Josh Nelson is the owner of Force Frontier, a tactical training company in southern Ohio, and also a veteran law enforcement officer, as well as SWAT team member. Josh joins me as we sit down and get into a rather philosophical conversation around the importance not only of training, but quality training, and effective learning. We discuss ideas like balance, communication, preparation, and how impactful they all can be when planning a training day or a open enrollment course. Additionally,...

December is here, the final month of 2024, and with the start of a new sheet on the calendar, so too comes another SITREP. As we exit election season, and roll into the holidays, there's plenty to talk about. Thanksgiving has obviously come and gone, and interestingly enough, this year it brought some protests at the annual Macys parade, followed by a day of large protests in major cities. I dive into the motive behind these, why black Friday of 2024 was actually not randomly chosen as a day...

After better than two years, I sit down with Jared Arceneaux of Orion Training Group, and catch up on the growth behind OTG. Now, having had the opportunity to be taught by Jared in multiple classes, I have a much better understanding of so much of what I had questions about in our original sit down. Personally, I've thoroughly enjoyed my experiences learning from Jared and have been looking forward to being able to catch up and hear about the growth that Orion has experienced over the past...

Had some early audio issues in the first few minutes of the interview this week, but worked through it. If you've been running NODs for any amount of time, you know how essential having a good laser module is to being effective. As civilians though, we've been restricted to lower power devices, that make our capability and overall experience, less than desirable. Over the past few years however, we've seen the emergence and popularization of VSCEL technology on devices, that allow normal...

Many of us, find ourselves making turns in our journey, that bring us to places we didn't ever think we would end up. This is exactly the case for Jeremiah August, the owner and founder of Teardown Systems. In 2020, when the world shut down for all of us, he decided to take a chance combining a childhood passion for sewing, and drive to be a more prepared, and more capable individual, and launch a nylon company, Teardown Systems. This discussion takes us into research and development work,...

Personal Security, Personal Protection, Executive Protection, we hear these terms used almost completely interchangeably, and all generally referring to the role of a bodyguard. For better or for worse, it's something we see overly glamourized by Hollywood and media, In reality however, this is a real job, a real career path, and it involves a lot of training, and a unique mindset. Jonah Norman returns, and is kind enough to sit down with me, as we tackle this subject for the first time on...

As we are running out of days before the 2024 Presidential Election, we have arrived at our November SITREP. It seems like this has been all we've been able to talk about for the last few months, and there have been some very serious events that have led us all to arrive at this point. Given the almost certain impacts the outcome of the polling carries with it, I find it extremely important to review some key parts of the last three and a half years, as well as talk about some of my feelings...

Jake Hocevar is a former 12B in the Army National Guard, works as a part-time LEO, and also is one of the cadre at Defender Series Training Group while running his own endeavor, Redline Consulting. More specifically, Jake is a firearms trainer, who has a passion for learning, as well as teaching. While continuing to teach, he keeps a ever-present mindset of "staying a student" and striving to learn new and better ways to help train those who seek him out. We sit down for this weeks episode,...

Being a contributing member of our community is something I believe many yearn for, but very few ever really attain. I say this, not to indicate that it can't be had by anyone who wants it, but to point out rather than we are typically very closed off when we think of how we can help the larger community around us. As we all have different life experiences, and have taken unique paths to arrive at our individual points in life, we have varying skills we can leverage. Too often we look at...

As the 2024 Presidential Election grows closer, so builds the concerns that many of us have for what may come to pass. We've all now seen and potentially experienced the chaos that can be triggered by politically motivated events across the continental U.S. None of us are eager to put ourselves, or our loved ones through any more of that than is absolutely necessary. To this point, Jon and I sit down and talk about some of the concerns that we have as we near Election Day. There are a variety...

In this installment, I have the opportunity to sit down with Collin Underdahl, whom some of you may know from his appearances with Dirty Civilian, or his work with Modlite. Collin is also a former Marine. We sit down, and have a very satisfying discussion around cultural misperceptions, self awareness, mental health, education, and a lot more. Many of our conversations on this podcast take us to some fascinating topics around the preparedness community and the online 2A ecosystem. This,...

We roll into October, and there world is spinning. We're a day away from the anniversary of the October 7th massacre, Hurricane Helene has decimated the Southeastern United State, specifically in North Carolina, and we have our election approaching in just four weeks time. There's so much going on, inside and outside of our country and oddly, almost all of it is tied together through strange connections and coincidence. As I break down these current events, I also share my thoughts around...

Hard to believe it's already been eight months since I was able to first sit down with Rob and get to pick his brain on performance pistol shooting. Back in February, we had an outstanding conversation about training, competition shooting, and self improvement through self diagnosis and dedicated practice. Fast forward now to October, and here we are once more. We pick right up where we were last time, and get into shot calling, building a good grip and presentation, mental perspective and...

Culture can be defined as the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. We, within our unique ecosystem, have a wide array of cultural beliefs and interpretations. Many are good, and all can be embraced, however some do carry negative connotations and hurt our community. In this episode, I talk about the different cultural sects which we can observe both in-person, taking classes, and taking part in community events like the...

We made the trek out to Templeton, Pennsylvania, for our second Human Trafficking Awareness Range Day event. If you've been listening for a while, you've no doubt heard us rave about the experiences we had last year, both good and bad. We doubled down on the experience this year and got a AirBnB and added two dudes to our crew. We split ourselves up and took even more individual courses than last year, and have a ton to speak on in this debrief conversation. From Breaching, to pistol grip and...

In the realm of training and preparedness, until relatively recently, civilian has been a dirty word. Many of us have been through a poor experience, where we're talked down to, or treated poorly simply for a lack of service. This ties back to the assumption that no time of service, correlates directly to no time training. That however, in 2024, is simply no longer the case. In this weeks episode I talk about the value of determined, passionate learning and development, and the knowledge and...

Randy is back, joining me for another discussion, as we take a more philosophical look at training and self improvement. We talk about the important of defining not just why you're doing the things you're dong, but evaluating what you're doing, and what you're trying to achieve. Throughout the conversation, we talk on some very important ideas, like personal accountability and its importance, the constant battle against confirmation bias, the toxic nature of comparison, and more. Keeping...

September is upon us and it is "unofficially" the beginning of fall! As we do every month, I bring you my thoughts and beliefs around key current events, and the potential impacts they carry to you and I. In this installment of the SITREP series, we get into a critical legal decision by a three judge panel in the 5th circuit court, reversing a critical previous ruling that illegal immigrants have rights and protections under our Second Amendment. Not only do we talk about the ruling, but we...

While we don't talk a lot about homesteading on the pod, it's got to be one of the humbling and valuable endeavors that one can undertake for themselves. To that end, I sit down in this weeks episode with Mark Bonnalie, who runs the Modern Rural Civilian channel, and dive into his journey of moving off the grid. Greater self sustainment is a responsibility taken by less and less folks these days, and it makes Mark's knowledge and story all the more valuable for those of us looking to grow in...

As hard as it is to believe, its been just over three months since Josh has been on for a conversation, but he's finally back, and we have a lot to catch up on. From a training rotation to the dirty south, to our upcoming trip back to Ben Franklin Range for the annual HTA range day event, we get into what we've been doing both with the podcast, as well as the community, and what we have in store for some of our next steps. The last time we heard from Josh, we had just completed the three day...

Doctrine. We rely on it for many things both inside and outside of our training sphere. Sometimes it's called by a different name, but it's there, behind the scenes. Sometimes, we latch on to doctrine and adhere to it so literally that we actually do more harm than good. To dig into this, and hash out this topic, I also get to catch up and sit down with Blake Flannery. As a Recon Marine with a twenty year career, as well as a successful instructor outside the military, Blake has a lot of...

It's been a few weeks, and we've settled down a bit from the initial shock and awe of the attempt on the life of former President Trump. Now that some of the odd internet drama has subsided, and we have at least some degree of confirmed information and reports to go off of, we sit down and take the time to examine more closely, what happened, and where things went wrong. I'm joined for this discussion, by J.T. who has over a decode of experience in law enforcement, with most of it being spent...

Situation Report for August, and we have a few really critical items to touch on. Venezuela is experiencing their fallout from what appears to be an attempt at a rigged election to ensure victory for the incumbent. Protestors took to the streets and have clashed with law enforcement over the alleged results. Clearly, there are some parallels with what many of us experienced four years ago, and still more expect to experience in just a few short months. Additionally, I share my thoughts and my...

Building a tribe, assembling a team, finding a network, it's something we have either all been chasing, or chased at one point in our individual journeys. However, once we find our group, we locate this tribe, where do we go from there? There's a large effort that comes with trying to bring together a band of talented individuals, and get them all reading off the same sheet of music. Many folks underestimate this endeavor and become easily discouraged. In this weeks episode, I talk about my...