59: Lethal Weapwn with Frankie McRae

This episode has been automatically transcribed by AI, please excuse any typos or grammatical errors.

Chris: Frankie McRae is the former head of the us army special forces, advanced reconnaissance target analysis, and exploitation techniques course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He served in the first special forces group in Japan, where he was an assault team leader. And he also served as a troop SGM in Iraq as an Iraqi counter-terrorism force company, SGM advisor, and combat leader on many missions in Iraq and also attended the Israeli counter-terrorism course as an exchange instructor.

Chris: He is also the current owner of rate on tactics, an organization that offers world class, tactical firearms, close quarters, battle force protection, and medical training. Frankie. Thanks for joining me.

Frankie: Hey, how’s it going? Thanks for having me.

Chris: Absolutely, man, I appreciate you coming on. I gave it a Valent effort, honestly, but you and I both know, I couldn’t do your intro justice.

Chris: Your journey. And what led you to where you are today is, is nothing short of an epic story. So. Would you mind sharing with us in your own words, you know, your background and essentially how you got to where you are today?

Frankie: Yeah, so I grew up in North Carolina and I joined the army when I was 22.

Frankie: Before I joined the army, I actually cleared power lines, you know, the trees and all that climbed trees and cleared the power lines that, and so I, I joined the army and I went to a first ranger battalion as an infantry guy. And Spent close to, yeah. About four years in Savannah first ranger battalion.

Frankie: And then I went to special forces, assessment, and selection. That’s a 21 day course, you know, where everybody is judged on, on their abilities and more, more about the trainability. And then from there I went to the special forces qualification course as a special forces medic. And. You know, spent a couple of years on a, on a detachment at Fort Lewis, Washington a special forces.

Frankie: A team is the, the 12 man detachment that we have. I was a senior medic and then 1998, I went to Sephardic. That’s what we call the, the big name that you put out there. Special force advance, economists, target analysis, and exploitation techniques. Course. That’s a big, long name for basically hostage rescue and counter ter.

Frankie: It is the premier doctrinal course for, for hostage rescue and counter terrorism, operations within special forces. I was actually supposed to go to Okinawa to be a sniper first and had already been to sniper school. And in, in route with my change of duty stationed Okinawa, they said, Nope, we need you to be an assaulter.

Frankie: So we’re gonna send you to this school. And I, I was very happy with. I, I don’t have the patience to be a good sniper. So I went to the course and, and, you know, we passed the course. That was a very, very hard course to pass. Which one

Chris: was that? The,

Frankie: the assaulter course. The assaulter course. Yeah.

Frankie: Okay. Sohar and so spent some about six years out in Okinawa, Japan as part of the hostage rescue. Unit for the Paycom area or Pacific command area. I started out as, you know, a mechanical breacher and made my way through the, the ranks to be an assault team leader. And I, you know, everybody in special forces comes down on some kind of an instructor timeline and, and mine, I actually got to go back to the school where, you know, Had had gone.

Frankie: And so I, I was an instructor at the Sephardic course. I started out as a range master teaching, combat marksmanship, and then I either was training or assistant assisting instructor. And, and basically every part of the, the course from, you know, my, my day started at 6:00 AM teaching combatives to, to green Berets and ended probably six, seven o’clock at night with whatever we were doing that day.

Frankie: So I, I got promoted and got picked to be the non-commission officer in charge. So that’s kind of that that’s a really a, a really rewarding, challenging, but rewarding job. And you know, part of that, you, you write the doctrinal training and, and all that stuff for the counter terrorism and hostage rescue doctrine for special forces in, in that position.

Frankie: And then once I finished up my, my time there, I stayed here in, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and went to third special forces group. And I was a troop Sergeant major there with the hostage rescue unit and went to Iraq twice with, with that unit. Then whenever I got done with that, that time I was working a couple of special projects and then I retired 2010.

Chris: Gotcha. So, yeah, I’m interested in hearing about your experience in Iraq. Can you talk to me a little bit about your involvement? There

Frankie: had a couple of different missions, like well, for one, the Iraqi counter-terrorism force is their tier one hostage rescue and counter-terrorism force the unit I was in at the time.

Frankie: Stood them up literally from, from nothing from, you know, the Iraqi army, taking recruits, training them and, and turning them into. A very awesome fighting force in, in the war on terror. And, and especially in the, the civil war that happened in starting in oh five and ending in about oh 7 0 8.

Frankie: But these guys were literally living, you know, in and around their enemies. When, when they weren’t on the job, it was, it, it a really, really rewarding job. I was the troop Sergeant major. So I had Americans. In my unit. And then we were divided out as advisors to the I CTF and then the entire I CTF kind of comes together.

Frankie: And so I was the basically company Sergeant major for the I C TF advisor. And so, you know, their guy was right next to me, you know, staying side by side and I had a, had a TURP or an interpreter. Sorry. And. You know, each one of my guys had as, as a single American, they would have a troop or about 24 guys that they were in charge of.

Frankie: So we, you know, special forces as a whole. We are not a big unit. We’re very small. And, you know, we operate in these 12 man detachments. We come together in the S or the, the combat commanders in extremist force, which is now called the CRI which is the hostage rescue. We come together as three detachments of 36 green Berets, we are an, we can be an autonomous unit or we can work, buy through and with host nation forces and all that to train, advise, assist, and mentor on the counter terrorism and hostage rescue mission set.

Frankie: So, but our, as a, as a green beret, our, our number one job is always unconventional warfare. So you always have. That fallback job as well, even if, even if you’re in the host rescue unit, which is more of a direct action mission, but you know, we’re always the, the UW guys that are called on to overthrow host governments and all that.

Frankie: So,

Chris: yeah. So when you were in Iraq, then you were you were in close proximity to, to enemy lines then?

Frankie: Well, yeah, we were, we did missions every night out and about almost anywhere in Iraq is Because of who we were and what we were doing. You know, we had a lot of huge amount of classified missions, but you know, countering the, the terrorism and, and more importantly, one of the other missions was the gathering of intelligence and, and prosecuting the war going and taking down you know, high level targets that, that were decision makers, influencers, and all that in, in the.

Frankie: Plan. So, you know, for us, it was nothing to go out on a mission every night for three or four weeks, and then you’d get a night off. And in that night that you were off, you were actually planning for another big mission. It might be come up two or three days later. And in the, in that planning cycle, you’re still going out and executing missions nightly.

Frankie: So I think the, my first trip, the oh five trip I was there for about 30 days. Just before Christmas. I think we did 27 missions in that 30 days. And then in the oh six mission in the first 30 days we executed 90 different executable missions. So it’s nonstop. Yeah. Yeah. And our, our tours are short.

Frankie: We do six month tours. Because a year would just kill you physically because of the, the op tempo, the operations temp tempo that we were, we were running. So it’s a night job for sure because I, I, I think in oh six, I was only, I think we only did like three or four true start in the day, finishing the day missions.

Frankie: Everything else was at night, but it would finish in the. So we hated being on the streets when morning prayer came on, because you knew everybody was coming out right after that.

Chris: And I’m assuming that’s because of the low visibility, less surveillance happening at that time.

Frankie: Well, and just the, the sheer numbers of people, you know, If you’re not by yourself, if you’re, you know, with a force of 36 guys plus another, you know, 120 Iraqis that that’s a, that’s a large force to move in the streets and everything else.

Frankie: And so, you know, we tried to reduce It’s funny, you try to reduce the firefights that you get in, but it never helps. Because it, you know, while the guys that are in charge will not fight, they have people that will, and they have, you know, big security details that support them and everything else.

Frankie: And so those are the guys that you’re fighting to get to the bad guy, to, to arrest him and prosecute him, you know, for crimes. And so it’s just one of those things where, you know, every night you could be getting in a firefight for you. 10 straight nights. And then that one night, you know, that you’re not in a fire fight.

Frankie: You’re like, okay, what the hell’s going on here? Because this is crazy. Yeah. Something something’s about to happen. You, you know what I mean? You’re always the, the worst fear is, is right around the corner. And

Chris: yeah. So, so we spoke about this before and you can sit here and draw very, very close parallels with the cybersecurity field.

Chris: And I guess in this instance, sort of the situations that we’re talking about. This is offensive security, right? So you’re, you’re mainly the aggressor in these type of situations. And you think about physical security as well. And you have the social engineering approach, then you have the late night kicking the door tactics, both breaching security aspects.

Frankie: yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Chris: So from, yeah, your experience, I’m just curious, you know, what have you seen or witnessed and, and how has it helped you to be. A better offensive attacker. And then also, how does that in turn, help you become a better defender of, of physical attack

Frankie: techniques? That’s a, that’s a great question.

Frankie: So, you know, looking at, from all aspects, either, even from the training of the doctrinal side, you know, where at, at the schoolhouse we taught textbook, close quarters battle and, you know, textbook shooting and breaching and you know, all this kind of stuff, you know, those fundamentals never change. When you get into what we call operational close quarters battle though, you know, there’s things that you’re gonna operate, not just off the fundamentals, but it it’s gonna be based off of principles.

Frankie: And you’re gonna be able to mix a lot more principles in, in with that. So understanding. You know, a couple of things. Number one, you know, as, as a green beret, we do direct action, you know, missions, kicking doors and all that. We also do the unconventional warfare mission you know, overthrowing the governments and, and that kind of stuff, but kind of in the middle is what we, what we call fit or foreign internal defense.

Frankie: And so fit is counterinsurgency or what we call the coin mission. The counterinsurgency mission is, is a, is the same kind of thing that I, I see. In, in today’s world with vulnerability assessments, threat assessments and everything else, you know, what is the threat? And then how can we either eliminate it or counter it, you know, in looking at it from both sides of the mission planning of being the, the good guy going in and kicking in a door to catch the bad guys.

Frankie: But we look at it from the bad guy’s point of view first. Okay. What is this guy gonna set up for us? Because we, as green Berets are considered the bad guys a lot of times, you know, to the, to the enemies that, that we’re going in and, and, and working against. And, and so working in, in and behind enemy lines we have to think like a bad guy as well.

Frankie: And so that’s where that physical threat assessment and then threat vulnerability comes in assessment comes in as well. And those two are. Two totally separate things that have to work in conjunction with each other, to give you a more complete picture of what it is you’re going up against, but also more importantly to have your contingency plans, because you can make all the plans in the world, but you know, you’re fighting an enemy that will change that plan and he has a counter to your plan.

Frankie: So, you know, in the, in, in the world, I, I live in now. You know, I’m not kicking indoors and, and all this other stuff. I’m actually, I actually love training civilians more than I do the, the military, because, you know, I look at things now from the perspective of, you know, being the good guys, sitting at home and the bad guy doing a, a home invasion, right.

Frankie: While they’re gonna use the same tactics I did you know, to do that home invasion or kicking in the door to, to prosecute. That part of the war, that mission and part of the war, you know, now I’m the guy sitting in the, in the living room, you know, watching TV with my family you know, in a pair of shorts and a, and a t-shirt and, you know, I’m in my home.

Frankie: And, and now, you know, bad guys want to come in. So understanding what it takes to do it on the outside of the door, kicking it in really helps with understanding the, the normal everyday side of things of being inside the door, watching TV. Those skills are collateral and they, they can go both ways.

Frankie: And, and so that’s where we really help a lot of people with the, their own home security, their business, you know like you look at this thing with, with Texas, with the active shooter you know, that could just as easily be at the Walmart or anywhere else, because evil is everywhere. You know, we, we have to be prepared for it and everything else.

Frankie: And, and it’s in the cyber world as well. You know, working with Jim tiller you know, someone that actually introduced us, you. Him, and I will put that physical and that digital sides together and, and kind of come up with that plan or that number one, the threat, we have to identify the threat and then assess that threat based on our P studies and then do our own threat vulnerability assessment, looking at it from the bad guy’s point of view.

Frankie: So, yeah,

Chris: and I do want to, I would, I do wanna get into more of the active shooter piece in a minute, but you know, getting back to what you said about. Home security. And, and you hear about, or, or you would think assaults or physical assaults at your place of work would typically happen more at a business location for whatever, right.

Chris: For whatever reason. And no doubt, you have to be ready for that, but let’s flip it to what you said about. Assaults within a work from home environment where organizations aren’t responsible. If it happens at the place of business, you can point the finger and say, look, you’re liable. But if you have a domestic violence situation of verbal abuse, drug abuse type situation, I mean, that shit could really affect you.

Chris: And you’re, you’re expected to be in a safe environment at all times, but it’s not always

Frankie: like that. Yeah. And we had this conversation before and Jim tiller and I were discussing it a couple of months ago. We were working on a, on a problem set together. And I asked him, I said, you know, cuz I own my own company.

Frankie: You know, and Jim works for this, this huge multinational company. I said, you know, when you have people working from home, you know, what does your company do if someone gets hurt at home, on technically on the job, you know? And he goes nothing. I said, if they got heard of the workplace, you know, that company would definitely be liable.

Frankie: Now, you know, granted a company can’t be expected. to, you know, go into someone’s home and, and validate and decree and, you know, make you do this, this, this, and this and all that, that, that would just, what’s the point working at home. Right. But the, the thing is, you know, it’s up to that individual person to, to protect themselves and everything else.

Frankie: And I think it was you and I were talking the other day, you know, like you look at, since COVID hit and, and these lockdowns, you know, many kids. Or at home, you know, and they grow up in a poorer household. They’re not getting the food that they need because the family can’t afford it. You know, the mom has to work.

Frankie: The dad has to work and, you know, the kid is at home by themselves. You know, the potential there, you know, depending on how small the kid is, you know, can be devastating. Yeah. You know, now they, they don’t have a lot of food, so those same kind of things happen, you know, throughout life. But when it really comes down to it, a lady working from home, you know, trying to make ends meet and everything else, and a husband who’s out of work because his business is failing and they’re, you know, he’s already, you know, abusing her and now it’s just gonna get worse, you know?

Frankie: Yeah. So do I know the answer to that? Absolutely not because there are so many individual scenarios that can happen.

Chris: Yeah, exactly. And you gotta think of the, the home dynamics as well, because. they can alter so much that if that screening were done one day, you know, the next day could be completely different.

Frankie: Yep. And you know, the other thing too, Chris is I, I give a lot of talks and seminars and stuff about. Employee assessments and everything else, you know, you can pick the absolute best employees. Right? I, I have a saying you know, great employees make you money, good employees, you break even, but bad employees, you lose money.

Frankie: Right. So, but you can’t assess partners. You can’t assess the family life and everything else. And so, you know, a lot of these. People working from home or finding themselves in, you know, could be some seriously dangerous situations on a, on a daily basis, you know? Absolutely. I, I, I don’t know the answer to that other than, you know, Hey, work yourself out of that position.

Frankie: You know what I mean? But you know, as far as like the home defense type thing you know, where we really focus our training is, is in three things, either the home, the vehicle, or the workplace. And, you know, the, the vehicle is J it’s, it’s just your vehicle. It’s your conveyance, how you get back and forth to wherever you’re going.

Frankie: Right. You know, there’s some training that has to happen physically for that, the, the home itself, you know, your home, your locked door from, from that inside your, the curtilage or, you know, basically nothing more than a fancy porch, basically. And, and then the, the workspace itself you know, while you, as an individual may have a lot to say at work.

Frankie: You don’t have a lot to say about your overall security because the company has to, has to balance that. And so that’s where we really, we work with the individual, you know, in the conveyance, from home to, to work or home to church or wherever in their car. We work at their home at individually for them to, you know, assess their threats and everything else and, and make a more secure home.

Frankie: But, you know, with the workplace, we, we have to work with the companies themselves. You know, an individual can’t come in and one day say, okay, this is what we’re gonna do. If he, if that’s not his place managers and leaders, and that that’s a whole nother subject to, to get on. What’s the difference between a manager and a leader.

Frankie: You know, they’ve gotta come together to look for the best security for their, their people, you know, at work.

Chris: Yeah. That’s a great point because typically with the work from home dynamic, you have a lot of focus on data security and securing your sensitive data. Mm-hmm . You rarely have a manager or leader in the organization help you secure the physical side.

Chris: That’s something to consider.

Frankie: Yeah. And you know, that’s where Jim and I have, you know, we work with the companies to help people that work from home, you know, to give them the individual training that they need. It can be very simple things to, Hey, just understanding. An alarm system you know, on the physical side of that, that type of thing.

Frankie: But then you look at the, the data that is coming from every home in America right now you know, how to secure that and everything else, you know, the company might think, oh, you know, it’s a somewhat secure, you know, wifi and all that stuff. But you know, you think of the vulnerabilities that are out there.

Frankie: If I knew that you were working on a project that my competitors. Could use that information. Yep. You know, as, and, and just as a, as the lone Wolf guy, Hey, I can go in and, and, you know, be that man in the middle and, and take that data and that information. And, and while you’re sending it to your company, I’m sending it to my company.

Frankie: And, and I think a lot of people don’t think about that physical and digital interaction there. All I’ve gotta do is be next door. All I gotta do is be in a delivery van across the. You know? Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, like the very simple things, an 8 0 2 11 you know, video capture, you know, and I just look at, I’m watching your, your home video system, you know, and, and it’s, it’s funny the things that are out there that are simple, that even guys like you, that are, you know, big on the security and everything else, you overlook the simple things, cuz well, it’s my home a hundred percent,

Chris: you know what I mean?

Chris: Yeah, man, I, I get it and it makes complete sense. So check this out, let’s say hypothetically, an intruder breaks into your house. They’re weaponized. So you’re in a very, very vulnerable position at this point. I’d say not only have they just breached you physically by gaining access into your home, but they also have the potential to breach.

Chris: Your data as well, because at this point, they can easily infiltrate your computer system and force you to provide that information to them. Yep. So,

Frankie: you know, think of a simple, a simple thing like this right. Yesterday there was a guy from the vivid alarm company. Right. And, and, and he stops by, and he’s sitting here trying to, to sell me an alarm system and I’m like, Hey man, we’ve already got one.

Frankie: Thank you very much. And. It’s funny. He had an empty water bottle in his hand and it’s, it’s hot, you know, it’s 92 degrees and he’s walking around and, and I didn’t really think about it that much at the time. But basically, you know, he’s standing on, on the, on the front porch of, of our house and he’s talking, I said, yeah, man, I’m not really interested.

Frankie: We have a system and well, what system do you have? Well, it’s okay. I’m not gonna tell you that because you know, as soon as you know what system now, you know the vulnerabilities. Right, exactly. Yep. And he goes, well, I see you have a sign out there. I said, no, that’s not who we have. Yeah. You know, I keep a separate sign.

Frankie: And, and, and so anyway, he goes, well, Hey man, can I? And he, and he’s sweating. I mean, he’s legitimately sweating. It’s, you know, 92 degrees. And, and he goes, can, can I get some water said, dude, step in the house, man. Let’s get you out of the heat. And so he handed me his water bottle and I gave it to my wife, said, Hey, can you, can you grab him some water out the fridge and, you know, gave him, and he, she couldn’t, but either way, you know, we gave him two bottles of water.

Frankie: And I said, Hey man, have a, have a good day, you know, but you know, we’re not interested. He goes, oh, Hey, not a problem, man. Not everybody says yes. I said, no, that’s a good attitude to have then. And he walked on out. Right. And he was parked down the street and it hit me. I said, why is he out walking the neighborhood?

Frankie: And my, my wife goes well, I don’t know Mr. Security guy, why’d you let him. And I said, because it’s 92 damn degrees outside and the kid is sweating his ass off, you know, give, give the guy some shade, but, and, and I nothing really came of it and I don’t think anything did come of it, but that simple little act is a physical intrusion into your world.

Frankie: Right? At the time, the guy could be looking at defenses that you have. He literally could have been standing there with some kind of scanner in his pocket and, you know, gathering all kinds of data because, you know, he couldn’t get it from indoors. And that’s the kind of things that, you know, we, we have to be aware of at the same time, we can’t be 100% against no, get outta my house and never come in and all this other stuff, you know because not everything is a threat, we just have to have awareness and the mindset that everything can be a threat.

Frankie: And that’s kind of the. That interaction between the physical and digital is our mental our mindset about, about that. And, and, you know, we, we have five stages of awareness that, that we talk about in our curriculums, but, you know, if you’re not aware, you will go from not aware to overloaded instantly, you know, and, and a lot of people tend.

Frankie: Not they’ll discount the physical because they’re in the digital world or even worse, they’ll discount the digital because they’re in the physical world. Like Jim tiller has got me scared to open any email. you know what I mean? Oh yeah. You know, after watching him and he gives such phenomenal presentations, you know, but at the end of it, you’re like Jesus Christ.

Frankie: I’m. Fuck this, I am not turning my computer on. You know what I mean? I’m not turning on a radio. I’m not turning on my phone. I’m turn everything off. I’m gonna hand crank my generator and, you know, put it into a pure sign wave in inverter. You know what I mean? so

Chris: yeah, man, get off the grid. I get it though, man.

Chris: I mean I think that. That 99% of the time. That’s my thought process. And I definitely overanalyze. And I think it’s just the nature of the business. I mean, we are all security minded and it, it just comes with the territory. But it is the awareness factor. I think it’s all about being aware of the situation you’re in and the potential danger you’re faced with.

Frankie: Yeah. And I, I call it being a co having a cautious suspicion. I talked to the guy on the porch and, you know looking at his demeanor, everything else, he, you know what I mean? Then I’m like, okay, yeah, I’ll get you some water, come on in, get out the shade. But it it’s funny because we have a foster pit bull and of course we have Belgian, Mallin was as well.

Frankie: They’re all, you know, actual police trained and all that stuff. And so I’m not too worried about people getting in the house and surviving. But, you know, the, the, the Belgians were in, in the kennels in, in, in another part of the house and you know, the, the pit bull, he’s just a little sweetheart and you know, but he comes running up to the guy and the guy’s like immediately kinda like, oh shit.

Frankie: And I kinda looked and I, I think yep. But you, you know, the thing is you’re, you’re absolutely right. You just have to have, you have to have a, what we call a cautious suspicion of everybody and everything that, that comes into your home and, and that’s One of the things I really tell people like we just finished up a, a series of security seminars for the triple I, the, a bunch of financial investors and all that stuff.

Frankie: And, you know, the OPI are, are the, the scale, the kind of the, the term we use for actually assessing and determining your threat. You know, is very useful for people, you know, and people you don’t know. And I tell people more than anything else, use it for people you do know because there’s people you do know are there for a reason.

Frankie: They’re either there for you or they are against you. And, and we see so many times, you know, the old saying, keep your friends close, keep your enemy closer. That’s where P comes in into, into that. Formulation mm-hmm , especially in the digital world because, you know, there’s so many proprietary things out there from, you know, just a code sequence to the, the way of doing business and everything else that in the business world, which is the, that is the true battleground is, is the business world and, and people are ruthless.

Frankie: Yeah. You know, and, and they will definitely try to take whatever they can to get that upper hand for that good old mighty dollar.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. So I do wanna switch back real quick and hit on active shooter preparedness. And I know we all agree that this is an important topic, especially when we look at the recent tragedies in both Buffalo and Aldi, since these incidents are often unpredictable, you know, from your perspective.

Chris: How can we enhance active shooter preparedness in our community?

Frankie: Well, there’s a couple of different things we have to, we have to do number one. We have to be aware as every individual human being. In the society and it doesn’t, and that’s at, from your home, understanding what your neighbors, you know, what’s going on at your neighbor’s house.

Frankie: Not, not their business, don’t get in their business, but just observe. Right. You know what I mean? Look for those things that, that tell you something’s wrong. Right. And it doesn’t mean to jump in the middle and be the hero. What it means is just be aware. And, you know, while I hate going to New York city, they, they have a, a saying there, if you, if you see something, say something right.

Frankie: Yep. You know, but don’t call the cops every time you hear noise either. But you know, when you see something that could be potentially dangerous in the neighborhood, like a, a vehicle that constantly is kind of scoping things out, say something, call the cops. If they’re not, if they’re not in your neighborhood, if you don’t know them from your neighborhood, call the cops, that’s their job.

Frankie: Yeah. You know what I. The biggest thing we can do at our workplace. And we do everything again, our company does everything around those three conveyances or those three things, the home motor vehicle in the workplace, because that’s where we’re at right in your vehicle. If you know, you’re coming up to a neighborhood, that’s got a bad reputation for hijacking and, and things like that.

Frankie: Be cautious. Keep your, you know, keep your head outta your text and keep your eyes on the road. Look left, look right. You know, be prepared to drive away. If you have to go through that red light, if you have to, you know what I mean? But when we come down to work and, and work can be school work can be, you know, a school because you work there work can be because you’re a student there either way.

Frankie: If the place has put in security measures, follow those security measures because they’re put in place for a reason. And I’m not throwing blame when I say this. Okay. But I’m going to, the fact is that like the Aldi school shooting, they had doors that were locked and there was one way into the school.

Frankie: And one way out until a teacher. Went out a side door and propped it open to get on the phone. And then she came back in and she didn’t unprop the door. And that’s how the shooter got into the, into the school. Now, everything after that has been a disaster, you know, we have got to protect our kids and there’s so many ways we can do that.

Frankie: But the other thing is we will never defeat evil as a whole because once, once you destroy evil in one spot, it pops its head up in another. So it. It takes us to be aware and it’s, you know, like I said, awareness is, is the key to everything, but then understanding what to do in that situation. And, and that’s where, you know, as a company, we come in to other companies and say, Hey, this is here’s some, some countermeasures here’s.

Frankie: And, and let me under kind of step back a minute, you know, there’s anti-terrorism and there’s counter-terrorism and, and. We work in both realms of the antiterrorism, preventing it from happening. And the counter-terrorism once it’s happened, you know, a lot of people will interchange those and they’re actually two separate fields.

Frankie: And it it’s so funny. I see all these people on the news that, yeah, I’m a counter-terrorism expert, but yet you worked at a university you’re, you’re not a counter-terrorism expert. You may be an anti-terrorism expert. Countering means physically countering you know, or digitally countering, but you know, this policy stuff is not counter.

Frankie: Yeah. Because policies don’t work to stop evil. You have to physically stop evil, but that’s a whole, whole nother matter there. And I don’t wanna get in the politics of that. Right. But you know, policies that are in place at work are only as good as the adherence to those policies. That takes the individual to do their part.

Frankie: You know, it’s one thing for that lady to go outside and use the phone, but it’s another to prop the door open and allow others to come. Even if she had, you know, stepped outside, use the phone, and shut the door, even though she couldn’t come back in, maybe walk back around to the front mm-hmm . You know because the policy was doors are to be closed.

Frankie: Classroom doors are to be closed. And you know, the two classrooms that the guy went into were the only ones that were open. He had gone past multiple doors and tried to get in multiple doors that were. So there’s people that are following the policy, following the procedures. And he found that one that was open.

Frankie: And, and I heard a report that he goes, ah, lookie here. What have we got here? Something like that. But, you know, he made his way in, into the room because again, the doors were, were unlocked. And, and so we’ll go in like for, for religious facility. Cause we break our stuff down, either educational facility or industrial you know, just the workplace itself.

Frankie: We, we have done quite a bit consulting with churches and we’ve got a lot of megachurches here in the south. And we not only train their security teams on the physical aspects, but we also go through and talk about the, the actual infrastructure, you know, and, and the policies of having someone in the parking lot, having a greeter, Hey, be nice until it’s time.

Frankie: Not to be nice, that type thing. And, and a lot of. Churches support their security teams, because it’s a mindset, but you don’t find that at the business place, the business place is, oh, well, they’ve got those security guys, you know when we first moved here to, to Fayetteville, my wife worked at the department of social services and they had one Sheriff’s deputy that was there.

Frankie: You know, the guy literally just kind of stood around and, and it’s like, he did nothing for the facility. And then one night a guy, the, just the, the simple thing of having bushes overgrown gave a guy, a place to hide. And one night, one of the DSS ladies came out he waited on her and, you know, he, he threatened her and the cops were already gone because she was, you know, there late.

Frankie: And but he knew she was there late. Why? Because he could sit right there and watch the entire thing. The Sheriff’s deputy didn’t do anything. You know, and all that. And, and so this is where you, as an individual in a company cannot rely on that security guard that guy’s getting paid the least amount of money to do the most work.

Frankie: You know, your, your company has, has said, these are gonna be our policies, good, bad, and different that they are, you know, but if they say, Hey, keep doors locked. Mm-hmm dam it. Keep doors locked. Yeah. You know, there’s a reason for. And some companies have a very good security posture while others have absolutely nothing in place.

Frankie: And so that’s kind of where we help either to validate those companies that have good procedures or to help those companies that have nothing in place and are really worried

Chris: about it. Yeah. And I talk about it often where, you know, it’s ideal to have policies in place, but you need to have those controls, like you mentioned, when that door shut.

Chris: Put an auto lock on it, right? Yeah. Or, or sound an alarm after 30 seconds, 100%. But the thing is also that you have to have continuous testing of that, of those

Frankie: controls 100%. And that’s where the vulnerability assessments come in, that we do. We’ll go to a company. It’s, it’s funny. We, we had a company that called us in, we came up with plans and everything else.

Frankie: It was about eight, eight years ago. And we went back three years after. We had put all this plans in place and we literally walked in and it was so funny. You could tell that they were, as a company were trying to implement the policies, but the employees were just, they were such a weak link. I mean, we could walk in and, and pretty much do whatever we wanted.

Frankie: And I was like, oh my God. You know, but the problem is the company had had enough turnover in that three years that. You know, we, we gave the entire company a briefing and like, Hey, this is the things to do. This is what you do for active shooter. This is what you do for, this is what you do for that. And we gave them emergency action plans and, and everything else.

Frankie: But the problem is there was enough of a turnover that people working three years later had no clue that we had even been there. And so luckily the company’s like, Hey, we really want you to come back, tell us what you think. And, and, you know, they had enough forethought to go, Hey, wait a minute. We were noticing a degradation of our, of our policies and our, and, and our you know, stance, you know, with security.

Frankie: And, and so it basically, it’s, it’s an always evolving and, and revolving, you know, thing, because. New employees. They’re not in on it. So it’s no longer a standing operating standard operating procedure. It’s, you know, something new for those guys. So, yeah.

Chris: And active shooter response training is something that you offer with, with rate on tactics.

Chris: You also offer civilian training, education, commercial, you mentioned religious institutions. Can you talk to me a little bit more about rate on tactics and, and the and the training that you provide?

Frankie: Yeah. So we are a training company, plain and simple. We have department of defense tier one clients that, that we train repeatedly through to DOD contracts.

Frankie: We have our own civilian training division for, you know, civilians that, that wanna come through. We call that the combat university. You can go to the combat university.com for that chainless plug. Right. The, the thing about the combat university is it’s made for everybody in the country, because we we’ve kind of come up with, I think, a pretty good system of, of online training showing you the things you can do either with a pistol rifle, shotgun, or combatives you know, and medicine, that’s the other, the other big thing that we incorporate that a lot of other people don’t.

Frankie: And part of that is because I was a special forces medic understanding, you know, active shooter scenarios and, and that type of. Everybody does stop the bleed seminars or how to put on a tourniquet. But the problem is civilians are not dying by getting shot in the arms and legs. They’re dying by getting shot in the chest and the.

Frankie: and so we teach those treatments to, to be done by anybody that’s there. I mean, simply putting a plastic bag over a sucking chest wound and holding it, there will do more than running around screaming, not having an idea what to do, right? Yeah. So we, we develop the combat university for our civilian training, whether it be for home defense, again, car vehicle, or, or the, the workplace.

Frankie: And then we, we also have our facility where we do our training. We have two campuses here in central, North Carolina. One is our, our gun range and the other is our, our dojo over in Aberdeen. And so we, you know, do a lot. We, we get a lot of people that are like, Hey, I don’t want to carry a gun, but I really do wanna learn to defend myself.

Frankie: Okay. Not a problem. We’ll teach you the combative portion. And then we get all the gun guys. Oh, I just wanna be a gun fighter. And I’m like, okay, but you gotta learn how to fight first. I’m like, no, I don’t need that. I got my gun. Well, that’s the, that’s the first mistake right there. Don’t bring a gun to a knife fight, you know, and it’s people don’t understand that it takes time to get to the gun when a guy with a knife can be on you before you know it.

Frankie: And so we bring all this together in, in a couple of different things and we even do our personal digital descent seminars as well because of. The fact that now you can so easily be exploited on the digital side. And you know, if I can take all your money on the digital side, I don’t have to hold a gun to your head.

Frankie: I don’t have to hold a knife to your throat. I don’t have to; I don’t even have to be there. Yeah. You know what I mean? And that’s where, you know, you guys, you know, fully under understand that. And, and so that’s where, you know, we partner with, with Jim tiller on that. And so we’re bringing all of that.

Frankie: And then, and then we do our preparedness. Training, not just for physical preparedness of different situations, whether it be, you know, active shooter, natural disasters, but just the, like the upcoming food shortages, you know, things that we, we get a lot of people trained up on is just how to be self-reliant and, and understand you know, what’s gonna be happening.

Frankie: And, and that kind of. Yeah. So it’s,

Chris: Raid on tactics, R a I D O N T a CT ics.com for those that, that want to check it out. And I mean, I’m looking through the courses. You have night fighter training, combatives, low, low light home defense rifle, pistol, shotgun, long range. I mean, it, it’s, it’s quite an impressive course selection.

Chris: And I can’t think of anyone. More qualified to run this than yourself, but I’m looking at your list of instructors and it’s unreal. The skillset that your instructors have.

Frankie: Yeah. Every one of our instructors are all, all green Berets who taught at the Sephardic course. I mean, that is literally the doctrinal writers for special forces.

Frankie: I mean, when it comes to shooting, moving, and communicating, that’s the, that’s the doctrine that we all use. And so we are all instructors there and you know, the, the funny thing is anybody can go to a course. And they’re only gonna learn about 20% of the total information in that course. They’re gonna learn really just enough to kind of be tested and passed.

Frankie: But when you are an instructor and then write the doctrine, you’d better know your shit. And that’s where we all come from. So, oh yeah. You know, for us, I, I think we bring a lot more to bear on the market than most people have any clue because I teach more now to civilians than I taught to green Berets at the course.

Frankie: because we only had so much time, you know, and we had standards. We had to, you know, the students had to meet these standards. And so we had to make sure that they could do that. When I first took over the course, we had a 65% failure rate. You know, this is green Berets going to a court, you know, and I used to get commanders all the time.

Frankie: Why in the hell are 65% of green brace failing this course. And, and when I took over, I realized it literally was just the training schedule. We didn’t change any standards for any test. All we changed was a little bit of the training schedule itself. And we went to my very first class is the N C I C went to a 90% pass rate and it, you know, testing a student and this gets back to the 20% rule, you know, testing a student on something that he just learned is different than testing a student on something that he just learned.

Frankie: Three weeks later, especially when he is been to an operational CQB and everything else. Right. So you’ve changed in the time. From the time you taught him task a to testing him on task you’ve taught him task all the way up to P and, and now, you know, there’s that conflation and, and everything else where now they’re gonna be overthinking it because they’re think, Hey, I’m, I’m tactical problem solving now.

Frankie: No, I just needed to go to your point of domination, dumbass. And, but they overthink it. Y you know, and, and so, you know, guys will. Will respond in the way to which they’ve been conditioned. And, and so just that simple little thing of, Hey, we want the student to respond to this particular situation this way for the test.

Frankie: Okay. So test him that way. Don’t test him two or three weeks later on the task he learned three weeks ago and is now changed 14 different techniques, you know?

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s the perfect approach

Frankie: to. Yeah. And that’s, that’s, we take that through all of our training with any subject that, that we teach.

Frankie: And you know, you did your podcast with Jim tiller, you know, a couple of months ago. And, you know, he teaches the exact same way. And every time I, I listen to him, man, I’m just like, and then, and then, you know, and, and I literally, I have access to him every day. You know, that’s kind of the, the great thing about it is, you know, we find that students really respond.

Frankie: Not to the instructors so much as how the instructors teach and, and train because they’re, you know, they’re like Jim tiller, they they’re absolute masters in, in their field. And, and more importantly, they’re not there to impress you with how much they know they’re there to make you impress them with how much you can learn.

Chris: Agree a hundred percent and shout out Jim tiller, man. Jim is the man.

Frankie: Yeah. Yeah, he is. He’s one of my favorite human being. Yeah,

Chris: I gotta hit up 95 south soon and come down. So us three can link up.

Frankie: You’ll probably find us together. So

Chris: so yeah. I wanna switch gears for a moment. I know you’ve traveled the world and since this is barcode, I have to ask you in your opinion, where is the world’s best bar?

Frankie: Ooh, so that’s a hard question. Okay. So. Tahitian queen two patio, Thailand is probably one of my favorites when my buddy Jerry Holt was managing it. And I was with my friends, but it really doesn’t matter what bar I’m in. I’m not a big drinker, but if I’m with my friends and I can, so I’m that person, I don’t get intoxicated.

Frankie: Because, you know, I’ve gotta drive, I’ve gotta, you know, have my awareness and everything else, but any bar that my friends are in where I don’t have to be aware because I know they’ve got my back. So that’s, that’s any bar for, for me. But again, I’m, I’m not a big drinker. I can literally count the number of times I’ve been intoxicated where I have not had to care on my, on, on a single hand, but each time it’s where, where, you know, A very good friend is so that that’s the most favorite bar, any bar in the world, cuz I’ve literally been all over the world is where me and my friends are so

Chris: nice.

Chris: No, I love that answer and you’re right. Intoxication is the 180 from awareness.

Frankie: Yes. 100%. 100%.

Chris: but yeah, send me the link to that bar. I wanna check it.

Frankie: I, I think my, and I have to put a plugin for my second favorite bar would be the Roadhouse in angel Lee city. Philippines.

Chris: Okay. Yeah. So now what makes that one unique?

Frankie: A again, you know, being, being with friends and, and that, that type of thing. So, yeah.

Chris: Got it. And I always say barcode is a philosophy too, and intoxication is not required in any means, right? Yeah. It’s more about that, that personal connection. and enjoying that conversation with those around you. So, yeah.

Frankie: And I’ll tell you, man, that’s the essence of life. If you can’t feel safe with your friends and who the hell can you feel safe with? You know what I mean? Great

Chris: point, great point. So I just heard I just heard last call here. Do you have time for one more? Yeah, what’s up. If you opened a cybersecurity themed bar, what would the name be?

Chris: And what would your signature drink be called?

Frankie: Well, I’m the last person to be asking anything about cyber security, but it’d be man in the middle. Okay.

Chris: all right. I like that. I like

Frankie: that. Why? I don’t know, but Hey, it’s the first thing that, that hit when you ask, because that is, you know, the, the, a big threat.

Frankie: Absolutely. And that’s the interface of, you know, the physical end, the digital I can see where some other connotations

Chris: would be. well, no, man. In the middle attack, you got, you got a man in the middle attack. So Yeah, the bar man in the middle. And you know, that means that you, at least at all times have three patrons in your

Frankie: bar.

Frankie: That’s it? You’d, you’d have to, you’d have to have at least three. And I think the signature drink, that’s a hard one. Well, if, if it’s up to me, it would be Jim beam and Coke and you know, that would be, I’m a, I’m a bourbon guy. Okay. And that would be.

Chris: That’s awesome. And I’m sure there would be no issues with the physical security aspect of this bar.

Frankie: we would have some pretty big bouncers; you know what I mean?

Chris: bouncers, snipers, whatever you need, right. It’s yeah, you gotta keep ’em in check. That’s it. Well, Frankie, thanks man. So much for stopping by today stop and buy today. Before you go, let us know where we can all find you online.

Frankie: Personally, I don’t have very much out there. You can find us@radentacticsdotcomvcombatuniversity.com and three seven psr.com. That’s kinda, you know, where you’ll find our services and all of us.

Chris: Awesome. Hey, thanks man. I appreciate you. Stay safe and take care. Thank you.

Frankie: Bye-bye.