The esteemed Dr. Christopher E. Larsen discusses the military training open to civilians:

While some of the video certainly promotes the training offered at One Shepard, he proposes an noteworthy list of required competencies and training:



While I would agree with him to an extent that it is an issue when some people who prioritize marksmanship to the detriment of all other competencies, and that tactics and Force-on-Force are critical, I wonder what everyone else thinks about it?  What are the required competencies and training?  What are good places for a civilian go to get them?

I once had a General with nearly 40 years in the infantry tell me that while command talks about all kinds of things, at the end of the day hitting your target when you needed to was the most important thing.

Fitness, Medical, Marksmanship, Tactics, Comms, and Land Nav are core competencies.  Leadership training and combatives are well worth having.  Some of those things are mentioned in the video, some are not directly mentioned.

I always worked to get fellow soldiers into climbing, as an activity climbing is ideal for developing fitness and mindset.

What makes him esteemed?

OTH, I can teach most of that to a guerrilla band in 2-4 weeks with 6-8 instructors.  Including airborne / air assault (but not jumpmaster or air movement planning) if there's access to parachutes, riggers and aircraft.

Airborne training helps build confidence / esprit, but individual basic static line training?  What's the point unless you have a bunch of equally trained guys and a buddy with a CASA 212 or a Shorts Skyvan.  And whose the jumpmaster to figure the CARP for a GMR insertion?

This video describes a long road.

And where do you learn the really hard bits?  Mental flexibility and toughness, grit.  Hard to learn that over a weekend or even a week.  

This…

I've seen positive reviews of his books:

Light Infantry Tactics: For Small Teams

OPFOR SMARTbook 3 - Red Team Army

Small Unit Tactics Smartbook

He has the same credentials as many of the people that are members here.  There are members here with better credentials  I would hold in high esteem.  Not a guy who started a war game club in high school…

APC is where I would go for training…

And he was an infantryman for 9 years, ending up an Staff Sergeant.

Yeah, that sure trumps being Chief, SF Doctrine, a SWC instructional company, & practical experience training US & foreign troops...  Plus actually leading & doing.

Wouldn't debate you on that.  

9 Years infantry?
That makes my 7 years Infantry and 19 years SF a PHD in tactics: 2.8 times over

Guy posts some interesting info and folks seem compelled to compete with the authors credentials.

Instead of making this a dick measuring contest maybe post specific information that Larson has gotten wrong. Or post your experiences at One Shepard? Or just a link to your school that you run or the books you've written.

Or just continue to pretend the shit you used to do remains relevant.

Jeff, your experience probably does give you a PHD in tactics... but that said Christopher Larson has been living, breathing, and teaching infantry tactics at One Shepard for decades as well as publishing on the subject.  To address QCMGR's statement about going to APC for training instead... Ben actually indicated that he got the idea for APC from seeing One Shepard's program.

I'm open minded enough to listen to lots of people and then sort through the chafe.

I don’t understand the dudes that have military training that is “superior” to what is being given by the companies mentioned in the video are complaining about. We like free markets, correct? Then maybe use your tax payer funded training to train others.  

Larsen has done an amazing thing and inspired others to continue that. The last event I was at with his organization had about 90 folks with MILES, some in the field for a week. And yes, a lot of us are prior mil but a lot more are young folks, that now have a love for that kind of thing. Those kids would love to learn from some SF folks too.