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I’m writing this in June of 2021 but I’m gonna backdate it so it looks like I did it back when this issue of RECOIL actually ran. I recently* wrote an article about a really solid dude who spent a lifetime in the service of our country: Frankie McRae. Frankie, a former Army Ranger, Special Forces (i.e. Green Beret) SNCO, and a man who was helping stand up Iraq’s ICTF who runs Range 37PSR near Ft. Bragg and also Raidon Tactics.

First I was happy to be his student, then chuffed to be his interviewer, then honored to be his friend.

There was a preview on RECOILweb.com, but it’s since been taken down. Frankie posted it on their website, though, so you can read it there.

“I say, as Americans, we all fight that evil every day, by being good citizens and good examples to the rest of the world. America has saved the world in the past. One day we’ll have to do that again. The world is calling on us now and we are not answering that call.” FM

Trigger warning for hippies, sissies, melodramatic and/or megalomaniacal social justice warriors, and others who engage in silly fuckery: Frankie McRae is unabashedly American, an unashamedly a man of faith, and usually the most dangerous man in the room. If the fact that Americans can (and have in the past) save the world, or that some people do need killin’, and or even that sometimes your best bet is to run away from a fight bothers you — just don’t read the article, yeah?

Somewhere I have pictures of Frankie training me and, more importantly, my niece. I’ll see if I can dig ’em up.

Meantime, read Fight Professor.

The Three Fights

There are three fights you’ll have to deal with.

Number one is the emotional fight. So many Americans are taught it’s wrong to kill. There’s a difference between killing and murder. There’s a moral obligation or that religious part that some people cannot get past. You have to decide long before you get into a situation, make up your mind now not then, that I’m going to use whatever force I have available to me to win this fight.

You have to have full conviction in your heart and mind about survival, that you can wound or maim or kill. Make it right with your
God and your morals. That’s the emotional/spiritual fight.

The second is the actual physical fight. It tests your skills and your endurance. That’s what we learn our skills on the range for, why we train with our weapon systems, our hands, our head, our teeth … that’s why we teach how to gouge eyes and bite. You also prepare
for the physical fight with medical skills and hardening. When you have skills, it opens up avenues of egress.

Number three is the legal fight. That will come. As an expert witness on more than one trial for U.S. Service members charged with first-degree murder for killing Afghani terrorists and combatants, I’ve seen the aftermath of the financial burden placed on soldiers.

The average cost was $180,000, that they had to pay out of pocket for legal defense. If they’ll prosecute a soldier, they sure as hell will prosecute a civilian if the local government is at all liberal. There are other legal aspects to look at as well. The legal use of force
may be justified, but a missed shot that hits someone else can be devastating to the whole family…

Frankie McRae

 

 

*Not really, that was like, five years ago. Before I even started this site.