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Old June 4, 2013, 06:36 AM   #1
g.willikers
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The differences in civilian, law enforcement, military training

Has there ever been a discussion or thread here on the specific differences between training and objectives for civilians, law enforcers and the military?
If not, how about doing one?

I'll make the first stab at it.
Civilians are not expected, or usually legally allowed, to stop trouble, just to defend against it and escape it.
Police have to respond to requests to look for trouble and subdue it.
Military often need to cause trouble and bring it to the enemy.
These differences require very different training procedures.
The civilian trains as an individual.
Most police train as individuals and as part of a two man team.
Military train as units.

Next??
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Old June 4, 2013, 09:39 AM   #2
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Civilians are expected by law to defend themselves. Laws that help negate that right are counterproductive, to say the least, but the major concept in law is every citizen has the duty to protect oneself, and is limited to whatever gear/training they can purchase with their own funds, and legally carry.
Police and military are given/issued firearms for specific duties, some of which are not generally available on the civilian markets. They are given ammunition at no cost to train with, with multiple training session conducted by trained professionals. Again, this is provided at no cost, and is done on duty hours, meaning the officer/soldier is paid to be there. The soldier and police officer are trained to work as teams, and as individuals, with backup available by radio or other means, and heavy weapons waiting in the wings, but the training generally only covers "on duty" hours, not off duty. At that time, the off duty soldier/police officer reverts to civilian carry, with some notable differences in what the police officer can carry off duty. Military generally cannot carry anything to defend themselves off duty on a military base...hence the Ft Hood terrorist attack.
Does that assist you?
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Old June 4, 2013, 10:24 AM   #3
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Objectives:

In all cases, in theory the right to self defense is never denied.

In the US and most free countries the primary job of the military is to enforce political policy of it's respective nation through the application of violence and force or the threat of the same. This may be defensive, offensive and/ or other means. As such the military has the least restrictive use of violence. The killing of civilian non combatants is mostly allowed when trying to achieve a tactical, strategic and/ or political goal. Using military forces to achieve personal goals and objectives is strictly illegal.

Civilians and police are not allowed by law to use offensive techniques (generally) to achieve political or personal goals and objectives. Police are agents of the state and not allowed to use violence, force, threat of force when acting as an agent of the state to achieve personal goals. The killing of non combatants and uninvolved people is mostly illegal.

Police may use offensive force in certain cases such as when attempting to capture a known or suspected criminal. Unlike the military they are no longer allowed to kill suspects offensively legally. Although there seem to be some questions about escaping prisoners in some places. In some places police may legally impress the aid of non law enforcement personnel to use force on their behalf although that is rarity these days.

Non-police uses of force is near universally restricted to defensive measures of some kind to defend lives and honor or in some cases and location property from violent attack, arson, burglary or theft. Honor being protection from sexual assault. Local laws vary greatly.

Group Training:

Military units conduct individual training but do not train to operate as an individual but nearly always as a member of a team. There are very few exceptions to this if any. In the military even a two man team has a leader and decision maker.

Police train to operate individually and as a member of a team. Most of the time police officers operate individually with access to other team members to call upon to support his law enforcement activity. Most offensive force actions are team oriented.

Non-police civilians mostly train as individuals in defensive techniques. Group training implies planning and leadership which most civilians are not structured for. In some places group force with weapons training is illegal or strictly regulated. Some people do train to operate as a team for certain things like family Home Defense or how security guards will handle a shop lifting crowd at a mall. It is a general rarity though.
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Old June 4, 2013, 11:15 AM   #4
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I think the basic difference is police and military own the law(unless they lose the war and become “war criminals”) so they train to hunt people down, kick in doors and generally be on the offensive.

Civilians are only allowed to be on the defensive. So they usually train in “self defense”.

When countries train too many police and military in offensive tactics and then run out of work for them they usually have a lot of trained kidnappers and organized bandits.

Just my 2cents
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Old June 4, 2013, 11:25 AM   #5
lcpiper
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Soldiers train in individual and team tasks. Units train in collective tasks.

Individual Training is the most important training a soldier works on. He must know his individual tasks inside and out or he will be a weak part of his team. Team training is usually performed as a member of a Crew Served Weapon, a Vehicle Crew, a Fire Team, or part of a Support Section/Team.

Collective training is how Units train together in order to meet mission objectives. The Company is the lowest echelon which may officially engage in maneuver, (the Doctrinal Definition of Maneuver). Realistically maneuver can occur at lower echelons then Company but this is not supported by doctrine. Do not confuse maneuver with tactical engagement. Maneuver is always focused on achieving the Commander's Intent and is linked to Objectives.

On a side note, soldiers do not train with free ammunition. The ammunition is paid for with taxes and soldiers pay their taxes like everyone else. It is a collective burden borne by members of our citizenry.
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Old June 4, 2013, 12:22 PM   #6
lcpiper
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Quote:
When countries train too many police and military
No such thing as too many when it comes to the US Military.

Most people do not know there is something called the "Force pool".

The Force Pool is that pool of trained citizens which can be recalled to active service if required. This does not refer to the Reserves or the National Guard, this is not a militia. This is a recall of trained personal who have served previously. Once you are in, you are never truly out.

Almost everyone refers to the pension our retire military receives as retirement pay. This is in fact a falsehood. This pay was formally called Retention Pay and unlike service members who served a short time and moved on, retired service members where considered valuable enough to be "kept on retainer" and provided medical care to keep them around as long as possible. The military thinking is that sometimes you need these old goats cause no one remembers how to do something that only they remember how to do. But lawmakers also saw that this was expensive and so, they have slowly over the years stopped referring to this as retention pay and started referring to it as a retirement and pension plan. As such they can treat it differently. In fact, while on active duty and filing for taxes, I was legally bound to report this retirement plan even though I was not receiving anything from it and I hadn't actually earned it yet. As such, when taking my deductions for payments into my IRA I could not claim a full deduction because I had a retirement plan.

A case in point, when the old Iowa class Battleships were renovated and recommissioned in the 1980s, the Navy no longer had active duty sailors familiar with the Iowa class ships and their compliment of engines, weapons, and fire control systems.

Although many new systems replaced older systems, the ship still would use many of it's older systems and in order to speed the training new sailors the Navy asked for "volunteers" to return to active duty and serve again on these old warships.

These old sailors were recalled to Active duty at their former rating and paid as active duty service members. This was only possible because of the Retention system. Otherwise they could not have been allowed to serve.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...g=6873,8681477
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Old June 4, 2013, 12:38 PM   #7
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I cringe when I see photos of U.S. Army soldiers standing with a .45 shooting off-hand ("...steady now, take your time, squeeze slowly...that enemy soldier will wait for you to line your sights up, no need to hurry... what ever you do, do not use both hands or shoot from cover...stand like a man!). Also, I cringe when I read that instead of cocked and locked, they were expected to carry in condition three...even MP's. Evidently a soldier could not be trained well enough to be trusted with condition one. Ya, I know how fast the Israelis are with condition three, but how much faster could they be with condition one...like it was intended to be carried.
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Old June 4, 2013, 01:13 PM   #8
g.willikers
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Icpiper,
Is everyone who ever served in the armed forces part of the Force Pool?
And are they really volunteers or draftees, when deemed needed?
Can members of the Force Pool say "No thanks, been there, done that?"
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Old June 4, 2013, 01:14 PM   #9
g.willikers
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How about specifics of the actual in the field training differences between these three groups.
And is military training a plus or a negative for former military personnel becoming police officers, as many are doing?
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Old June 4, 2013, 01:36 PM   #10
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Quote:
The differences in civilian, law enforcement, military training
We, as civilians, get to foot the bill for all three......................
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Old June 4, 2013, 02:44 PM   #11
lcpiper
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Quote:
Icpiper,
Is everyone who ever served in the armed forces part of the Force Pool?
And are they really volunteers or draftees, when deemed needed?
Can members of the Force Pool say "No thanks, been there, done that?"
I can't say this applies to the guys who were Drafted, but it does to the volunteers.

This is why often it's hard to get back in if you ever get out, they can take you if they need you. They would rather train a new guy and add another to the Force pool.

I don't know if you can say no to this. The reason why you never hear about it is they have never ever needed to use it. It's a left over from the Cold War when we still envisioned we might have to fight for our nation's very survival and would need everyone we could lay our hands on. They would never use this unless it was the most serious of cases.

But you do remember some Doctors a few years back who were not happy about being pulled from their practices right? They weren't all Reservists.
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Old June 4, 2013, 02:45 PM   #12
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We, as civilians, get to foot the bill for all three......................
With the help of all three as well.

Some people think that the soldiers and government types don't pay the same taxes for some silly reason.
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Old June 4, 2013, 03:53 PM   #13
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Here's my take from awhile back.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/show...57&postcount=6

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Old June 4, 2013, 04:32 PM   #14
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Excellent, pax, distilled perfectly down to the basics.
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Old June 4, 2013, 07:02 PM   #15
ThatBeardedGuy
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Quote:
I cringe when I see photos of U.S. Army soldiers standing with a .45 shooting off-hand ("...steady now, take your time, squeeze slowly...that enemy soldier will wait for you to line your sights up, no need to hurry... what ever you do, do not use both hands or shoot from cover...stand like a man!). Also, I cringe when I read that instead of cocked and locked, they were expected to carry in condition three...even MP's.
How long ago was that photo? Because we don't use .45s and don't shoot one-handed. We use the isosceles to take advantage of our frontal ceramic plate.

As for as conditions of carry, our base policy in Iraq was amber at all times (mag in, no round chambered). I'm not sure if MPs carry on red or not. I carry my 1911 at home loaded and cocked.
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Old June 4, 2013, 10:18 PM   #16
ClydeFrog
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hooray for Hollywood...

Im not fond of using films & TV shows as a training example but the 3rd act shoot-out at the end of the LA cop drama; End of Watch www.IMDb.com is worth watching.
I don't want to take away from the cop thriller but it explains tactics & movement.
It's worth viewing to see how to handle ambush incidents, fire & maneuver, etc.
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Old June 5, 2013, 10:15 AM   #17
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The differences in civilian, law enforcement, military training

Quote:
Originally Posted by ClydeFrog View Post
Im not fond of using films & TV shows as a training example but the 3rd act shoot-out at the end of the LA cop drama; End of Watch www.IMDb.com is worth watching.
I don't want to take away from the cop thriller but it explains tactics & movement.
It's worth viewing to see how to handle ambush incidents, fire & maneuver, etc.
Fantastic movie. Lots of great stuff. One thing to key in on is the tension during room clearing-- especially when one of the officers goes alone.
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