"Many men look back to the days of war with an intense longing. They miss a time in their lives when they felt on the edge, intensely alive, a time when life and love walked hand in hand with death and destruction."

— Robert Moore & Douglas Gillette, from The Warrior Within (p. 54)

"The military is a profession that brands itself on the soul and causes you forever after to view the world and all human endeavor through a unique set of mental filters. . . . Close brutal combat puts a callous layer on each individual who undergoes the experience. With some men, their souls become trapped inside those accrued layers and they stay tightly bound up within themselves, unable or unwilling to reach outside that hard protective shell. For others, the effect is just the opposite. That coating becomes like a looking glass, highlighting and magnifying the things that are really important in life. Every sensation becomes precious and delicious."

— Eric L. Haney, from Inside Delta Force (pp. vi-vii)

"Many of the well-known difficulties faced by Vietnam vets upon their return home stemmed from a lack of respect for this necessary period of psychological adjustment. Instead of being mustered out over a period of weeks, as in other wars, somebody in the Pentagon decided the more humane approach would be to send the soldiers straight home. Many soldiers found themselves in their quiet hometowns less than seventy-two hours after leaving horrific combat situations. Add to this the indifference or active disrespect with which they were greeted, and their problems in adjusting are clear."

— Robert Moore & Douglas Gillette, from The Warrior Within (pp. 67-69)

"You had a very weird energy; it was just a completely different energy after you did that thing. You weren’t fit for normal people."

Old men’s placidity from his."

"Our scars remind us that the past was real."

"In ancient times, tools and weapons meant survival. . . . To an extent, the same is true today. Weapons, or the threat of their deployment, are still used to wage war, to maintain law and order, and deter aggression. Above all else, weapons have kept us alive in a world in which we are physically inferior. Without them, we would have only been a footnote in the evolutionary chain."

— Richard Ryan, from Master of the Blade (p. 2)

"I train my students first in the use of weapons. As the student becomes more skilled in weapons use, there is instilled in him a mental attitude that weapons training and empty-hands training are identical. Thus, they come to realize that the transition from weapons to empty-hand training is more of a change in mental attitude than a physical one."

— Amante Marinas, from Pananandata (p. 137)

"The old Filipinos who made stick fighting an art preferred to hit the bone and preferred a stick to a blade. Instead of a clean cut, the stick left shattered bone. The business end of a stick can travel many times the speed of the empty hand. And it feels nothing, whether it hits hard bone or soft flesh."

— Dan Inosanto, from The Filipino Martial Arts (p. 11)

"If you’re going to carry a weapon, make damn sure that it is legal for you to do so! Many states require a permit to carry a concealed handgun, and if you don’t have that official ‘permission slip’ on your person, you will go to jail. Most states will allow you to carry a knife — even a full-sized hunting knife — but if you’re caught carrying a double-edged dagger with a spiked knucklebow, you will go to jail. Most states will allow you to carry pepperspray, a sword cane, a butterfly knife or an oversized ‘tactical folder’ — but if you instead choose to carry nunchaku, a blackjack, brass knuckles, a switchblade, or a springblade ‘ballistic knife,’ you will go to jail. Familiarize yourself with your jurisdiction’s laws, and don’t take the stupid and unnecessary risk of carrying contraband weaponry when a legal alternative will work nearly as well!"

"The more weapons of violence, the more misery to mankind. The triumph of violence ends in a festival of mourning."

— Confucius

"A man without a weapon to defend himself, especially after long exposure, is very likely to give up in despair. It is remarkable what a difference it would make in his morale if he had a small stick or cane in his hand. Now, add to this the knowledge that he could, with ease, kill any opponent with a stick, and you will then see how easy it is to cultivate the offensive spirit which is so essential in present-day warfare."

— W. E. Fairbairn, from Get Tough! (p. 74)

"One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them."

— Thomas Jefferson (to George Washington, 1796)

The use of your spear while out and about"

— from Havamal, verse 38, Plowright translation

"If it looks like the shit is gonna go down, I reach into my pocket, smile, and whip a handful of pennies right in the fucker’s face. Unlike Mace or aquarium gravel, a pocketful of change won’t get a second glance if you happen to get frisked by the cops."

— anonymous (RWT)

"‘I see two knives,’ Mowery said calmly. ‘Skinny guy in the middle, bald prick on the left.’ Shifter laughed. ‘Wait’ll they see my sword." He smashed his cue stick violently on the edge of the pool table. When the stick snapped it broke along the grain, creating a long, very sharp point."

— from Chain of Evidence by Michael Detroit (p. 228)

"A flail is a flexible weapon like a chain or an extremely lightweight stick like a metal curtain rod or automobile antenna. . . . The amount of pain inflicted can be large even when the weapon is very light and insubstantial. . . . One of the really nice things about the light flail is the sound it makes as you swing it through the air. It ‘hums.’ People who hear that sound usually back off. Make it sing for you."

— N. Mashiro, from Black Medicine, Vol. IV, Equalizers (pp. 31-32)

"There was no way he could claim that he was just a tourist with a handgun in his pants. The same went for knives, garottes, and other aids to mayhem. Harsh language and a dangerous attitude would be all he had — that and a talent for turning household items to unintended purposes."

— James D. Macdonald, from The Apocalypse Door (p. 40)

"All uncouth, unknown wights are terrifyed by nothing earthly so much as by cold iron."

— Robert Kirk (1691)

"Don’t carry a weapon unless you’re going to pull it. Don’t pull it unless you’re going to use it. Don’t use it unless you’re going to kill with it."

"The man who wears a gun carries with it the power of life and death, and therefore the responsibility to deport himself with greater calm and wisdom than his unarmed counterpart, whose panic or misjudgement in crisis situations will have less serious consequences."

— Massad Ayoob

"A gun will not crawl out of a drawer to attack you; it will not change you into a hero or a villain; it will not drive you mad with power; and it will not make you capable of anything except expelling a lead projectile by means of expanding gases. Therefore, do not fear the handgun, and do not expect it to save you from your own weaknesses. It is only a tool."

— Fred Rexer, Jr.

"A lotta people belittle the diminutive .22 autoloading pistol, but it has always been a favorite of mine. This piece is lightweight and nearly invisible when you drop it in a vest pocket — you barely know it’s there. It has almost no recoil when compared to a .38 or 9 mm, so one can easily rapidfire 10 rounds into a beer can-sized target 15 feet away in under 3 seconds. Drop the clip and snap in another, and you’re good to go with 10 more rounds. Loaded up with bored out CCI Stingers, it’s bad as fuck. It may not be able to defeat a Kevlar vest, crack an engine block, or drop a man with a single shot, but it will always remain my carry weapon of choice."

— Jake Bishop

"If you have to shoot a man, keep shooting until he is either unconscious, dead, disarmed, or so torn apart that he can’t function. A major fallacy is that the criminal will fall with the first bullet. He may take a clipload before he goes down, and if you wait for him to fall after the first hit, you may get shot yourself. Keep firing ‘til he can’t shoot back."

— Massad Ayoob, from The Gravest Extreme (p. 113)

"Rapid fire comprises strings of shots usually fired at clearly definable targets at short range. Twenty aimed shots a minute is rapid fire . . . remember that your aim will suffer if you try to hold your breath and sight picture for more than seven or eight seconds. Rapid fire heats up rifles to an uncomfortable degree, so if you get a pause in the firing, lock back the action to allow air to circulate around the chamber. . . . Not only is fully automatic fire inaccurate, it eats up your ammo at an incredible rate."

— Peter McAleese, from McAleese’s Fighting Manual (pp. 169-170)

"With (a) 12-gauge shotgun, you’ve got buckshot that does the same thing as your pistol — times nine — each time you pull the trigger."

— Bill Clede, from Police Shotgun Manual (p, 15)

"I’ve been seeing these fat little orange derringers stamped ‘MARINE FLARE PROJECTOR’ being sold from a number of sources (along with several short low-pressure capsicum rounds) for ‘personal protection.’ A foreign company, Aquilla, has recently made available a 12 gauge mini-shotshell which can be chambered in these pocket-sized, plastic-barreled flareguns — unfortunately, it will blow up like a grenade if you’re actually stupid enough to fire it (I’ve seen photographs of the test results)."

"I’d rather not oil the gun at all than use too much oil. For that reason, I don’t like spray cans. You can easily spray too much. Use a simple squeeze bottle, so you can put on just one drop of oil."

— Don Vivenzio, Smith & Wesson’s Armorers School

"Over 90 percent of gunfights occur within 21 feet. More than half of these occur within 5 feet. Most people, when put to the test, can’t even get their guns out in time to defend against a person rushing them from across a large room. You also must know hand-to-hand combat."

— from Attack Proof , by John Perkins, Al Ridenhour, and Matt Kovsky (p. 199)

"A prudent man will not rely upon hip shooting at distances greater than seven yards, the practical limit of fast gunmanship. Beyond this distance the pistol should be brought up toward eye level as the range increases until at the longer ranges it is fired by looking down the barrel or actually using the sights."

— William H. Jordan, from No Second Place Winner (p. 62)

"You should neither see the sights nor be conscious of them. The weapon must be a natural extension of your arm; look at where you’re going to shoot and think the bullet into the target."

— John Minnery, from How to Kill, Vol. I (p. 51)

"These experts believed that shooting was 20 percent physical and 80 percent mental. . . . Each became one with the weapon. The gun was an extension of the shooter. They let the bullet go down range — they didn’t fire it. . . . Surprisingly, these experts do not need to hold their weapons perfectly still to shoot accurately. Under observation, the shooters displayed a great deal of arm movement as they were firing. They mentally controlled the trigger squeeze, and would not allow the bullet to ‘go down range’ until their sights were on target. This mental control was an unconscious process that allowed trigger squeeze to occur only when the sights were aligned. The expert shooters call their technique ‘controlling the smallest arc of movement.’ They knew they would be moving and controlled the arc."

"Don’t always assume that by having a gun you have all of life’s answers — because you don’t."

— James Keating, from the COMTECH video Crossada: American Blade Concepts (1:10)

"Bring a gun (more than one, if possible); bring all your friends who have guns — preferably long guns."

— adapted from "Rules for a Gunfight" (author unknown)

"The fundamental principal of surviving violence is mental. Not physical, not gadgetry, but mental preparation, mind-setting. It consists of visualizing a crime scene and mentally rehearsing your response. Mind-setting gives you this crucial advantage when violence strikes: ‘This is not new to me, I’ve thought about this before. I know what to do.’ Then your instincts trained for this moment will kick in."

— Sanford Strong, from Strong on Defense (p. 35)

"Cops play what-if games in their minds, alone and with each other. Every time they read a newspaper account of something or investigate a crime, they reenact it, mentally transferring themselves into other crime situations, and plan a response. Stories, as gruesome as they may be, are an important part of survival planning. They motivate people to plan against that same crime happening against them."

"The standard ‘safe’ shelf life of canned food is 2 years from the date of manufacture. But consider this: In the 1820s, Sir William Edward Parry carried a 4-pound tin of roasted veal on two expeditions to the Northwest Passage. The can was never opened, so it was kept as an artifact. In 1938, scientists analyzed the 100-year-old contents and found them to be intact both physically and nutritionally. The veal was then fed to a cat, who had no complaints. According to the Canned Food Alliance, unless your can bulges, is dented, or squirts when opened, the contents are edible."

"On some day, in the not too distant future, Shit will Happen, and the streets will be filled with a conglomeration of sorry fucks looking to get out, get off, get paid, or get that last can of wax beans sitting way in the back of that empty supermarket shelf. The entire fucking city would turn into a gigantic parking lot as traffic stopped, and the cops would say ‘fuck this’ and disappear, leaving Joe Citizen to fend for himself."

"She had the loaded handbag of someone who camps out and seldom goes home, or one who imagines life must be full of emergencies."

"Animal food will give you the most food value per pound. Anything that creeps, crawls, swims or flies is a possible source of food."

— excerpted from S.A.S. Combat Survival course notes

"If you are captured, someone soon will bring you a bucket of slop and, after your stomach has flipped from the sight and smell of it, you say, ‘I can’t (or won’t) eat that stuff.’ You’d better eat it because that’s all you’ll get and it may get progressively fouler and skimpier. . . . You must eat everything you can get — issued rations, things you can steal, things you procure from the environment. . . . You will be revolted by the food given you as a POW, but if you miss one meal as a prisoner it will take you weeks to regain your lost strength. You can’t afford to miss a single bite when you’re on a bare subsistence diet."

". . . most recruits in Western armies have come from urban backgrounds and have little or no understanding of the countryside. Theses days, almost everyone buys their meat pre-cut in packs from the supermarket; families no longer keep chickens, rabbits and the odd pig to eat. So not only do few young soldiers have the skills to hunt animals for food, they won’t have a clue how to skin and butcher them either."

— Peter McAleese, from McAlees’s Fighting Manual (p. 158)

"Are you willing to do everything necessary in order to live?"

"Be a calm beholder of what is happening around you."

— Miyamoto Musahi

"There’s really no such thing as an ‘ex-cop’ or a cop who’s ‘off-duty’ or ‘retired.’ Once trained, once indoctrinated, a cop is always alert, assessing reality in terms of its potential for illegal acts."

— Sue Grafton, from "H" is for Homicide

"Never ignore a gut feeling, but never believe that it’s enough."

"When you’re ridin’ high on the open highway, senses heighten as you absorb the sights. Initially, there’s an internal dialogue; you talk to yourself. After a while, everything settles down to a cerebral level; you become still. With a 360-degree panoramic view, everything seeps in and registers. The little voice that natters and chatters in your head eventually disappears. Many riders slip into a free form of meditation, except you’re much more alert."

— Ralph "Sonny" Barger, from Ridin’ High, Livin’ Free (p. 51)

"He experienced 360 degree vision while running away from a German machine-gun nest. Not only could he see ahead as he ran, but he could see the gunners trying to draw a bead on him from behind."

— Robert Sullivan, referring to a WWII veteran, from Light by Moody & Perry (p. 129)

"Your heart is still pounding from that burst of speed and energy, but your mind has to remain calm and detached. It’s like you have to observe yourself and the scene from outside your body — from a spot on the ceiling where you can take it all in with a fish-eye lens."

— Eric L. Haney, from Inside Delta Force (p. 105)

"Your greatest weapons are your awareness and the reactions that become instinctive tools of your awareness."

"One of the things that saved my ass in the bar was continually scanning everyone around me. You can and must learn to do this on a subconscious level in such a way that nobody even notices you’re doing it. This is the ‘see everything and see nothing’ Zen concept. It means you never allow your full consciousness to settle on any one thing, but you are continually aware of everything."

— Peyton Quinn, from A Bouncer’s Guide to Barroom Brawling (p. 8)

"To stand silent and aware while the suspect is taunting, insulting, and otherwise trying to distract you gives you a distinct advantage. You can read the person’s body language and sense his energy if you don’t focus on the abusive and derogatory behavior. It doesn’t distract you from what the suspect is actually doing. This allows you to respond quicker and use less force to control him should he become violent. Often it permits you to deal with the situation without resorting to physical means at all."

— Kerr Cuhulain, from Full Contact Magick (p. 81)

"Pay attention to what they tell you to forget."

— Muriel Rukeyser

"WAKE UP!!!"

"DON’T PANIC!!!"

— from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, by Douglas Adams

"Without mind-setting, people freeze up; they have no way to cut through the overwhelming fear that boxes them in during a crisis."

— Sanford Strong, from Strong on Defense (p. 19)

"If what you fear more than anything else is injury, you will not have the determination necessary to escape a criminal attack. Never. When frozen by fear of injury, you will believe all the criminal’s promises, you’ll be unable to concentrate on saving yourself, and you’ll never notice any fleeting opportunities to escape. The criminal will use your fear to control everything you do."

— Sanford Strong, from Strong on Defense (p. 26)

"Truly fearless people are extremely rare — they tend to be robotic psychopaths who, having no hope of future happiness, simply do not care what happens to them. Most foolhardy idiots who appear ‘fearless’ are either drunk or trying to impress others."

— C. R. Jahn, from Hardcore Self-Defense (p. 7)

"To instil fear, you must appear to be without fear yourself."

"When you feel great fear, your body goes into a mild state of shock. The blood which normally flows freely throughout the body is pooled into the vital organs by the restriction of the capillaries in the extremities. . . . Adrenaline is dumped into the system. Adrenaline is super soldier serum. It’s like tapping into a power generator. It supercharges your system, making you many times faster, more powerful, and more alert than you were a moment ago."

— Joseph Conrad, from An Outpost of Progress

"Succeed in not fearing the lion, and the lion will fear you."

"When someone goes white (or just pales, depending on his pigment), it means that the blood is rushing away from the skin and into the muscles, readying him for action. People in this state can take blows that would ordinarily drop them and not even feel it — as in, ‘keep coming at you.’ Pain sensors get turned off. Adrenaline is pumped. The arms and legs go anaerobic. The pupils contract. Jaw and back muscles constrict. Trembling sometimes occurs. Basically, physiology aside, all hell breaks loose."

— Marc "Animal" MacYoung, from Cheap Shots, Ambushes, and Other Lessons (p. 115)

"Unless you’re a fool you’re going to be scared. Your hands are going to sweat — dry them. Your knees are going to knock — brace them. Your stomach is going to be queasy — this is caused by your diaphragm falling on it, making you want to vomit and have butterflies. It can be controlled by thrusting both hands under your rib cage and lifting it off your stomach. Take a deep breath and still clutch the diaphragm and bend over. Straighten up and the diaphragm should be back in place and a lot of your fear will have left you. If it comes back, repeat. One of the biggest problems is holding your breath upon approaching the subject. You must make every effort to breathe deeply and naturally."

— John Minnery, from How to Kill, Vol. I (p. 57)

"Fear is nothing but idleness of the will."

— Eliphas Levi

"Knowledge is the antidote to fear."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Courage

"We have won against the most dangerous of our foes. We have conquered fear."

"Where there’s fear, there’s power."

 GLORY

— Robert K. Spear, from Survival on the Battlefield (p. 166)

— Confucius

"The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory."

"Surely a king who loves pleasure is less dangerous than one who loves glory."

". . . (his) training was psychological as well as physical, and he was drilled in a sort of camouflage calculated to conceal the miseries and terrors of war and to exaggerate its glory and glamour. The stoicism of the Spartan is proverbial — it was not in his code to admit that sorrow was sorrowful, that misfortune was misfortunate, or that life was preferable to death."

— Stanton A, Coblentz, from From Arrow to Atom Bomb (p. 104)

"He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life — of vague and bloody conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire. In visions he had seen himself in many struggles. He had imagined peoples secure in the shadow of his eagle-eyed prowess."

— Stephen Crane, from The Red Badge of Courage (p. 3)

"At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be particularly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage."

"Their minds are full of romanticized, Hollywood versions of their future activity in combat, colored with vague ideas of being a hero and winning ribbons and decorations."

"Without showing himself, he shines forth

Without promoting himself, he is distinguished

Without claiming reward, he gains endless merit

Without seeking glory, his glory endures"