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In session 006 of Marksman Live, I’m talking with Dr. Christopher Larsen of the One Shepherd Leadership Institute. I’ve been following Doc Larsen’s work for years, long before I ended up on a livestream with him as a panel member with Brent0331. He’s a veteran US Army officer, professional educator, and author. I actually had his Small Unit Tactics Smartbook on the shelf and reference it regularly.
One Shepherd is an interesting program. Its origins are in wargames such as paintball and milsim, and it has been around far longer than the other current schools teaching small unit tactics and infantry skills. I’ve regularly seen posts and after action reviews about the curriculum and lessons learned during One Shepherd’s programs, and I look forward to checking it out someday.
Especially now that I know that they have a campus relatively close to where I live.
Minimum Capable Citizens
There’s a long history of American civilians participating in military training. In fact, early in our history it was simply an expectation of every capable citizen to learn marksmanship and practice drill. While the early colonial militia may not be currently relevant, there are periods of our history where military training continued to be an important topic.
A while ago, Dr. Larsen posted a video discussing a complete training progression for civilians to develop a breadth of skills. By his estimation, it was a progression that would take eight years and span a breadth of capabilities.
That got me thinking. Eight years of training is a lot to ask for the average civilian to commit to, both from a time and financial standpoint. So what would be an acceptable “minimum” to shoot for?
Put another way, what would be the baseline skillset for a prepared civilian to have and then build on should the need arise?
Calling on the Militia
It didn’t immediately occur to me when we scheduled this session, but we were effectively talking about basic militia skills. We spent a bit of time talking about historical Colonial Militia expectations, but also the more modern iterations like the Missouri Militia, a fully chartered state example.
In my view, the militia still exists in times of need because it is fundamentally made up of concerned citizens in a community banding together. Most of the time, that doesn’t involve any shooting whatsoever, but instead means disaster recovery. I envision this as neighbors banding together to fill and emplace sandbags before a flood, or private citizens helping run communications networks during emergencies.
In the Missouri example, Doc Larsen mentioned how the Missouri Militia was more prepared than FEMA in the aftermath of a tornado. It was the militia, not the government, who ran logistics to supply water and transportation in the early days of the recovery.
The Basic Skillset
That got us to the question of a minimum skillset. While Doc’s eight-year progression is certainly interesting, it’s just not something we could expect every citizen to commit to.
The theme of everything was “just enough to be dangerous.” This doesn’t mean “dangerous” in a good way, either- but someone who knows the very basics of a skill and could become overconfident if left unsupervised.
So what are those core skills to be just enough? An obvious one was marksmanship fundamentals and firearms safety (this is the Everyday Marksman, after all), but also first aid, communications, detection, and land navigation. Let’s break each of these down a little more.
Marksmanship Fundamentals
This is easy enough to understand. The average citizen should know the basics of firearms safety and marksmanship. That does not necessarily mean understanding how to employ a specific weapon, like the AR-15. The technical aspects of a specific weapon can be learned later, the important part is safe handling and a grasp of proper aiming.
Beyond this would start specializing in tactical training.
First Aid
At this level, we’re looking at a basic first aid qualification. Something like a stop the bleed course. Just enough to know the basics of stopping immediate death. Building further on this track would be specializing in emergency medicine.
Communications
While I am all about preaching ham radio, the basic skill level of communications is less about radio and more about learning to clearly and concisely communicate information in any format. That could be written, spoken, or anything else.
I would argue the next step up would be radio usage, and we should encourage prepared citizens to get involved at the technician level. Beyond that, though, you get into radio specialists who know how set up things like NVIS, SOIs, and utilize good communication security practices.
Detection
In this case, detection refers simply to teaching citizens how to be aware of what’s going on around them. It means being engaged in your community enough that you notice when things look out of place. It also means gathering the right details about what you see so you can effectively communicate them elsewhere.
At the more advanced levels, a specialist would also learn about tracking, constructing hides, utilizing drones, and more.
Land Navigation
GPS is not always a given. There is a lot to be said for knowing how to read a map, plot a route, and navigate it using a compass.
A specialist would learn to do this in all conditions, especially at night (and using night vision), and utilize grid square coordinates to identify specific locations. This could be used for sharing information across teams and groups.
Building Specialists
Now that we’ve got the basic skillset out of the way, you see that there is room in every category to grow specialists in each category. Not everyone in your team, group, or neighborhood needs to possess advanced skills in every area. Instead, think in terms of teams. Everyone should possess the basic skillset above, but only specific people would expand deeper into each one. Those individuals would then leverage and teach their skills to others as needed.
Luckily, there is training available out there for all of this.
A Note on Leadership
We briefly touched on this during the stream, but leadership is separate and discreet skillset that must be cultivated over time. Attending classes like these helps develop that skillset, but being a leader has many other factors that don’t come from attending training courses.
Wrapping Up
Thanks to Doc Larsen for hanging out with us during the stream. While it wasn’t intentional, the conversation turned towards what he does with One Shepherd, and many of these basic skills we discussed comprise the first portion of their Warrior Training program, so it seems like an excellent place to start if you want to pursue the path of a Minimum Capable Citizen.
Of note, though, they don’t really cover marksmanship and weapon-specific training. That’s something you can (and should) pursue separately on your own, and likely before you arrive to do field exercises.
As I was typing up the summary, I also realized that we never touched on physical fitness as a requirement. In my opinion, a basic level of fitness should absolutely be part of the conversation for a minimum capable citizen. It interweaves through everything we do. I also realize that some people have medical issues that might never let them reach high levels of fitness, and those people can still serve as specialists in other areas like communications and logistics.
There’s a role for everyone if they want to be involved.
Thanks for watching! I’ll be taking the audio from this session and further editing it down into a separate podcast episode as well.
I don’t have time or the desire to listen to podcasts. I read fast.
It sounds like an interesting subject, but unfortunately, I’ll never hear it.
Thinking about completely un-subscribing from all of your work because of the move to podcasting.
Rick – not my favorite format either but opinions vary. Matt is simply expanding his media type to reach the people who ‘prefer’ this format. Many people these days use their phones to access information and entertainment. I don’t own one myself. The ‘podcast’ or ‘live stream’ format is popular on phones as people can ‘listen’ while driving or at the gym, etc. He still puts out content in written form on his site which has an extensive archive. I’ve spent many hours there. I find Matt’s style and content ‘refreshing, relevant and technically competent’ to the amateur, novice and experienced armed citizen. He’s still about the ‘Everyday Marksman’. I’m warming up to the live stream format. The guests are of legit backgrounds and Matt generally keeps the conversation on topic. Listeners can also fire a question in.
Hi Rick, now that the stream is done I’ve gone and updated this post with a summary of what we discussed. I realize that not everyone is interested in listening to an interview, or has time for a long livestream- that’s why I also type up the summaries.
As far as a move to podcasting, I guess I’m not sure I follow there. I’ve been doing podcasting for almost three years, while also still publishing written articles to the site. Video is just another avenue, and has a bit more of a personal touch (in my opinion).
“A while ago, Dr. Larsen posted a video discussing a complete training progression for civilians to develop a breadth of skills. By his estimation, it was a progression that would take eight years and span a breadth of capabilities. ”
Could you please provide a reference to that? I was not able to find it but would like to hear what Dr. Larsen had to say. Thanks!
Hey Jeff! Now that the stream is done, I’m updating this post today with more notes. I’ll post a link to the video there as well, but for now you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6Q3MJF2SRk
Thanks Matt! – I just went there and when the 8 year program schedule came up on screen I just hit ‘print screen’ and saved it for reference. Looks like a full warrior training program for those who are interested. I think many people can just use it as a reference and pick up the most useful things in each skill set to concentrate on. If I could remember and practice half the extensive content we learned in boot camp (USMC – 13 weeks) – I’d be pretty comfortable! There are more options/methods to learn these days – some better I’m sure! I had a chance to surpass jump school and jump out of a helo once – the flight crew was getting certified – I humbly declined.
I screen grabbed it and put it in this article just in case, lol. It’s a really good list, including where to go get a lot of the topics.
Agree. I noticed he didn’t have a basic fitness class – guess that’s on the individual. My weak link is land nav – really ought to take a hands on course.
Matt – BULLSEYE with this one! When ‘militias’ were more prevalent in this country and not a ‘dirty word’ I remember seeing minimum standards on websites that members were held to – varied by region and organization – but standards none the less. These were militias that actually had organized and frequent training protocols. Gov. DeSantis of Florida is trying to organize a small civilian ‘militia’ right now. We are days away from a brand new year and it’s time I made some new commitments! Currently I’m more interested in the ‘fitness’, ‘ rifleman’ and ‘dutiful citizen’ (more to being a ‘citizen’ than jury duty and voting) individual aspects of the ‘Minimum Capable Citizen’. I will concentrate on these first as I consider them ‘basic training’ – you can’t fight when you’re not fit and marksmanship/weapon handling must be honed. (Think most military boot camps).You have to ask yourself a few questions – what am I ‘willing’ to do (as a patriot)? What might I ‘need’ to do (as a citizen)? ‘Active’ citizenship may never be more important in America than it is right now – much to learn. I’ll start by re-reading the Declaration of Independence. Although I believe actual urban or small unit battlefield tactics must be an active practice to be effective – taking an active training class that conducts such maneuvers could imprint a basic impression of ‘working knowledge’ upon participants. I hope you and the doctor nailed down some of the ‘minimum requirements’ during the… Read more »
Hey Paul, thanks for reading/watching. I enjoyed this discussion quite a bit and look forward to diving deeper onto the various topics we touched on. What stands out to me is that the idea of a minimum capable citizen only partially involves the shooting aspects. It’s a valuable skill for sure, but in most realistic scenarios it is less important than the others.
I think this is where a lot of the shooting community goes wrong on the preparedness front. We focus on the shooting part because it’s what we really enjoy and is likely how we ended up arriving on the preparedness topic to begin with.
Unfortunately, I totally forgot to touch on the physical fitness aspects of things. That deserves it’s own follow up.
True. If volunteerism was more popular it could be better organized and utilized instead of having to rely on the government for aide. I agree with the firearm skill relevance – although security does come in to play occasionally – looting comes to mind.
Matt – nice wrap up with summary! Overall a great presentation.
It might be the ‘prepper’ in me but I think the ‘minimum’ standards/knowledge could be a little higher without being ‘specialized’. I don’t think meeting basic Army marksmanship qualifications for rifle and handgun or meeting the minimum Army fitness standards for your age would be considered specialized. Like a basic Red Cross First Aid Certification there are minimum requirements already established for most things. Additionally, many people will bring ‘out of the box’ capabilities that will enhance other skills and be utilized. When you apply for a job you include as many applicable ‘certs’ and experience you can get away with!
On leadership, I’ve always found the person who has the answers or at least makes a decision will draw the respect of those who don’t. I’m pretty comfortable in the wilderness but someone who’s good at (non-GPS) land/nav always gets my vote! Obviously there’s much more to leadership than skill mastery as you well know as an officer – not everyone wants the job!
Liked your comment on the disaster response militias are capable of – not all are but it’s enough reason for all states to maintain one – especially their comm capability. We need to change people’s perception. The left’s media has ignorantly spent a great deal of time making ‘militia’ a dirty word!
Really just trying to say that if you offer up or provide a certain skill set to be utilized – there should be a minimum standard for that skill. Like a driver’s license to drive a car – meets minimum requirements.
You’re not wrong, really. We didn’t really have time to establish a minimum threshold for each topic, but I do think it’s something worth doing for each one individually.
One last comment and I’ll stop pestering you! This subject reminded me of the airport security efforts implemented after the terrorist attacks of 9-1-1. Then Pres. Bush ordered the National Guard to post armed guards at all airports to suppress and prevent any threats. I was 10+ years past my years in the service at that time and seeing 18 and 19YO young men ‘reservists’ with locked and loaded M16s walking the sidewalks of drop off and pick up areas at airport terminals was a bit scary! Personally I would have preferred to have seen Marine embassy guards like those at the White House but with M16s. While in the Marine Air Wing I was assigned as active duty ‘full time’ instructor status to a ‘reserve’ F-4 squadron. While I was there I saw the ‘reservists’ come in once a month to assist us with the maintenance and flight ops on the F-4s that we on active duty did every day and night! Many were prior active duty just padding their retirement years and others went to their MOS schools but never served full time – there was a distinct difference! You can see where I’m going with this – National Guard – ‘part time’ troops with full auto M16s! I never heard of any mishaps however and the GWOT brought about the first National Air Guard squadron from right here in AZ to deploy to a combat zone. I heard they served well! Still – there are just certain… Read more »