HCCI Professional Protective Services

Back in Israel - Day 20

Testing day.
Wow, what an intense day it was.

We were up before 6:00 AM and on our way north to take our final evaluations at what is considered one of the top security schools in all of Israel, and the only school that holds all levels of security certification.

One of the instructors told us we were the first group of our kind to come through their program. They said we had demonstrated courage and commitment beyond what they normally see, and that it gave them hope that there are people willing to stand up and help keep communities safe in America.

That is the goal.
To empower communities to become safer, more resilient, and more capable.

But even more importantly than responding, capable of preventing the situation from ever happening in the first place.

The day consisted of multiple tests.

We completed a stress-induced Krav Maga final. We completed a live-fire active threat scenario where we had to respond as if we were ordinary people suddenly caught in a violent attack. We discussed how we would continue this mission when we returned home.

Then we moved into a comprehensive security assessment that combined multiple disciplines into one exercise. Situational awareness, active threat response, team leadership, communication, casualty management, and emergency medical response were all tested simultaneously.

The day was stressful.
We left before 6:00 AM and did not return to our quarters until after 10:00 PM.

Other than the bus ride, there was very little rest.

It was a day of work, stress, pressure, and reality-based training designed to expose weaknesses in a controlled environment so we do not repeat those mistakes when lives are actually on the line.

Some of the most important lessons came from the final testing.

First, we must identify the threat.
Then we must stop the threat.

Once the threat is addressed, we must immediately begin looking for additional threats, casualties, and people who need help.

We must move to cover, continue assessing our environment, and avoid becoming fixated on only one problem.

But one lesson stood out above all the others.

If we have reached the point where we are shooting, something has already gone wrong.

While that may not be true in every situation, the reality is that many attacks can be prevented through awareness, preparation, assessment, and intervention before violence begins.

Awareness prevents crisis.
Awareness can prevent the threat.
The objective of security is not simply to respond faster.
The objective is to identify threats earlier and prevent them altogether.

That is something I have taught for years, and it has been reinforced throughout these twenty days in Israel.

Security starts before anything happens.
Afterward is too late.

This training has been critical in helping empower Jewish communities, organizations, and leaders. While I was the only non-Jewish participant in the program, the courage, commitment, and willingness to stand up that I have seen from these men and women has been inspiring.

Nobody else will arrive fast enough.
We must choose to take action now.
Before anything happens.

Back in Israel - Day 18

Friday was a day.

We spent the entire day on the range, practicing skills under stress, working through scenarios, barriers, room clearing, and assessing rooms and areas from behind cover or through doorways. The goal was to identify threats, assess victims, and neutralize the threat without harming innocent people.

We did this from 8:00 AM until 4:00 PM.

Throughout the day, we were tested under stress and forced to move through scenarios as quickly as possible while maintaining accuracy and good decision-making. We had to identify threats, assess victims, and avoid accidentally shooting the very people we were there to help.

This put a lot of training to the test.

Not just speed and accuracy, but the ability to stay calm, think clearly, and properly assess what was happening around us. You cannot simply walk through life with a weapon ready to shoot anything that moves. If you do, you risk becoming a danger to the very people you are responsible for protecting.

To increase the stress, we were sprinting, doing pushups, and physically exhausting ourselves before engaging in live-fire exercises. The goal was to create pressure and force us to think through problems while tired, stressed, and fatigued.

By the end of the day, everyone was ready for some rest.

Earlier in the training, I took a short break to visit a therapist and make sure my back was holding together. As many of you know, I have been dealing with a military injury since I was 19 years old, and this trip has definitely tested it.

During that visit, he told me something that stuck.

He said, "Shane, you are a very good soldier. I can see it in the way you walk and the way you think. But sometimes good soldiers get locked into their way of doing things. That way may work, but it is not always the only way."

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that lesson applies to far more than my back.

It applies to leadership.
It applies to security.
It applies to protection.
It applies to building stronger and more resilient communities.

Sometimes we get locked into a single solution, a single plan, or a single way of responding to problems. But the reality is that there are often many paths forward. The ability to adapt, learn, and remain open to better solutions is often what separates success from failure.

The bad guys are adapting.
The threats are adapting.
They are preparing.

If we are not willing to learn, adapt, and prepare as well, then we are already falling behind.

We then headed south to the West Bank to spend Shabbat at a leadership academy where young adults, typically 17 or 18 years old, delay their enlistment for a year to focus on leadership development and personal growth before beginning their military service.

We had a wonderful Shabbat with the academy and with Ravid, who spoke to us about the critical importance of standing up in our communities with integrity, conviction, drive, and a healthy aggression when it comes to protecting innocent life.

One lesson stood out.
It is on us to protect our communities.
Nobody else is coming.
Nobody else is going to care about our communities as much as we do.
And nobody will arrive fast enough when lives are already being lost.

That lesson has followed me throughout this entire journey.
When seconds count, why wait minutes?
You are the only person guaranteed to be present in 100% of your emergency situations.

It is on you to develop the skills, mindset, and capability necessary to protect yourself, your family, and your community.

Help may eventually arrive.
Law enforcement may eventually arrive.
But the reality is that the first responder is often the person already standing there when the crisis begins.

It is time that we stop pretending someone else will solve the problem for us.
It is time that we engage in real security, real preparedness, and real resilience.

Or become the responder ourselves.