I see that the long-running case involving the use of pentacles as gravemarkers in military cemetaries has concluded, with the Wiccans winning a concession from the Bush Administration. This is good news from my perspective: anyone who fought and died for America ought to be shown the utmost respect, to include allowing him to be buried under the symbol of his choice.
Over at Winds of Change, Australian blogger David Blue takes Bush to task over the long delay in resolving this, and for other reasons. I think Mr. Blue is perfectly correct in his general stance. We've discussed pagan religious rights here at various times since 2003. Here are a few of the highlights:
A series of posts on the founding traditions of the country --
Thomas Jefferson against the idea that America was founded on Christian principles (and he would know);
John Derbyshire and Roy Moore on the same question;
Paganism in schools and public places, and the Viking heritage in American legal traditions.
A post on Pagan charities that help the poor.
A post on Yuletide feasting that celebrates the old heathen heritage (right next to a message about the Pope's midnight Mass -- the juxtaposition seems natural to me, since the West is itself a juxtaposition of Christian and pagan traditions).
A post from 2005 taking "the Raving Atheist" to task for attacks on Forn Sidr, celebrating it somewhat, and holding forth against Atheism.
A post from 2005 on prayers at public meetings.
There's more if you want to prowl through the archives. I realize that Wicca is a little, er, whimsical in some of its historical claims. That said, there are serious issues at the back of all this, issues of freedom and tradition and one binding point of honor: the respect due to our war dead.
Congratulations to the victors, then.
Wicca Thing
Democrats debate
The AP notifies us that we can watch/read about the debate tonight between eight Democratic Party hopefuls. The article says:
For their first debate, the White House hopefuls are trying to dampen expectations for themselves so that any bright moments will seem like home runs.With the exception of Mr. Richardson, I'd have to say they've succeeded admirably. He needs to work harder -- I'm convinced he could be a real contender and a good President, which is apparently the opposite of what I'm meant to think.
Now, John Edwards and Barack Obama -- there are some guys who know how to lower your expectations!
What is Applied Research Laboratories doing, and why do they need $928 million dollars to do it with?
I'm just curious. Very curious.
When I get round to it, I'm going to put together a database of all these contracts, and what companies and where they are, and what congressional district they're in, and what contributions are being given by who to whom.
I want to see who is connected to who. I'm just curious, that's all.
Mike Totten and Patrick Lasswell have been driving all over Norther Iraq (otherwise known as Kurdistan) and file these two reports of the same incident with video from Kirkuk (which isn't really Kurdistan but probably will be someday):
Mike Totten
Patrick Lasswell
I sometimes wish cops could do this and not get fired for it in the US.
Sometimes a fool needs to be smacked upside the head.
Sometimes.
Totten and Lasswell are consistently posting interesting reports. They bear watching.
(hat tip to Instapundit)
The Winner
Some wise words from old Country music singer Bobby Bare:The hulk of a man with a beer in his hand he looked like a drunk old fool
That's advice for me and you, JarHeadDad. And maybe one or two others around here, although I suspect most of you are smarter than me. :)
And I knew if I hit him right why I could knock him off of that stool
But everybody they said watch out hey that's the Tiger Man McCool
He's had the whole lotta fights and he's always come out winner
-- yeah he's a winner --
But I had myself about five too many and I walked up tall and proud
I faced his back and I faced the fact that he had never stooped or bowed
I said Tiger Man you're a pussycat and a hush fell on the crowd
I said let's you and me go outside and see who's the winner
Well he gripped the bar with one big hairy hand then he braced against the wall
He slowly looked up from his beer my God that man was tall
He said boy I see you're a scrapper so just before you fall
I'm gonna tell you just a little bout what it means to be a winner
He said now you see these bright white smilin' teeth you know they ain't my own
Mine rolled away like Chicklets down the street in San Antone
But I left that person cursin' nursin' seven broken bones
And he only broke ah three of mine that makes me the winner
He said now behind this grin I got a steel pin that holds my jaw in place
A trophy of my most successful motorcycle race
And each morning when I wake and touch this scar across my face
It reminds me of all I got by bein' a winner
Now this broken back was the dyin' act of a handsome Harry Clay
That sticky Cincinnati night I stole his wife away
But that woman she gets uglier and she gets meaner every day
But I got her boy that's what makes me a winner
He said you gotta speak loud when you challenge me son cause it's hard for me to hear
With this twisted neck and these migraine pains and this big ole cauliflower ear
And if it wadn't for this glass eye of mine why I'd shed a happy tear
To think of all that you gonna get by bein' a winner
I got arthritic elbows boy I got dislocated knees
From pickin' fights with thunderstorms and chargin' into trees
And my nose been broke so often I might lose if I sneeze
And son you say you still wanna be a winner
Now you remind me a lotta my younger days with your knuckles a clenchin' white
But boy I'm gonna sit right here and sip this beer all night
And if there's somethin' that you gotta gain to prove by winnin' some silly fight
Well okay I quit I lose you're the winner
So I stumbled from that barroom not so tall and not so proud
And behind me I still hear the hoots of laughter of the crowd
But my eyes still see and my nose still works and my teeth're still in my mouth
And you know I guess that makes me the winner
ANZAC Scot
A hero and a Scot. Hat tip to bthun, who was kind enough to send the article.
Riding Instructor
Since Eric liked the dancing horse so much, I thought you folks might like to see the coolest horse in the world. There's a reason the spotlight stays on the horse when the guy walks away.
ISF training
Has the military changed priority away from training the ISF, as reported? No, says Bill Roggio. The military hasn't changed its priorities.
The decrease in the training of the Iraqi Security Forces Youssef is detecting is the first effect of delaying the FY07 supplemental budget. The money to train the Iraqi units has dried up.The military's leadership has mentioned this fact to Congress four times now, according to Bill's report -- a highly unusual move, given that the military rarely involves itself in matters that are in dispute between the legislative and executive branches.
The military's priorities are what they were. What are the politicians' priorities?
Baby Shower
Many of you will have heard the story of Marine Corporal DJ Emery.
Perhaps, to me, the most encouraging thing this week, and keep in mind that DJ probably doesn't know how bad his situation is (I doubt that he knows his legs have been amputated)...DJ was able to write one sentence...to tell his wife that he loved her. Through the drugs, the pain, the horror of what he's been through, deep inside, in his core...Semper Fidelis.Another thing he may not know is that he is now a father. Carlee Emery was born earlier this week. Joy cometh in the morning, Cassandra said.
All this you probably know. What you may not know is that there's a baby shower. FbL has the details, and suggestions should you wish to participate.
The Marines have stood by their injured comerade and his family in the best traditions of the service. If you'd like to be part of that, here's the link again.
Frustrated Young Men
Today, National Review linked to this article by Ed Hussain, a British Muslim ex-Islamist and his experiences in Saudi Arabia. What struck me about it was his account of frustration, especially sexual frustration, in the Kingdom (it matched the view I read in Carmen bin Ladin's Inside the Kingdom, which gives a complementary view of great frustration among the young women). (One of the frustrations of reading about dictatorships with no free press, and so no reliable statistics, is in wondering how typical all the anecdotes are - am I getting a picture of a country or of one or two social circles?)
My mind turned somewhat to war, and the role frustration plays in inspiring young men to it. One of the classics I love to return to is Harry Holbert Turney-High's Primitive War, a very wide-ranging survey by a very interesting character (an anthropologist - his fieldwork was among American Indians, including the Flathead - who was also one of our last horse cavalry officers). In his chapter on "Socio-Psychological Motives" for war, he devotes five pages to the role of war in frustration and tension - in particular, grief, frustration, being jilted or cuckolded, were good recruiters for the Plains Indian no-retreat societies (among the Crow, there was no "society," but a frustrated young man might simply "vow his body to the enemy" and do his darnedest to get killed in a heroic way in the next fight). Interestingly (and with a forthright judgmentalism you don't find much these days) he billed the Plains tribes as poor Soldiers and likely to flee from anything except certain victory or certain death, but gave credit to these no-retreat warriors for being otherwise. I'd have to spend time with the primary sources to tell you whether there's much record of how often social and sexual frustration led young men into these groups (some would stake their clothes to the ground to make sure they couldn't leave) - but it was certainly a part. We know how Shaka Zulu used the same force. This also fits with what I remember of late childhood and early adulthood -- fantasies of being killed, preferably after performing some dreadfully violent exploit (in a good cause, of course), were quite an effective release for the endless frustrations that can come with that time, or so I found them.
I can't demonstrate that this frustration is connected with any particular events in recent history (I haven't even read McDermott's Perfect Soldiers and don't know the life histories of the 9/11 hijackers, or what role personal frustrations played in their decisions to sign up for what they did. Maybe someone who does know will have something to say in comments). It's still awful to contemplate.
General Pace: You are being too diplomatic in this case.
“(We) don’t know how they got here. (We) don’t know if the Iranian government knows they are here. We just know that weapons made in Iran are here.”
After watching the video Grim pointed out here, I think I know how the weapons got there.
Its kind of annoying, watching dissembling like this.
Don't you think the Soviets were saying something similar when the stinger missles started showing up in Afghanistan in the 1980's?
My Hero - Again!
Greetings from me, Grim's wife. My nickname is Hyn, and you are all most welcome to refer to me so. I have not posted here before, and I shall not often do so, but please allow me a moment of your time to tell you of a small but momentous event in our house today.
I am an equine artist by profession. I have been working all week very late hours to finish up a major piece in time to ship it out today for a show this next weekend. So I have been pretty tired and worried about making the deadline. As a reward for my efforts, Grim (who is a very good cook) decided to make me fresh maple whole wheat bread, baked from scratch. The scent of this wonderful, huge loaf of fresh bread filled our log cabin with lusious aroma! Once cooled, I went into the great room, and to the kitchen attached within it, to finally help myself to this delightful treat while it was still warm enough to melt butter. That's when I heard a scrabbly, tapping noise combined with a thrum - above my head!
We like to leave our front and back doors open if the weather is especially nice. Unfortunately, we don't yet have screened doors to keep out the bugs. Now and then these really large, fat, long hornet looking things, about 2 inches long or more (!!!) fly in and get trapped up at the large bay windows high up above the main room and kitchen. These hum about and tap the glass incessantly until they either find the doors leading back out, or they die. Sometimes sparrows fly in and we have to shoo them out, and other times these cute little reddish wrens hop in and inspect the windowsills for spiders and flies and eat them, then fly out without the least bit of alarm when you walk up. Wrens are very smart about enclosed spaces, so they never get trapped in our cabin. Today, it was none of those more usual things.
Above my head was a most forlorn hummingbird, snared in a thick cobweb on the window sill. All I could see was it's wee little tail! I ran back out of the room and called for Grim - "There's a humming bird trapped in the house! Please help me get it out!" So he came to help and I dashed off to my art studio to try and find something to help me think of how to do it. When I came back a moment later, Grim was standing on top of the refrigerator and BLASTING the poor little hummingbird with a Super Soaker water cannon!!! To put it mildly, I freaked!
I got Grim to stop soaking the poor little, very, very paniced hummingbird. I asked him if he was out of his mind and he said that he wanted to wet it down enough so that it couldn't fly and would come down. (!!!) I tried to calm myself enough to think and explain why I thought that was a bad idea, hummingbirds being so sensitive and easy to panic to death! They have a very high metabolism and can burn themselves up past recovery. Not to mention that a soaking wet hummingbird can still fly just fine so I didn't think it would work. [As I attempted to point out at the time, what I was really trying to do was disturb it so it would abandon its fatal perch and try to find a different route. Not that it worked, although I remain convinced that if I'd just kept blasting it... -Grim]
I asked him to let it rest and leave it alone for a moment while we think of alternative methods. Something like a butterfly net taped to a long pole!
So I ran to find one of our young son's bug nets but found it to be awfully small. Then I remembered that when I was a reptile specialist we caught snakes and lizards that got loose and put them into pillowcases. I went and got a wire hanger from the closet and quickly stitched a pillowcase to the loop, then taped it to the longest pole we could find about the house - a heavy walking stick. If Grim stood on top of a chair, that was placed on top of the refrigerator, he could almost reach the ceiling - it's a very high peaked ceiling. The hummingbird was attracted to the light of the bay window so thankfully it was staying right over the refrigerator and very reluctant to venture away from that position. Grim tried to get the pillowcase over the wee tiny bird but it got pinned and shrieked the most unnerving screams pitifully! I yelled, "Don't smoosh it!" and Grim let it go. He tried again but the little bird kept in a panic.
The hummingbird would land, briefly exhausted, to cling on the side of the big beam that runs the length of the ceiling. Finally it landed against the pillowcase and prefered that easier perch to hang onto. Grim quickly lowered the make-shift catcher down to me and I flipped the hanging pillowcase over the frightened bird, then took the pole from Grim. I dashed out the back door and opened up the pillowcase then... poof! The hummingbird flitted off with a piping. Thankfully it wasn't so distressed that it didn't reccognize an escape when it saw one.
I was too concerned about getting the frightened bird loose that I forgot to even look at it. Alas, I don't know if it was a male or female, but we have many ruby throated hummers, and also black chinned hummingbirds here. They are difficult for me to tell apart anyway. I love to sit or lay down in my garden and read, or watch the hummingbirds. They feed at my flowers and the necter feeder, litterally inches from my face and oblivious to me if I don't move. So I was extremely happy and relieved when Grim, my Hero again today, recued that poor little bird!
To top things off, tonight we heard a noise outside. I opened the door and heard the quite unmistakable sound of a horse kicking or pawing metal, such as a water trough. It was very loud and coming from our neighbor's place across the street. Grim outfitted himself with a flashlight and a rope and went over to investigate. [This is the filly I call "Sneak," because she's always slipping up behind you on the hill to run down behind you and try to spook your horse. Turns out her real name is "Dixie." -Grim]
Luckily, nothing was wrong. The owners had just returned from a trail ride and the impatient filly was objecting to not having been unloaded yet. If she had been down and trapped, I have no doubt that Grim would have done his best to free her as well! That's the kind of day we have around here and I just wanted to share.
Thank you for saving my hummingbird, Grim. And the bread's good too! :}
~Hyn
No? Neither have I. But I have now, as I came across this video here today.
I think the horse is having a grand time.
COIN Gravity
Because of some large images, and the size of the post, I put up my COIN post at BlackFive. We can discuss it here as well, if you wish.
Bullfighting
We talked recently about some animal fighting sports, from the perspective of what their reduction in popularity might mean (an overall decline in human cruelty, or just the power of the current American culture to exert itself worldwide?). One of the ones you hear about most often in examples is bullfighting, which Americans often find mystifying. How could anyone want to watch the ritual torture of a bull?
My wife showed me this video this morning, which is enlightening on the point. It begins slowly, but the reason suddenly becomes obvious when first you see the bull, and realize that it means to kill the man and his mount.
The reason is cultural: specifically, it is the culture that arose from Medieval Spanish fighting traditions. It descends from the knighthood and other fighting men who arose in a world of violence and tamed it by force of arms. The bull is symbolic of the chaos and fury that the world often brings against us; and the men tame it, and feast on it, through the risk of their lives and the excellence of their skill.
That, and one thing more: the friendship of their horses. Watch the Lusitano steeds in that video, and you will appreciate the glory of Portugal's lost knighthood. Skill, prowess, fearlessness, and a willingness to engage the dangers of the world, all are on display in man and horse alike.
That is why bullfighting is popular in Spain and Portugal, and elsewhere. It is because, in spite of its cruelties, it hold up something fine that cannot be seen by any other light. The cultures that stage bullfights are celebrating their ancestry and the glory of their people. Seeing this, it is hard to say anything but: And well they ought.
St. George's Day
In keeping with the custom of the Hall, a few words of honor are in order about St. George, whom legends tell of as a dragon-slayer.
St. George is remembered as patron saint of both England and of the noble Order of the Garter. He is also remembered as patron of many other localities and professions.
Guns in Pakistan
You should really watch this video, of what is described as "the largest illegal arms market in the world." It's in the area under the control of the Afreedis in Pakistan -- I say "in Pakistan," although government control over the area is notional at best. I don't find the video alarming, as others seem to; I think you should watch it because it's a picture of the tribal society in the part of Pakistan that is sheltering the Taliban.
A friend of mine has spent a lot of time in Pakistan, and he told me years ago about this town. (I spoke to him again last week, and by coincidence this place came up in an unrelated conversation -- he thinks this is where Bin Laden probably is, given the power and strength of the Afreedis to protect him.) My friend was, as the filmaker is, totally impressed that these tribal villagers turn out military-grade firearms with nothing more than hand tools.
Well, it is impressive, as a show of skill. But it hasn't been that long ago that all firearms were made with hand tools -- and the technology really hasn't changed very much in many years. Any firearms made of metal and wood can be made by hand perfectly well.
It doesn't matter if you can make firearms out of scrap metal and wood; so can we, if we want to (and better ones, through the miracle of computer aided design). That's nothing to be alarmed about.
What is important, though, is to understand how to engage people like this. They're basically decent: "Lots of sons and lots of guns" is a fine motto for a man's life. The tribal clashes and gangs are a problem for them: visiting this town requires taking some armed friends along for mutual protection. Yet it hasn't been that long ago that much of Europe was the same way; the introduction to Dicken's "Tale of Two Cities" reminds us of that.
In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:" after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fir on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence.Allowing for dramatic license, that picture is not wholly inaccurate.
All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five.
The town shows the third-world combination of technology and poverty. Live animals roam the streets, destined to be dinner. Sanitation is not extant. But there are sparkly stickers to decorate vehicles, shiny toys, and the latest weapons they know how to manufacture with the most primitive tools. They are not haters of the world of the West, then: what they can get of it, they proudly display everywhere they can.
There is ignorance: a people who has learned to make these guns has not learned to understand them. They must know how the firearms operate since they know how to build them, but they seem not to have given any thought to the ramifications of that knowledge. The photo team finds bullets on the ground where they are walking, shattered from having been shot in the air and then falling to earth. The "place for shooting" is right over a busy street, firing without any thought for a backstop or other basic safety mechanism.
It should not be necessary to fight most of these people, even though they give shelter (for now) to people who have declared themselves our enemies. It should be possible to befriend them.
They are decent, and they want technology and its pleasures and comforts. They lack understanding we can bring them, which could improve their lives. We can see in the pictures that they also lack much of modern sanitation and health, which we can also provide.
What we need is a tribal-style client relationship with some of these tribes. We have plenty with which to purchase it; there is a great deal that we have to offer. They are plainly not religious zealots who hate all technology, however they may have been portrayed by those who haven't been out to see for themselves.
This is a place where our enemies have made a home for themselves, because it is disconnected from us and our laws and treaties. That need not be the case forever. Some of these enemies, sheltering there, have seduced their young men into the idea of fighting us as a path to glory. Most of them, though, remain there, making guns because guns are what they know how to make, and because there is a demand.
"How can you beat these people?" asks the narrarator. I have a different question: Why should you wish to?
We'll talk more about disaggregation in coming days; those promised COIN posts. This is a good place to start thinking about it, though. These seem like good folk; I like sons and guns myself. How to draw them away from those who are the enemies of the West, and create the client relationship that will let them receive America as an ally and friend?
Obit Warning
It's been about a year ago that I wrote a post called "Cowboy Obituaries." It celebrated the lives of two gentlemen who had died that week: the last founder of the Cowboy Artists of America, who had died in his saddle at 74, and Stuart Mazanec, who had done the same at seventeen.
I've written a lot at this point, about a lot of different topics. Once in a while, when you do that, you get email from people who are interested in what you write. Sometimes, it's someone important, whom you are always surprised to find interested in your own poor thoughts and words.
Tonight, I received an email from Stuart's mother.
We had a short conversation recently about the importance of kindness and civility. Let me add this to the weight of what we have already said. No one more important has ever written me. I never thought to write to tell her that I had said something about her son; I wouldn't have thought of intruding on her grief. I only wanted to celebrate a life well lived, though it ended at a tragic age.
I am glad that my words were a comfort to her, on the difficult first anniversary without her son. This is what I want say to you tonight, as a warning. These things you say here may have effects you don't anticipate or even imagine. Do right with your words, as you would with your actions. You may be surprised, as sometimes I have been, by the good that kind words can do.
DK on Malpractice
Joe pointed out in the comments to a post below this review by David Killcullen of a piece by Edward Luttwak. It is a good read.
I will have some more posts on COIN in the near future.
AL Wargame
Armed Liberal of Winds of Change submitted the following guest post to Grim's Hall.
Grim posts two scenarios:
1) I'm sitting in class, armed, and I hear shots and screams from the
corridor outside.
2) I'm sitting in class and a shooter walks in the door and starts
firing.
On scenario 2) I'd create a 2a) and 2b); In 2a), I'm armed with a
firearm, in 2b) I'm not.
Background: I'm a trained tactical shooter, and have participated in
shooting sports for twenty-some years. I've been trained at Gunsite
(multiple times), Thunder Ranch (multiple times), Insights (once) and had random classes from and competed with many of the loveable and wacky folks in the tactical shooting world. I'd estimate my proficiency as high-average for a law-enforcement officer (on good days, I can shoot with the SWAT guys).
I've actually run some of these scenarios in training, including force-on force, as well as in competitions, so I'm kind of cheating here.
So let me talk about 2b) first, which is the one that has the most connection to reality.
If I'm in a room and someone starts shooting, my response will depend on two things - where am I relative to the door and to the shooter, and whether I took my hero pills that day.
First, I'm going to do something - I've been in enough situations to know that I'll react. The base reaction ought to be to get out of the door, leaving the shooter in the room. I have an ambush position on him when he comes out, and since I always have a pocketknife or even a rollerball pen, at that range (ambushing him as he walks out a door), it's going to be advantage me.
If I can't do that - if I'm too far from the door, or he's between me and the door, I'm going to start throwing things. My laptop is perfect, books, pens, my cell phone, anything I can chuck at him while running toward him and yelling to encourage others to do the same thing. Part of what I want to do is change the group dynamics, and tip the 'flight, freeze, or fight' into 'fight'. Plus it takes time for him to break his pattern of action, and if I can get to him while he's busy aiming and shooting at someone else, the odds are he won't have time to refocus on me.
I want to close with him because if I can get within three or four feet of him, he'll have a hard time shooting me (again, I'm cheating - enough martial arts experience to know that I can knock most people down and have a pretty good shot at disarming them) plus if I can get him off his feet, I'm hoping others will come help sit on him.
Most people who get shot once by handguns don't die - unless the shooter has the luxury of enough time to deliver a coup de grace to the head. That's a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.
So we move to 2a), where he walks in but I'm armed. I draw my Glock 27, get out of the chair and kneel (if I'm shooting upward I worry less about hitting the people in back of him) and shoot him in the head. I've done pretty consistently this off a buzzer in about 2.5 - 3 seconds, so figure it's take me another three or five seconds to realize what's going on and react. So eight seconds after he walks in the door, he's dead. Assume I miss the first shot, and the second is .8 seconds behind it. Nine seconds for two shots. That's the best plausible case - probably a factor of two or more better than reality would be (ducking to get an angle for a shot, etc.). But note that he took ninety seconds or more in each classroom, so that's a relatively short time for him to be active.
How do I know I could do this? Let me take a moment and talk about fighting like you train.
The closest I ever came to being shot involved an unfortunate incident in which I arrived to my office at 3am in response to an alarm company call, walked into the courtyard, and saw two shadowy figures, one with a gun, on my office stairs. I was too far into the courtyard to retreat, so I drew my gun and yelled "Freeze! Police!" (I was, of course calling for the police, not representing myself as a police officer) and the figure with the gun turned toward me. I started the 'shoot' cycle, and as I focused on his chest, stil remember seeing the glint of a badge and releasing the trigger. We had a brief John Woo moment, and I did what I'd trained to do a million times. I holstered my gun, slowly raised my hands and said "I'm a good guy."
You'll note the colossally stupid thing I did - I reholstered my gun while looking down the barrel of the officer's gun. I did that because that's what I'd always done in class and in training when we did 'blue-on-blue' exercises. I was completely frightened - I recall being sure I was going to get shot and thinking "They aren't even going to get in trouble for this..." but still followed the pattern I'd built to the letter.
It (obviously) ended well, and I felt better when they explained that they'd been on foot which explained why I didn't see a patrol car when I drove up (I'd looked for either a police car or an obvious perp car, and would have driven away and called the police in either case).
So I'm pretty confident that I'm going to do whatever it is that I'm trained to do when the lights go up. And that anyone else would be likely to do so as well.
In Scenario 1, the first response is to close the door and move to a position where I can cover the door opening and shoot him as he walks in. I'll take a position along the wall to the side of the door that opens (the doorknob side) and get everyone to move into the far corner on the same side of the door as me. We're pretty solidly defensible at that point.
In another sidenote, while at Thunder Ranch we did an exercise in which five of us 'hunted' five others (no guns) within one of the training structures. It was pretty chilling to note that those who stayed in place and ambushed won 5:1 over those who moved and searched. So solo building clearing isn't high on my list of things to do in reality, unless there's a compelling reason. Staying put and setting ambushes is much more effective if what you want to do is kill the bad guy and survive yourself.
But - for the right reasons, like if my kid was in my house - I'd probably be willing to overlook those odds and gamble in part on the fact that I'm more motivated and better trained than whoever I'm hunting.
The interesting question - and one I genuinely couldn't answer - is whether I'd be willing to walk out of the room and go hunt the shooter. That's one of those random synapse click things, I imagine. So I can't really say whether I think I'd risk it all to be a hero. I might. I tend to wade into things before I think about them much. And then I might not, remembering the lesson I learned at Thunder Ranch.
I'd certainly defend myself and those immediately around me (can't defend me without defending them). I might go after him and try and defend more people - but I really can't say for certain. I wish I could. But I also know for certain that I'd be doing everything in my power not to be a victim.