‘You were all dead long ago’: My first close-quarters combat training

Disclaimer: This article, compiled from old notes, describes one of my first Close Quarters Battle (CQB) experiences with the Israeli Defense Forces. The article is merely a piece of advice.

It a hot, dusty, and stressful day of 2008. We had finally reached the physical part of our urban qualification. The training grounds looked like a small, random settlement straight out of Tatooine.

It was our first real physical training, using various CQB methods, with a great focus on the entry phases and communication. I was number two, behind my buddy, ready to enter the room. It was also our first time performing with live fire. No more paintball games or simulations — a real cause and effect. We entered the room using the procedure we learned. The place was filled with sand, and the whole room, which had no windows, quickly turned into one big dust cloud. We couldn’t see more than two meters ahead of us. Seconds after “stabbing” the 180° to the left, I recognized a passage to the next room and automatically notified my buddy, keeping the flow and initiative.

We stacked up, processed the situation carefully, and continued to the next room by using a variant of limited penetration. For those who have been in these situations before, you know the feeling: Your heart is beating, your adrenaline is pumping like a Formula One driver, and you view the world through a toilet-paper tube.

On the second entrance, it became hard to breathe, and we began to process things slowly. One of the instructors tossed a live flashbang straight into the room. As a result, we had to “flip the switch” and kick in with force. It was a bad entry. Out of four targets, one in each corner (I know, who places targets like that, right?), one was still “alive” and clean. We froze in our final position, awaiting “endex” and feedback from our instructor. He came in with a hard face, checked the four targets, and swiftly started to yell at us:

“Paper targets never lie. They are a true mirror to your actions and they have no manners or pretty words to deliver the truth. You failed in the first room, you missed a hidden corner with a small target, and you repeated your failure in the second room. You were all dead long ago.”

I refused to even believe him and started to look for excuses — until he hazed the shit out of us. Simply put, we were too linear and too obvious. Much of that can be attributed to the following factors:

The “White Fatal”

Back in the methodical CQB preparation week, which took place a week earlier, we sat in classes and got fed dozens of different tactical sketches on whiteboards simulating different situations and clearing techniques. The focus was almost always on that classical box room with four corners, and endless colors and numbers. A true unicorn experience.

What we all always saw was a white background and a black color as the designated structural borders. There were no obstacles, furniture, irregular structure layouts, etc. It was just blank and clean.

It was not until the first live-fire week when I figured out that prior to any entry, we all ran in our brains that same whiteboard, with those clear and clean sketches. We unintentionally ignored the fact that there are more than just corners and borders, there are also obstacles and things in between that will require your immediate attention and the ability to make a fast decision that will dictate your tactics. Often, it fucks it all up.

Walls will always be there, as will windows and corners. But there are always obstacles that no whiteboard can prepare you for. Obstacles like tables, chairs, sofas, ledges, elevations, angles, and even big animals in some shit-holes that will surely get in your way and will do their best to disrupt and compromise you. Unlike on the whiteboard, the effect of these obstacles can not be deleted by a simple move of a hand. What happens is a solid, bitter fact, and will remain engraved on the walls of history.