Is Jim Wagner a Fake Self Defense Instructor?
Is Jim Wagner a Liar?
There is a German expression that goes, “With much honor, much enemies.” I have trained literally thousands of people how to defend themselves in a wide variety of conflict situations; from Special Forces operators of various countries to housewives and businessmen. In over two decades of teaching I have only had one person complain about one of my courses, and that was a young man who said that I should not use the Reality-Based Impact Head created by Ray Long, which is an innovative striking glove shaped like a human head, because it hurt his hand. He lasted all but three hours in my Defensive Tactics course in Los Angeles in 2009. However, all my other students over the years have paid me honor for teaching them, and many organizations have given me certificates and letters of appreciation; including some of the most elite police and military units in the world. Therefore, to fulfill the German proverb, throughout my self-defense teaching career I have also had my share of enemies. Of course these enemies are men who have never studied under me, and in most cases, men I have never met before. And, I’ll admit, I have had a few people I have worked with who I have called “friend” in the past only to have them back stab me to make a name for themselves.
For over a decade I have become a well-known martial arts instructor worldwide. Black Belt magazine in the United States and Budo magazine in Europe credit me for having started the “reality-based” self-defense movement: the mixture of the martial arts, military tactics, police tactics, and corrections tactics; this of course includes the techniques and methods used by criminals and terrorists; “know your enemy.” It was because of my unique background that I was able to bring so many sciences together, and today self-defense schools across the world are following my example. My articles have been published globally in many languages, and I have several books and over 30 training DVDs on the market today under various labels. My life’s work has impacted thousands of admirers who have changed the way they train and work, and a good number of my students have even written me personally saying that what I taught them has actually saved their lives. Yet, with success comes jealousy and envy. Any politician, movie star, wealthy business owner, or even a high school class president can tell you that. Anyone in the lime light will have the gossip spreaders. It comes with the territory.
In the last five years I have been the target of character assassination through a few websites and blogs. In these past five years, now going on six, I have only addressed the topic once a couple of years ago on my website, and that was with a generic statement that mentioned no names and no websites. Today I am breaking that silence, and I will address the major accusations a few bloggers, or shall we say competitors, have railed against me. However, I will not name names of these individuals, since that is exactly what they want. Some people cannot become known through their own merits, and cannot gain the respected they are after for their talents, so they seek the notoriety by becoming infamous. The Internet has afforded these types of people a speaking platform that legitimate magazines and news agencies would never grant them.
Competitors start attacks
Early in 2003 W.R. Mann, the publisher of the Internet publication www.realfighting.com, invited me to teach in New York City at the Fighthouse. I accepted the invitation and taught my five-day Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection Level 1 seminar. W.R. Mann attended the five courses and become a certified Level 1 instructor on August 25, 2003. Soon afterwards W.R. Mann wrote an article about his experiences in the seminar and posted it on his website, which was gaining quite a following at the time.
W.R. Mann has traveled the world studying various martial arts systems, and has had to use his skills to save his neck one more than one occasion. He is a man who truly understands the gulf that exists between reality-based training and those who claim to teach self-defense, but religiously adhere to methods and techniques that do not change with the times. As such, W.R. became a firm believer in my system and put his support behind it.
In 2004, several months after the New York City seminar, W.R. Mann received a phone call from a self-defense instructor who was starting to make a name for himself. The individual claimed:
1. Jim Wagner did not invent “reality-based self-defense,” but rather it was he who did, and that Jim Wagner had stolen his ideas.
2. Jim Wagner was never a “sky marshal.”
3. Jim Wagner never trained the GSG9. The caller said that he, “met a GSG9 police officer in Munich, and that this unnamed officer had never heard of Jim Wagner.”
W.R. Mann responded, “I don’t think Jim would lie about these things.” The caller was irate, and W.R. told him that the story would not be retracted.
W.R. Mann received a second phone call days later from the same voice identifying himself as the same person. The caller demanded once again that he retract his story about me and my system. W.R. Mann refused the request, told the caller that he was “a nut,” and hung up the phone on him. W.R. Mann immediately called me and informed me about the two phone calls that he had received. This was the first time that I had ever heard of this person.
I have known W.R. now for seven years, and I see him almost every time I am in New York City, and I just had dinner with him in Manhattan on August 25, 2010 at E.A.T. restaurant, and I have known W.R. to be a candid and honest man.
I was deeply offended by this caller because he was calling me a liar on three counts. This man did not come to me first to confirm or disprove his accusations, but he went directly to a publisher of an online magazine. When I finally went to the man’s website it was obvious that he was a competitor who also had a law enforcement background. As a law enforcement officer myself I found it hard to believe that a former detective was unable to find out some basic facts about my background. I knew that no former detective could be that incompetent so I sent an email immediately to his website telling him that I believed that somebody had called W.R. Mann using his name, posing as him, and making accusations about me. I wrote that someone of his caliber could not have possibly been the caller.
My intention was to warn the “real instructor” of the incident through an official website. I had found out through this website that the man in question had been teaching self-defense for many years, and I just knew that no respectable instructor would make such a call. I never received a reply to my email.
Regardless, the three accusations against me were false, and here is the answer to all three of them:
1. I was the first self-defense instructor to coin the term “reality-based martial arts,” “reality-based self-defense,” and “Reality-Based Personal Protection,” which became the name of my own original system. The first time the phrase “Reality-Based” in association with the martial arts is used is in the January 2001 issue of Budoka published in the country of Finland. The front cover headline read REALITY BASED – LAJIT SUOMEEN, and it was an article written by me covering the story on how I was hired by the Helsinki Police Department to train their Defensive Tactics instructors. I then started using the phrase “reality-based self-defense” in articles I was writing for my monthly column HIGH RISK in Black Belt magazine (USA) and regularly submitted articles in Budo magazine (Europe). On January 21, 2003 I created my own system and named it Jim Wagner Reality-Based Self-Defense, then at the end March I changed the name to Reality-Based Personal Protection. The idea of the words “personal protection” came from my very first civilian student Patrick Cumiskey of Ireland. I am unaware of the man who called W.R., or anyone else, using the terms “reality-based self-defense” or “reality-based personal protection” prior to the 2001 issue of Budoka, and if those terms had been used then I was totally unaware of it.
2. I was a Federal Agent with the United States Federal Air Marshal Service Los Angeles Field Office from March to September 2002. I was on 146 missions. This can be verified through the United States government.
3. I was a certified instructor for the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers (instructor number 010158 since October 25, 1996) and I trained an international group of police officers that included Grenzschutzgruppe 9 (GSG9) Defensive Tactics chief instructor Master Sergeant Schweinte in police knife survival tactics in Los Angeles, California in late 1998; a program that I created. Germany’s national counterterrorist team GSG9, through Sergeant Schweinte, wanted the same knife defense program and hired me to teach it to them along with Defensive Tactics and SWAT tactics in November 1999. The contract was through my own training company HSS International, Inc., for which I was one of the four founders and owned one fourth of the corporate stock. I took two of my assistant instructors with me: Jim Grady of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and Chris St-Jacques of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Impressed with the material that I had taught them GSG9 invited me back in 2000 to teach SWAT tactics, live-fire weapons training, and aircraft interdiction. I went to Germany alone, and I taught the course alone. Both times I taught in Germany I met with GSG9 Commander Friedrich Eichele. In 2010, I was given permission by the current GSG9 Commander to represent GSG9 in the United States for a television interview.
On August 2, 2008 W.R. Mann wrote me and commented on the material that he had read on the accusing instructor’s website:
Hey Jim,
He went nuts on you, he’s obviously envious of everything you’ve been doing. It shows so much unprofessionalism on his part.
WR
On August 20, 2008 W.R. emailed me once again. A person, first name of “Mark,” emailed W.R. to inform him that I was not willing to answer questions about my background, and why was he was still “hosting” me on www.realfighting.com. W.R. wrote him the following response and gave me permission to publish his answer:
Dear Mark,
I know Jim personally and have always found him to be forthright and honest. He teaches a wide variety of interesting and useful programs and has introduced the first comprehensive and cohesive reality-based courses anywhere.
Even though I have studied most, if not all styles of fighting (from time to time), I still found much useful information through his coursework that no one else teaches.
I have found people who criticize him (as well as other instructors I know) to be shallow, envious and don’t have much of a life. These people spend countless hours in chat groups instead of spending constructive time practicing. Individuals that lead a productive and useful life don’t have time to sit in the shadows and criticize others for their personal gain. Yes, I host several of his articles because they offer valuable insights into the reality-based life. The best thing to do is to call Jim and ask him yourself. Better yet, attend one of his seminars and see for yourself.
WR
Of course this person never contacted me, nor did he attend one of my courses. It was obvious to W.R., and to me, that he wanted W.R. to pull all of my articles from www.realfighting.com. Of course, W.R. has attended many of my courses and he has seen with his own eyes my courses filled with East Coast federal, state, and local law enforcement officers, as well as military personnel. He has also seen well known instructors from that region come to me. W.R. calls it like he sees it, and he stands by what he knows to be the truth.
In 2009 I found out that this competitor in question did indeed contact W.R. Mann about me. This same instructor sent a sent a letter to Black Belt magazine, a letter to the editor, that was published once again criticizing me.
Back to the year 2006, this competitor begins to write a steady steam of blogs on his own website stating that I had lied about my military, police, and martial arts background. This was the second set of accusations, which included:
1. Jim Wagner was never a full-time police officer.
2. Jim Wagner never went to a “real police academy like the Los Angeles Police Department.”
3. Jim Wagner never studied under Dan Inosanto.
4. Jim Wagner never received a “black belt.”
My official response to this competitor’s accusations is:
1. I was a full-time sworn police officer with the Costa Mesa Police Department in California obtaining the rank of corporal (senior police officer) with an Intermediate Police Officers Standards & Training Certificate for Municipal Police (a certificate obtained through 5 years of continuous full-time service and required 5 years of Advanced Officer Training); badge number 414. I then served as a Level 1 Designate Reserve Officer (full police powers) through Costa Mesa P.D. for several months and then with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in the same capacity obtaining the rank of Sergeant. Total time as a sworn peace officer: 10 years.
2. I graduated from the Orange Country Sheriff’s Department Training Academy, Class 104, after 21 weeks of study and testing on June 21, 1991. This academy is under the same Police Officers Standards & Training authority as the Los Angeles Police Department Academy. In fact, I went through one of the only six Stress Academies (paramilitary style training) at the time in the state of California.
3. I began training with Dan Inosanto in 1978 at the Aspen Academy of Martial Arts in Aspen, Colorado and then joined the Filipino Kali Academy in Torrance, California under Dan Inosanto. I trained on and off with Dan Inosanto until 1988 ending at the Inosanto Academy in Marina Del Ray, California.
4. My “highest rank” obtained in a civilian traditional martial art was a green belt in the Japan Karate Do Ryobu Kai system. Once I began to study with Dan Inosanto at the age of 16 there was no belt system at the Filipino Kali Academy. I adopted the school’s philosophy that “belts were only good for holding up your pants,” and remained a white belt in all subsequent traditional-based martial arts that I studied throughout the years: Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, and Kung-fu. Other systems I studied which also did not have a belt system included: Western boxing, Greco-Roman wrestling, Krav Maga, HISARDUT, KAPAP, Thai Kick Boxing, French Savate, Police Defensive Tactics, and military Combatives.
Then this competitor openly solicits his blog readers to come forward with any information they had me; especially anyone who had served with me in the military or police, or anyone who took a course from me personally. The competitor gone full-time-writer then claimed that “Jim Wagner is under investigation.” However, he does not name any governmental authorities were involved. His investigators were fellow bloggers and websites he convinced to go along with his witch hunt.
England joins in on the attacks
On July 15, 2008 another competitor living in the United Kingdom, connected to the first competitor, posted accusations against me on the first trouble maker’s website; in other words, they were feeding off of each other. Of course, this newest attack came right on the heels as the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection system was gaining popularity in the UK. Like the first guy, this second man had never met me nor has he taken any of my courses. The initial accusations of this second competitor included:
1. “Wagner claims he taught the DEA. This is an outright lie!”
2. “His out and out deception about the sniper credential from the Marines is foolhardy to say the least; I have already had this certificate claimed as a fake from the U.S. Marine detachment in London.”
3. “He claims he was in a combat unit in the U.S. Military, but served less than four months in a non combat role.”
My official response to these United Kingdom accusations has been, and always will be:
1. I was an officially contracted instructor for the Drug Enforcement Administration San Diego Office; hired three different times.
2. On my website I have a certificate that was presented to me by Chief Instructor Sergeant Parisi of the 1st Marine Division Scout Sniper School on January 5, 1993. This certificate was for a three day Advanced Sniper Course that I attended. On my website I also have a photograph of all of the Marine instructors (SGT Parisi, SGT Poor, SGT Reidsma, and SGT Braumbaugh) along with all of the students (including me) standing in front of the Scout Sniper sign and building. Participating members were all law enforcement officers from several Southern California agencies. Since there could have been some issues dealing with the Posse Comitatus Act (United States federal law 18 U.S.C. § 1385 substantially limiting the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement) Scout Sniper School issued their own in-house certificate to us law enforcement officers. In the early 1990s there was a fare amount of cross training between law enforcement and the military. Due to Low Intensity Conflicts around the world the United States military, specifically the U.S. Marine Corps, was seeking to learn civilian SWAT tactics, and due to increasing gun violence in American cities law enforcement agencies were seeking military small unit tactics for civilian applications. Most of this type of training was kept at “mid management” level. After 9/11, and the continuing threat of terrorism, joint training between law enforcement agencies and the military has become commonplace. All of the participants who attended this course at Camp Pendleton were already trained in police snipercraft, and thus the title of the course “Advanced Sniper Course.” It was just that, advanced training. The certificate is authentic, and testifies to the training provided by the United States Marine Corps. However, this certificate does not take in account my hundreds of hours of training with Scout Sniper School on shooting ranges, in the fields, or in the classroom where no certificates were issued. I was fortunate to have participated in every phase of sniper training with the Marines: ballistics, camouflage, movement, spotting, tactics, and lots of range time spanning a few years.
Of course, this same competitor never challenged the Letter of Appreciation from Scout Sniper School, Division Schools, (on my website) signed by First Lieutenant T.C. West on February 11, 1994. The letter thanks me for my assistance from June 29, 1993 to January 5, 1994 (six months) in training police and military personnel at Camp Pendleton.
3. In 1981 I served with the HHC 43rd Engineer Battalion (Combat, Heavy) at Fort Benning, Georgia as a combat radio operator. A combat engineer performs a variety of combat engineering duties: including bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, demolitions, field defenses, and building, road and airfield construction and repair.
Black Belt Magazine Attacked
As if the attacks against me were not enough, the original competitor who single handedly started the Internet smear campaign against me, started attacking those who worked with me starting with Black Belt magazine. He openly criticized Black Belt magazine’s Chief Editor Robert Young for running my monthly column HIGH RISK, a column I had been writing since the beginning of 1999. Then he went after the company that has me design knives for them, Boker knife manufacture, and told the world that they too had “been fooled by Jim Wagner,” and that “Jim Wagner’s knife designs are not original, but copied.” Black Belt magazine ignored these rants, and Boker requested that I design them more knives for the world market. Sales of Jim Wagner Reality Based Blades increased.
Budo International attacked
If Black Belt magazine was a target, so was Budo International that publishes several popular foreign language martial arts magazines in Europe, and who has been having me write for them and do books and DVDs since 2000. Because of Budo’s support of me the same old blogger-competitors went after Alfredo Tucci, the publisher, the same way they went after Robert Young.
The accusations were the same as the ones they leveled against Black Belt magazine: “Budo was covering up for Wagner,” “Wagner was paying Budo a lot of money, so they were afraid of cutting Wagner off,” and “Wagner has everybody fooled.” Apparently the only ones who can uncover “truth” were the bloggers. The publications all seem to be in the dark (sarcasm).
Tucci’s response to the accusations was, “These guys are shit!” Those were his exact words. He was tired of their attempts at destroying his hard work; especially when he had tried to help a couple of these same critics make a name for themselves in the martial arts world. It was not Tucci’s fault that their material was not in demand. The result of their attacks against me was a personal request from Tucci for me to continue to write books and make more DVDs for Budo. My newest book about military knife fighting is coming out in a few months in a few languages.
P.O.W. Network attack
The one website I will name in this article is the P.O.W. (Prisoner Of War) Network website (http://www.pownetwork.org), which began their attack against me in May 2008. This site is run by a husband and wife team; two people I have never met, and two people who never once contacted me to verify their information.
This supposedly “patriotic” website placed me in a section titled Phonies & Wannabees (http://www.pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies1292.htm) under More Reported Claims, under the letter W [1]. As of August 21, 2010 the entry about me on their website reads:
05/2008
WAGNER, JAMES Huntington Beach/Irvine CA
1. Is shown on the cover of multiple magazines in what appears to be a U.S. Army Uniform including rank.
2. Is using the Marine Sniper School at Pendleton as a reference but was never a Marine.
3. Has a non governmental Marne Sniper Certificate, linked here, http://www.jimwagnertraining.com/aboutjimwagner/documentation.html and attached below.
4. Constantly refers to himself as Sergeant in reference to his military background while in a military uniform when he has produced no DD 214 to verify rank or service.
I found out that I was placed on this website when I was teaching in Devon, England and one of my students said that he read on a Talk Forum that I was being “investigated” and that I was on pownetwork.org. Needless to say, as a veteran, and still serving my country today, I was furious.
I immediately wrote to pownetwork.org and responded to each of their implied accusations. They added my rebuttal to the entry where it stayed for several months. P.O.W. Network then deleted my rebuttal, but refused to state why.
Their entry, although amateurish and grammatically incorrect, are statements that leaves the reader to believe that I am a liar, and thus a “phony and a wannabee (someone who wants to be something they are not).”
My response to P.O.W. Network is the same now, as it was then:
1. I appeared on the front cover of Black Belt magazine (February 2008 issue) and the front cover of Blitz magazine (Australia) in my official Army Combat Uniform as authorized by the California Department of Military. As a Combatives instructor for the California State Military Reserve assigned to a Military Police unit I was given permission by Brigadier General Hagan to appear in Black Belt magazine, and Black Belt magazine provided the photographs to Blitz magazine. My chain-of-command saw it as an important recruiting tool, and ultimately it succeeded in gaining new recruits in the State of California.
2. I often refer to my many years training with, and instructing for, the United States Marine Corps; mostly of which was at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California. I have received military training on-site from Special Operations Training Group (SOTG), Scout Sniper School, Military Operations Urban Terrain (MOUT) Helicopter Rope Suspension Training (HRST), and Longrifle (Range Safety Officer). I have also taught many courses at Camp Pendleton to Marine and law enforcement personnel including: Military Operations Urban Terrain, sniper courses, Combatives, Hostage Rescue, Bus Assault, Special Operations, and numerous live-fire training.
With their ambiguous wording P.O.W. Network, whether intentionally or unintentionally, can lead people to believe that I have claimed to be a U.S. Marine in the past. For the record, I have never claimed to be a U.S. Marine; neither in my courses, in my articles, books, or my DVDs.
3. A few of the blogger/competitors were the first to blog that my Marine certificate was a fake when one of them wrote, “I have already had this certificate claimed as a fake from the U.S. Marine detachment in London.” Then P.O.W. Network also chooses to highlight this particular certificate out of the many other police and military certificates I have posted on my official website. Of course the accuser never gave his readers the name of the U.S. Marine in London disputing its authenticity. However, the certificate is what Chief Instructor Sergeant Parisi of Scout Sniper School presented me with, along with the other law enforcement sniper students who attended the Advance Sniper Course, and I have addressed this issue at length.
4. At the time of the photo shoot for Black Belt magazine I was a Sergeant E-5 appointed to that military rank by order of Governor Arnold Swartzenegger. This record could have, and can be now, easily confirmed with the California Department of Military; a fact that P.O.W. Network omits on their entry about me. Before that, I held the rank of sergeant with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (Reserves) 2000-2002. On my DD214 in 1981 I was an E-2, and at no time did I ever claim I held the rank of sergeant when I first served my country in the U.S. Army Regular. For some people rank means everything to them, but for me it really does not define who I am, nor does it have any significance for self-defense training.
P.O.W. Network claims to be a legitimate investigating organization, but based upon their misleading statements about me I wonder how many other reputations they have soiled unjustly without verifying their sources and the accuracy of their information. After I wrote my rebuttal they simply posted it upon their website, but never once contacted me, the United States Marine Corps, or the California Department of Military to confirm or disprove their information about me. Then, for some unknown reason, they took my rebuttal off of their website leaving me with no means to defend my reputation. Yet, this same organization which prides themselves on their patriotism and their self-proclaimed duty to point out frauds, and an organization that solicits donations from military veterans, continues almost three years later to mislead people. Despite verifiable facts about my background, and no evidence to the contrary (recordings, publications, or legal depositions) P.O.W. Network continues to label me as a “Phonies & Wannabees,” without any justification whatsoever.
For an organization that claims to protect and honor veterans, they are not protecting or honoring this veteran who not only served in the past, and received an Honorable Discharge from the United States Army, but continues to this day to train men and women of the United States Armed Forces. Such an organization does not deserve donations, but condemnation and rebuke.
Attacks from another “Ugly American”
A recent newcomer to the mud slinging, a man who actually brags about destroying people’s reputations as if it were a sport, is the most disturbing, and the most vicious, blogger of them all. This man is also connected with the small circle of competitors who started it all, and they all feed directly from the same filthy trough. Even law enforcement officials say that this particular man is worth keeping an eye on, especially after a morbid posting that was made on April 28, 2009 at 10:54:49 a.m. that predicts my death, and which this man commented on gleefully.
Within a three hour time period this posting appeared on other websites, and coincidently, on competitor’s websites that have been going after me for years.
It seems that the worst cyber attackers are Americans who think that if I am out there teaching my Reality-Based system that there will not be any pie left for them. Such people think that there is a limited market, and if a competitor is doing well there won’t be enough business for them. Of course, this is simply not true. The market out there, the people who want to learn real self-defense, is unlimited. Most self-defense instructors just not know how to tap into the market. People are coming to my system for one reason only – it is a good product.
When I am in Europe, Australia, or other parts of the world many of my students ask, “What is wrong with those American instructors who are criticizing you?” They are shocked at just how sleazy some Americans can be, and of course this is embarrassing for me and my country. Of course, I tell them that this is just a handful of jealous men who obviously have a lot of time on their hands. The bottom line is I don’t know why people do this. I understand good healthy competition, but I have never understood what would motivate a competitor to attack a person’s character; especially on the Internet for the entire world to see. There is only one word that can best describe it, and that is “hatred.” You must really have to hate someone to go to those lengths.
Of course my answer to my competitors’ problems is, “have a better product.” It’s that simple. There are enough students out there who need self-defense training for everyone. However, my critics have a hard time convincing people that my techniques or training methods are bad. There is virtually nothing on these websites and blog sites criticizing what I teach. After all, if they slammed what I teach then they would also have to point the finger at some of the world’s elite police and military units for hiring me. They don’t really want to call GSG9, the U.S. Marine Corps, or the others “stupid” or “fooled.” No, the only way they though they could bring down the Reality-Based Personal Protection system, and the reality-based movement, was to attack me personally, and my background. If they could convince people that I lied about my background, then just maybe there would be enough doubt to persuade people to turn away and find someone else. The lies and accusations that they put out there could never answer the question as to why so many police, corrections, military, security companies, bodyguard schools, and civilians sought after Jim Wagner’s teachings, but at least would do some sort of damage, even if it is miniscule Therefore, to put this to rest once and for all, I shall now go into some detail about my professional background.
Extraordinary Background
When I was a United States Federal Air Marshal serving in the Los Angeles Field Office in 2002 the chief defensive tactics instructor told a group of agents at the shooting range, behind my back of course but intercepted one of my team members, “Wagner could not possibly have done all of the things that he claims to have done. No one man could have done all of that.” This same man knew that I had more training and real-world experience over him and his clique, and he made darn sure that I was kept off of the defensive tactics cadre. He didn’t want me to teach. If he had bothered to go to the Assistant Special Agent in Charge to look into my personnel file he would have seen a folder thicker than all of his “hand picked” team combined stuffed with police and military certificates and letters of appreciations; some of the same documentation that martial arts gossip websites insist are “phony” that are posted on my website.
I understood why this misinformed federal instructor thought that I couldn’t have possibly had all of the experience that I actually had. The average law enforcement officer stays at one agency all of his or her career, and sometimes laterals over to another if the offer is good or someone they know entices them there. Rarely do law enforcement officers leave an organization to “start over.” They don’t want to give up their seniority, their hard earned rank, or their status. Many of the men I knew twenty years ago at the Costa Mesa Police Department, where I served from 1988 to 1999, are still there or just about ready to retire after serving two decades. There is nothing wrong with staying in one place for an entire career, for it is by far a more stable life style, but that road wasn’t for me.
When I had my police officer badge presented to me by Captain Rick Johnson in June of 1991 I had every expectation of staying with the Costa Mesa Police Department for twenty years. Then only a year later I, along with three other police officers, started a police and military training organization called Hike Stalk Shoot later to be renamed HSS International, Inc. Each of us founders owned 25% of the stock when we incorporated.
To our delight our company grew leaps and bounds almost immediately. It grew much faster than the four of us had ever imagined, and then only a couple of years later we expanded internationally. I was in charge of the international division.
Although I was still working full-time as a cop during the time, HSS was my venue into some of the best training in the world with elite teams all over the globe. One of my partners was the corporation’s administrator and held the purse strings, and the other two were the SWAT experts who taught me more about SWAT tactics than my own department did. It wasn’t long before I was assisting them in numerous training events, and then a couple of years later they plugged me in as a primary instructor on a regular basis.
Capitulating to the strong demand HSS was receiving at training events I developed our combatives programs, edged weapons defense program, and eventually took over the protective services program. From 1992 to the end of 2002, ten long exciting years, I also taught sniper courses, live-fire small arms courses, SWAT courses, command post operations courses, and waterborne operations courses; not to mention vehicle, bus, train, and aircraft assault courses. Yet, it was a two-way street. When I was invited to teach my courses I always picked the brains of my students as well. From counterterrorist unit GSG9 I learned how to be a better sniper, from the Israeli Border Police I became more comfortable with foreign weapons, through the Honolulu Police SWAT I learned how to better scale a Gas & Oil Platform in cold dark swells, from the U.S. Marines I perfected my pistol and assault rifle skills, from the U.S. Air Force Security Forces I learned about assaulting military aircraft, from the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group I learned how to coordinate multiple agency training events, and this lists goes on. I too was a sponge.
During this golden decade all of my students knew that I loved jumping into the fray and going full-contact anytime I could. I can’t tell you how many times I was in a Redman or FIST suit going up against tough marines, soldiers, and hard charging cops.
My critics would have people believe that in my past company and my current one that I was teaching civilian courses at the time where only “one or two professionals attended” even though I didn’t start teaching my civilian Reality-Based system until 2003. Of course these mosquitoes that feed off larger hosts make no attempt to say why I was at the Helsinki Police Department, Whidbey Island Naval Weapons Base, Camp Pendleton, U.S. Marshals Office Washington D.C., German Federal Police Academy, San Diego Police Department, California State Prisons, and dozens of other police and military bases. The age-old smear tactic is to throw some accusations against the wall and hope it sticks. Robert Young, Chief Editor of Black Belt magazine, never once believed the libel on these unsavory sites because he himself came to one of my courses at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in 1999 when we first started working together. He saw the high quality of my courses when I was teaching the U.S. Marshals Service (Fugitive Task Force, Prisoner Transportation and Special Operations Group) and U.S. Marines in combatives. Yet, in the past few years the blind-to-truth bloggers have also attacked anyone associated with me, including Robert Young who they say is “covering up for Wagner because they have invested too much money in him.” They assume Black Belt magazine knew nothing of my background before hiring me to write for them, and that I “duped” the publisher, but they never knew Robert Young saw with his own eyes my training and met many of the people I worked with over the years. I was always inviting Robert to sniper courses and other tactical courses. They don’t realized that at the TREXPO 2009 Law Enforcement Conference that Black Belt employee Rachelle Lagnado witnessed dozens of police officers and trainers from as many agencies come up to me who I had worked with professionally or taught for. Rachelle commented, “Wow Jim, everybody knows you here.” They have also attacked Budo publisher Alfredo Tucci for printing my articles and producing books and DVDs, but they don’t realize that I met Alfredo through a Spanish counterterrorist team who suggested to him that he seriously look into my reality-based ideas that nobody else was doing at the time. The critics also don’t realize the support I had support from a Madrid police chief and several police agencies that I trained, along with instructors from the Spanish Special Forces. They don’t see this because they don’t want to see this. This is all part of my history that the enemies of Reality-Based never wanted you to know.
I admit, I was burning the candle at both ends and in 1998 I resigned as a full-time police officer, and I became a Reserve Police Officer in order to teach all over the world full-time starting with my first gig in Spain. I loved learning about anything tactical, and I loved teaching, and yet I still had a passion for police work – I still do. However, my couch critics fail to mention in their gossip columns that I was able to keep my nose clean as a corrections officer for 2 years and as a full-time cop for 8 years. Sure, I had my fair share of Internal Affairs investigations that amounted to nothing like most cops who have high arrest numbers, and I butted heads with a few micro-managing supervisors from time to time, but nothing was out of the ordinary. I was just another body in blue keeping the streets safe.
During that 9 year time period the only real significant pissing match I had was after serving three years on the Costa Mesa Police SWAT Team. When the SWAT commander handed over the reins of control to three of his sergeants they “dissolved” my position on the tactical team. They didn’t like me from day one, that was no big secret, but once I was no longer under the protective wing of the SWAT commander it was adios the next day. In the Sergeants’ Office I shook hands with two of the sergeants and said, “Thank you for the opportunity,” and I meant it. After three years of entry team training, sniper training, logistics, negotiations training, command and control training on the department’s dollar, not to mention setting up lots of scenarios for each of the teams and participating in some good real-world SWAT missions as a Command Post Operations Officer, I had the SWAT thing under my belt. Regardless of what any blogger says about me, I was on a SWAT team, and on the tactical side of the house no less. I have several documents and a lot of photos to prove it posted on my website for all the world to see; not to mention dozens of witnesses.
It’s funny that many bloggers sowing the seeds of doubt have never been on a SWAT team themselves in any capacity. They tend not to publish emails from their own readers that ask the question, “What about your background? Did you ever serve on a SWAT team?” Such table turning is quite embarrassing for them.
For the last six years a very small group of roughly ten individuals have been writing that I was “never on a SWAT team.” Yet, in the past twelve months some of them have come to realize, regretfully so, that I was indeed on the Costa Mesa SWAT team. Despite some of them begging people through their sites to come forward with information, especially people who have worked with me, nobody is, and nobody is contradicting the biography about me on my website. But, in order to save some face the new accusations they are slinging up against the same dirty wall have now morphed into, “Yes, Jim Wagner was on a SWAT team, but he was only a clerk on the team,” or “He only helped in logistics,” or “Wagner was allowed to tag along with the team during training.” They even quote, or most likely misquote, a former colleague of mine, a detective, who was a SWAT negotiator at the time I was on the team. They list him as their strongest witness, and yet he was never on the tactical side of the team. In addition, if a blogger did actually interview him then it was outside of department policy. Any officer making “official comments” must first go through the Media Relations Liaison Officer. The Costa Mesa Police Department is well aware of my “celebrity status,” and they have never made any official comments disputing the claims on my website. Even Chief David Snowden appeared in on of my DVD projects titled Becoming A Cop along with a dozen Costa Mesa personnel. I may have trained with the Crisis Negotiations Team (CNT) from time to time, because I set up some of their training when asked, but I don’t ever recall the detective in question and I working together on a real mission. The CNT and the tactical team were usually in two separate locations during a call out. If I had any contact with the CNT it was usually with the CNT sergeant, who was also my patrol supervisor for a couple of years.
Most civilians reading this will never understand, but for you who work for a medium size or large law enforcement agency, can you imagine any SWAT team allowing a patrol officer to “tag along” on any training for three years, let alone place them in a real mission. Either you are on a SWAT team or you are not. It would be like a sailor saying to the Navy SEALs, “Can I hang out with you guys?” Yea, right. It ain’t going to happen.
The bloggers have finally acknowledged, through their strange silence, that some of my SWAT document are legitimate, but they don’t ask the questions that anyone else would ask like, “Why would a SWAT commander authorize a purchase order for Wagner for tactical uniforms and tactical gear?” Or, here is another good question you will never see on unfriendly sites, “Why would a SWAT commander of a city of 100,000 people have a patrol officer fill out a department document to get another officer to fill his shift in his absence for official SWAT training?” After all, this is some of the documentation I have posted on my website. Nope, they don’t address the obvious, they just keep saying, “He was on SWAT, but he was not really SWAT.”
Anyone who knows anything about how a law enforcement agency works automatically knows the accusations don’t make sense. None of the professionals hiring me get stumbled over these carefully crafted accusations because they can verify the facts for themselves through any number of authorities: InterPol, the FBI, the German government, the Israeli government, or any number of sources. The accusations are designed to mislead potential customers who are not connected to any police or military organization. After all, some of the bloggers, or shall we say “business competitors” are themselves former police, military or security people. They know better, but they use their own past to give an air of legitimacy to their destructive accusations. Some people do business that way. They have adapted the old communist propaganda rule “say a lie enough times and people will start to believe it.” My enemies spend a lot of time repeating the same message. They have volumes of material dedicated to attacking my reputation. A few websites could make an entire book out of what they have written about me.
The bottom line, on this period of my life, is that I was on a SWAT team and nothing can ever change that. The SWAT plaque authorized by the SWAT commander, paid for by the City of Costa Mesa, and presented to me by a Senior Police Officer on the SWAT team who also had been my first Field Training Officer, is proof enough for that. So what if I was not on the entry team, I did enough kicking down doors as a street cop, even doing a couple of hostage rescues, but I still received all the entry team training. So what if I was not behind a scope rifle during a mission, my scout/sniper training for my job was sufficient for me. So what if I was not a police negotiator. The courses I took and the training I provide the Crisis Negotiation Team was merely for me to understand their job, provide them with some awesome scenarios and speak “their language” in real missions. So what if I was not a logistics officer. I knew ever piece of the equipment we had, and every inch of the SWAT van, when Sergeant Darrell Freeman taught me everything about logistics. What is a big deal is having done the job I loved doing on the SWAT team, and becoming one of the best cross-trained officers on the team – Command Post Operations Officer. My job was to scout out the kill zone, gather intelligence, and then in graphic, photographic, and written form get the information to the SWAT commander and each of the teams. That’s why I was in the position in the first place, because I learn techniques and training methods and I make them more efficient. This is why the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection system is so popular, and why other companies continue to sell my books, DVDs, and custom knives, because I have make things easier for people – especially when it comes to self-defense and tactics. This is why my competitors spend an incredible amount of time attacking me. I suppose if my stuff was not selling well, and if T.V. shows and magazines were not interested in me, the slander and libel would stop. Critics don’t go after the nobodies.
Going back to my extraordinary career, when I jumped into the Reserve Officer program at the Costa Mesa Police Department so I could teach full-time the lieutenant who commanded the unit was also one of the sergeants on the SWAT team who had me thrown off. Well, it didn’t take long until friction developed between us in the Reserve program. I tried my best to steer clear of him, but he was gunning for me. After eight years as a cop with a near perfect record suddenly I could do no right in this man’s eyes. I suspect that the animosity had a lot to do with our former SWAT days, but I’m more certain it had something to do with an article I wrote for SWAT magazine. Even though I never mentioned any names, nor did I point the finger at my department, the article was about how to take care of tactical ropes. I go into great detail how an unnamed SWAT team did not take care of their tactical ropes, and it led to severe injuries to a SWAT member who should have been dead from the three story fall because of a faulty rope. Thank God he didn’t die for we had developed a friendship and were like brothers after the incident. After that article I had some serious new enemies in the department and they made sure I got the boot. My eight or nine months as a reserve police officer ended quite abruptly. However, it didn’t matter since the Orange County Sheriff’s Department wanted me in their Reserve program.
With my new position I not only had the opportunity to continue to teach self-defense and tactics full-time through HSS International, Inc., but I still got to be a cop; a deputy sheriff to be more specific. I went from being a city police officer in a department of 175 sworn officers and a population of 100,000 to a county law enforcement officer of 2,000 deputies and 200 Reserves with a civilian population of 3 million people. I was starting to like learning about enforcing the law in a bigger jurisdiction.
Some bloggers scoff at Reserve law enforcement officers as if they are “less of a peace officer” than the full-timers. Yet, in my case, because of my Intermediate P.O.S.T. law enforcement certificate and former full-time status, I was a Level 1 Designate, which means full police powers and ability to go on patrol alone and handle all police calls. Even for those not at the highest level I still hold a tremendous amount of respect for any Reserve officer willing to put his or her life on the line out in the streets. The criminals cannot tell the difference between Reserves and full-timers, and the danger is no less real just because someone is doing police work part-time. This leads me to say, “So what if I did it part-time! Wasn’t my full-time service with Costa Mesa enough? How many drunks, prostitutes, robbers, and wife beaters do you have to arrest before you have “enough” experience?” Being a Reserve deputy sheriff was exactly what I wanted to do at that time. It afforded me to keep my hand in law enforcement and it also gave me the good fortune of teaching GSG9 in Germany, flying down to Brazil or across to Spain, and teaching the likes of the FBI, DEA, U.S. Border Patrol, and everyone else in the alphabet soup. Yea, what torture! I still was in law enforcement and I was generating my own income teaching people how to fight. How does being a Reserve deputy, and then a Reserve sergeant disqualify me from teaching self-defense? Isn’t any of that training and experience an asset to any self-defense instructor?
I served two years without a blemish on my record with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Reserve Bureau, until I appeared on the cover of Black Belt magazine in a generic SWAT uniform. Actually, to be more accurate, it was a GSG9 paratrooper jumpsuit given to me as a gift from Combat Team 3. Before the photo shoot I removed the GSG9 emblems. In this first-of-its-kind photo for Black Belt magazine (for they never had had a firearm on the cover) I have on a black Kevlar ballistic helmet, a green Load Bearing Vest, and I am drawing a semi-automatic pistol. This was the theme that was chosen because I was teaching dozens of SWAT teams at that time, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 changed the martial arts forever and Chief Editor Robert Young wanted me to spearhead the new direction with my reality-based techniques and training methods. All you have to do is see any martial arts magazine before my monthly column and martial arts magazines after my column appeared. The HIGH RISK column literally started the reality-based movement, and like minded people jumped on the band wagon.
Unfortunately, some higher ups at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department didn’t like me on the cover of the magazine even though I was not wearing any department issued equipment. I knew that the magazine was a problem from the very start when I sat down right across from Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo and the very first thing he did was to hold up the magazine in front of me. For several minutes I got a good tongue lashing over it, but that was not what tarnished and otherwise stellar work history. It boiled down to a turf war between the full-time Vice Unit that had some dignitary protection responsibilities doing bodyguard work for Sheriff Mike Carona and the Dignitary Protection Unit (DPU) that I was a team leader over. This Reserve unit that formed by the full-timer Reserve Bureau Sergeant in 2000 ended up doing more and more protection of the Sheriff; not to mention other high profile dignitaries; including the Treasurer of the United States Rosario Marin. Jaramillo was the commander of the Vice Unit and I was the scape goat. Jaramillo didn’t recognize our unit and swore that the unit did not exist.
Two of my lieutenants, full-timers, who were in charge of the DPU just sat behind me at the meeting as if their tongues had been cut out of their mouths temporarily. They did not say a word as Jaramillo’s railed accusations against me, but I had suspected they wouldn’t say much. The newly promoted lieutenant pulled me aside just before the unpleasant meeting and urged me, “You are going to get reprimanded in there, but if you just take it everything will be alright.” I followed his advice, but everything did not go alright. A couple of days later it spun totally out of control and I was asked to resign quietly. The pressure had nothing to do with the magazine cover I was on or the turf war that was raging, although they were contributing factors, but it was for my audacity of expressing my concerns over a safety issue and bringing it to the attention of the Bomb Squad. The issue was an embarrassment to the department, and more specifically to Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo. I requested to meet with Sheriff Carona to protect my name and reputation, but they strongly advised against it and offered me a deal instead. Up until that last week I had never been in trouble with my department before. They promised me that if I would go quietly they would not tamper with my perfect record. There would be no negative statements put into it, and no negative comments would be made about me if a background investigator ever came a knocking. Unbeknownst to them I was already in the hiring process with the United States Federal Air Marshals, and I was pretty confident that I would be offered a position. I took their offer. Even so, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department is one of the finest police organizations in the world, and 99% of the men and women in there are dedicated professionals. Both Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo and Sheriff Mike Carona both paid the price for their unethical behavior and corruption and criminal charges were brought against them forcing both out of the department.
There are obviously many more layers to the story, like a rotten onion, which I had never had the desire to make public. My biography on my website is about my qualifications as a self-defense and tactics instructor and not every unrelated detail of my life. I don’t think it matters to my students what kind of tooth paste I prefer to use for it does not affect my ability to teach self-defense. My enemies take some sort of twisted pleasure in the fact that I have had some conflict with a few supervisors, and even in writing this I must say that I have nothing but praise for the majority of people I have served under. Yes, I have gone head to head with a few people, but it takes quite a bit of nonsense before I get to that point, and it always boils down to safety concerns where people’s lives are at stake. I could care less about the politics of a department or agency, but when it comes to an officer or agent possibly getting hurt because of neglect or bad policies that is when I put my foot down. The private investigators of my competitors think that just because they have found out that I, like many people who are not “yes men,” have conflict with their superiors at some point in their history that somehow this proves that I am not qualified to teach people how to defend themselves. How ludicrous! What does me speaking up for what is right makes it a disqualifier. I don’t think that my civilian students really care if I left a department after a disagreement, and I know that cops and military personnel especially don’t care because they know this happens all of the time. Call me the “bad boy of the martial arts” or “someone who is always fighting with those he works with” it does not change my world sought after techniques and training methods.
A month after the clash with the Assistant Sheriff I was starting my new career as a federal agent. Neither the Costa Mesa Police nor the Orange County Sheriff’s Department poisoned my personnel files, nor would they try since I was becoming a public figure and they knew that any wrong doing on their behalf would not be in their best interest; not to mention that it would have been immoral and unethical. I certainly had never done anything criminal or that would have ended any career instantly.
After the terrorist attacks on my country I wanted eagerly to join the President’s War on Terrorism, and the only way to be on the front lines at 39 years old was with the United States Federal Air Marshal Service.
Despite what a few blasphemous bloggers keep asserting about the FAM program immediately following 9/11 the program was propped up specifically to combat terrorism in the aviation sector. Most of my training at the Federal Aviation Administration facility at Atlantic City, New Jersey and at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Artesia, New Mexico was a counterterrorism curriculum. It was so heavily focused on counterterrorism that FAMs were not allowed to lateral over to other federal agencies in the early years of the newly formed Department of Homeland Security. Counterterrorism was exactly the reason I jumped in with both feet.
The United States government spent a lot of money training me to be a counterterrorist expert. How many of my critics were ever a FAM or even participated in the War on Terrorism at all? Some of these unscrupulous competitors belittle the entire United States Federal Air Marshal Service just to bring me down. They make stupid uniformed comments like, “all they do is just fly around in airplanes,” or “they are not real counterterrorists.” What an insult to all the men and women who joined the Service right after 9/11 and even those today who are willing to fight any person trying to bring down an American passenger plane. I don’t know about today, but when I was doing airport surveillance, testing the aviation security system, and flying the “unfriendly skies” things were hot. Al Qadea was constantly testing the system, many incidents happened that the public never found out about, and we had every reason to believe more attacks would follow. How dare anyone criticize the Air Marshals because of their fear or hatred of me. I for one am always thankful when an armed federal agent is aboard a plane I am on.
Because I take great pride in my service to the United States Air Marshal Service I have a few certificates they gave that I have had posted on my website since 2003. It puzzles me why my enemies seem to think they are real, for they have never disputed their authenticity, and yet they think that my Advanced Sniper Course certificate given to me by Sergeant Parisi of the 1st Marine Division Scout Sniper School is a fake. Why would anyone post a fake certificate and a class photo of police officers from a dozen law enforcement agencies who participated at the same event? If you have had any doubt up until now, let me assure you that every, and I mean EVERY, certificate or letter of appreciation on my website is legitimate. Most of my competitors stirring up all of the trouble don’t even post any of their certificates or letters of appreciation. Oh, people write them all of the time asking them to do it, but it never seems to get done. Perhaps they do not wish to be under the microscope like I am, but I have never had a problem presenting my qualifications. Giving dates, names, training curriculum does not bother me, as long as it is not law enforcement or military sensitive information. I’ve even personally emailed a few of the most prominent bloggers asking them to stop being so vague on their biographies and put the same amount of detail, some “meat” onto theirs as I do mind. I’d be happy to see just a tenth of what I have on theirs.
Where are the counterterrorism certificates or letters of appreciation from the bloggers? At least I served in some sort of capacity when my country needed trained people. Not everyone can be on Delta or the DevGroup of the Navy SEALs. My opportunity came through the Federal Aviation Administration, and I took it. I was sworn in to protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic six months after terrorists attacked my country. I would have wanted to be in the War the next day after the attacks, but the hiring process takes some time. Well, actually I was in action the next day; on September 12, 2001. I was called in to secure the Orange County Airport and I was put in charge of the main check point to the airport. My photo appeared in the Orange County Register the next day on the front page showing me and a deputy doing a bomb search of a car. Both with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the United States Federal Air Marshal Service I was willing to step up to the plate and go face to face with Al Qaeda. How many self-defense instructors can claim that? And, at the same time I even helped with the German Air Marshal program based out of Lubbeck. Once I plunged in I handed over the business to my partners, dropped all teaching, and participated in Operation Enduring Freedom for six months. That is six months of full-time service to my country.
Once the American aviation industry was made a hard target, and I had the chance to arrest a suspected Pakistani terrorist on an aircraft bound for Washington, D.C. who was carrying nuclear information thrown disorderly into a briefcase, it was time for me to leave. My decision was expedited also because of gross mismanagement and the blatant disregard for the safety of federal agents performing some missions.
Unlike the corruption that was at the top of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department that I had left, my new chain-of-command had to deal with a bureaucracy that tied the hands of many operators fighting the War on Terrorism. Most people didn’t have the guts to speak out, but many of us did, and I was one of them.
Once again I found that I could not keep my mouth shut when it came to safety. When I first joined the United States Federal Air Marshal Service they promised that our agency would “be like no other agency, and the envy of all others.” At first they were right, when it was headed up by the Federal Aviation Administration who had first formed the unit and had been running it for decades. Then the unit was wrenched away from the FAA and given to the newly formed Department of Homeland Security. With the change came along some administrators, former Secret Service guys, who wanted to make the FAM program in their image. There is nothing wrong with the Secret Service, for I had trained Secret Service agents when I owned HSS International, but Secret Service doctrine was the wrong approach to civil aviation, and a program that was already effective. To let you know how ludicrous the safety issues were, here are just a few directives that came out. First many agents had to be escorted on aircraft by an airline representative. It was obvious to any passenger who the FAMs were if they were paraded before the other passengers and let on the planes first. Then all agents had to be clean shaven. One of my team members, Shawn Black, had a nice trimmed beard and he looked like a university professor. The moment he shaved he looked like a cop. Then the next directive was that we had to have the proper haircut, like a cop. Then anyone with any tattoos had to cover them up. Then came the directive I just could not obey. Everyone had to wear a suit coat or a sport coat, even while seated in the aircraft. I obeyed this order just once.
I was in first class in an aircraft on the ground in boiling Las Vegas. The interior of the aircraft was uncomfortably hot. The flight attended asked me, “Sir, could I hang up your coat for you.” Everyone else had naturally given up their coats. I said, “No thanks, I’m alright.” A few minutes later she asked me again concerned for my comfort. I turned her down a second time and everyone in first class looked at me as if I were crazy. Now they were highly suspicious of me. Of course, my team in economy class would not give up their jackets, and the flight attendants wondered why anyone in coach would be wearing a jacket at all in the middle of summer in the back of the plane. It was a tactical mess. After this I carried my jacket, but in my carry-on luggage should a team leader ever ask me, “Did you have your jacket?”
Everyone, and I mean everyone, was pissed that we all had to look like cops aboard an airplane. Anyone of us with any tactical sense for undercover training knew that we were all sitting ducks, and if the enemy was aboard the aircraft they would be able to easily identify us. I didn’t mind risking my life for my country, but I was not about to be a soft target because of a bunch of pencil pushers in offices.
I also followed the advice of my counterterrorist instructors at FLETC, who taught us to “think outside of the box,” and gave us hands on training how to stay undetected; back in the good old days when the program was with the FAA. Well, needless to say many team leaders and Special Agents in Charge didn’t like us “thinking outside of the box,” even though in the beginning there were no rules or training manuals to follow in the beginning. I didn’t care. Once I decided to not wear a jacket and get aboard aircraft the way I wanted to, not to mention dealing with a dumb ass defensive tactics instructor who was recommending that the first move against a terrorist be a front kick to the chin, I decided to obey the one directive I could agree with, and that was a requested that agents write a report about any weaknesses in the civil aviation system. I wasn’t looking at protecting my career, and so I wrote report after report. My chain-of-command didn’t like it, especially when I sent a copy to my congressman, Christopher Cox, since my chain-of-command refused to take action. I’m the one that got Congress involved to start an investigation, not the other way around.
The subjects I wrote about are still very sensitive, so I’ll leave them out, but the bottom line is that agents’ lives were at risk and I did my part to fix it. So, the expected response from my chain-of-command was to take me off of FLIGHT STATUS and reassign me to verify the accuracy of time cards. That was good use of the government’s money and all the training they gave me… I mention this in my book Reality-Based Personal Protection published by Ohara Publications in 2005, and yet the leave-no-rock-unturned bloggers seem to think that they have stumbled onto some new information that I was trying to keep under wraps.
I knew my chain-of-command was jerking me around, so I left. I decided to go back to teaching full-time again and I handed in my resignation. Nobody made me leave, nor even suggested that I leave, I just knew that nothing was going to change in that organization, and I was right. Just this year, the end of 2010, I ran into a FAM working with my military unit who recently left the Service and he said that only recently have the rules started changing for the better. Knowing that I am glad I did not stay on any longer than I did.
My critics don’t think that tailing two different suspected terrorists, arresting one, and doing surveillance and bomb searches for several months is enough experience as an Air Marshal and disqualifies me from teaching self-defense. And, forget the fact that I actually trained counterterrorist teams around the world, and still do to this day; that doesn’t seem to count. You had better go to my critics for the “real” training, or so they would like you to believe with their round about message.
Finally, I am an American soldier, and have been for six years now. I am in a Reserve military police unit and I have been tasked with teaching Combatives, Knife Combat, and a wide variety of combat courses in this time period while my country is at war. I have trained units that have, or are now serving, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and the Great State of California. I have also participated in real-world missions here at home; from searching cars for explosives to helping combat fires. Some of my critics mock me by stating that my unit will never go to war, and they are right. My unit is tasked with state protection and will never be deployed overseas. But, once again my critics discredit all those soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines that support the war fighters. I may not go toe-to-toe with an insurgent overseas, but our dangers at home are no less real.
I am proud to be an instructor teaching soldiers. It is my small part in serving my state and my country. Again, how does my unit not going overseas disqualify me in teaching self-defense? Is my military riot training and riot experience as a cop not enough to teach someone how to defend against an impact weapon or how to use one? Is not my Military Operations Urban Terrain training by the Army and Marines and my countless high risk police calls sufficient to teach people how to survive a shooting or how to handle a firearm? Does not all of my FBI, police, and military bomb classes and real-world missions dealing with explosives qualify me to teach my Terrorism Survival where I teach people how to bomb searches? The competitors writing all of these blasting blogs say, “no.”
So, I have briefly laid out my background before you in response to my critics. You be judge for yourself whether you believe me or the bloggers, most of whom I have never met nor have they taken any of my courses. And, even if you do not buy my books, DVDs, or take my courses I pray you find a good reality-based instructor that will teach you “real” fighting and that you will always be a hard target. Next week we go back to the business of learning how to defend ourselves.
Be A Hard Target.
