Riley start with six “domains:” kinesics, biometric cues, proxemics, geographics, iconography, and atmospherics. They explain how these six categories, or domains, each contain many parameters that will give the combat profiler an amazingly accurate picture of who’s who in a crowd or a social group, such as a village or neighborhood. Within kinesics, for example, there are “clusters” that tell whether a person is dominant or submissive, comfortable or uncomfortable, interested or uninterested, ready to freeze, flee, or fight, or is displaying threat indicators.
Van Horne and Riley discuss at some length the differences between Marines, cops, and security guards or other civilians. For example, a Marine has three levels of response: contact and question the person, capture the person, or kill (or prepare to kill) the person. A mall cop or someone keeping an eye on the parking lot at church won’t have these same decisions. They will have some variation of “Run, hide, fight,” which is absolutely valid for those circumstances.
I don’t want to go into any depth, at all, because there are a few people who will think, “I’ve read the review, so I don’t need to read the book.” That would be a grievous mistake. The authors point out in the last chapter that it takes an average of 10 years of concentrated effort to become a really top-notch combat profiler. They give some suggestions on how to accelerate that curve a bit, but there’s no substitute for time and experience. Rather than try to list all the chapter headings and subheadings, which wouldn’t make any sense, anyway, I will simply relate an experience that I had a few days ago, when I was about half-way through the book.
I was putting gas in my truck at a convenience store, and as is my custom, was watching the people at the pumps and around the store. Two people caught my eye: a male vagrant/panhandler, and a female who I took to be a panhandler. They were standing around the door of the store, and because I had just read the chapter on biometric cues, I spotted a couple of anomalies immediately – before I even realized it, actually.
The man was pretty ratty-looking, but he was focused on his panhandling. He’d talk to people going in or coming out, but after a person rebuffed him or gave him something, he immediately shifted to someone else. A man gave him a candy bar or something, and he hustled over to his bags, sat down in the shade, and started eating. The woman, on the other hand, was pretty tough-looking, but not as scrawny and ratty as the man. In fact, she wasn’t missing many meals. She was putting on a clinic in combat profiling. I could never have asked for a better example.
She wasn’t talking to people, so she wasn’t panhandling. She would stare at people as they parked and entered the store, but ignored them when they came out. She actually moved away from contact a few times, which is covered in the section on proxemics. She was fidgeting and fussing with her face – more biometrics – but not in the obsessive, frantic way of a crack addict. She had a little pamphlet or paper of some kind which she made a half-hearted effort to pretend to read, but when a new person arrived at the store, she forgot about the paper altogether. Her upper body was tense, she kept her feet about shoulder width apart, and rather than turning just her head or torso to look in a different direction, she’d turn her feet, so they were always pointed where she was looking – more biometrics; she was tense and ready to flee or to fight. She was very alert in 360 degrees, a giveaway that she was either a “good guy” or a “bad guy,” but either way, she warranted watching. All of this was described in the book, right down to the smallest detail. Any one thing would have scarcely been noteworthy, but taken altogether, that gal was like a neon sign saying, “WATCH ME!” If I were a cop – or a Marine in Kandahar – I’d have far more than the three indicators necessary to trigger a response. I’d either be moving to contact and question her, or cuing my mates to cut off her retreat so we could capture her.
About that time a woman pulled up in an SUV and parked in front of the store. The “Demonstrator” – no other word for her – stared at her as she had everyone else. Then I noticed the woman had left her windows down. She hadn’t been in the store five seconds when the “target” quickly, but almost calmly reached in and snagged her purse. I whistled loudly and she just about jumped out of her socks! Considering how alert she’d been, I don’t know how she’d managed to miss seeing me watching her. Maybe it’s because I was in the shadows by the pumps and was leaning on the bed of my truck so only my head would have been visible. I thought she was going to bolt, but when I motioned her to put the purse back, she did, and then left at a brisk walk. (If I’d read the section on “Natural Lines of Drift,” and “Anchor Points,” I would have known to watch her all the way to her base of operation.)
I was amazed at how those two people illustrated so perfectly so many points from the book. If I hadn’t been a convert to the Combat Hunter before, this incident would have made me one. Before reading it, I would have noticed the man and the woman, but beyond that, I’d have had no idea what I was looking at. I’d have been hopelessly right of bang, and that’s bad place to be. I’ve read a lot of “new age,” “miracle” BS in my career in corporate America, and am quite cynical about new answers to questions no one has asked. “Left of Bang” is no such thing. It’s the real deal - The genuine article - Mental live ammunition.
The experienced combat profiler will have noticed that as I watched the “Demonstrator,” I, myself, did something right out of the book; I got so focused on my target that I lost track of the 15 or 20 other people at the station, even though some of them were within a few yards of me! When I read that part a few hours after getting home, all I could do was sit there and think, “Yup. Yer still a dope.”
As if my actual experience weren’t enough, the book and the doctrine on which it is based was approved and recommended by a friend who is a retired Marine Warrant Officer. He was a Battalion Gunner with the 7th Marines when the Combat Hunter program was inaugurated, and his opinion bears enormous weight.
For anyone who lives on Terra in the 21st Century, and lives in proximity to other people, I cannot recommend “Left of Bang” highly enough. Life is on the left side of bang. Death is to the right. The more good people are to the left, the better this crazy world will be.
Semper Fidelis.
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Five Stars
Best book ever!!! This should be mandatory reading for everyone in Law Enforcement.
Top reviews from other countries
Mr. M. K. Egan
In my "top ten" of survival books
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 1, 2020