HCCI Tactical Training Solutions LLC

Back in Israel - Day 22

Yesterday was not a training day, but a reflective one.

It was a day of closing some loops and helping a friend who lives here in Israel and is connected to one of the communities we serve back home. They also helped me when I first arrived on this trip, so it was good to spend some time together.

I also took some time to find a few kippahs to bring home for a friend who recently welcomed a grandson into the world.

I got a haircut, trimmed my beard, and spent much of the day reflecting on a question that has followed me throughout this entire journey.

How do we put this to work in the United States?

How do we reach more communities and get people to take action before the crisis, before the shooting, before the bombing, before the escalation of danger that we continue to see rising around us?

Peaceful times have created complacent people who operate under the false assumption that these threats will never affect them.

Yet history is filled with thousands upon thousands of examples of people who once believed the exact same thing, until they became the victim.

So the question becomes, what is stopping people from choosing to become proactive?

What is stopping people from becoming trained?

What is stopping people from seeking real security solutions instead of assuming someone else will handle it?

Over the last two weeks, I watched fourteen other Jewish people, ranging from their early twenties into their sixties, choose to step up. They chose to train. They chose to become advocates and voices for their communities back home so they can help prepare them before something happens.

I have been serving the Jewish community for nearly a decade, waiting and hoping to see more people take ownership of that responsibility.

My heart is overjoyed to watch these men and women work so hard and commit themselves to protecting their communities.

Later in the evening, I met with one of the counterterrorism commanders I know here. We spent time with his family, talked about the goal of building stronger people and stronger communities, and discussed what comes next.

As I closed out the day, I found myself asking the same questions again.

How do we put this to work?
How do we make a larger difference?
How do we get more people involved?

If you have ideas, I would genuinely love to hear them.
Because our chance is now.
Before anything happens.
Before the cost of assumed safety and comfort comes due.

Back in Israel - Day 21

Graduation day.

Yesterday we woke up still not knowing who would pass and who would not.

Even with all my training, certifications, and instructor experience, I questioned myself. Not because I am incapable, but because this was a challenging program. My back went out, I had to fight through that, and I was tested with new content, new standards, and new pressure.

Yesterday was a day to process and take it all in.

As a team, we woke up later. Sadly, not me. I was still awake at 5:45 AM. We met around 8:45 and started a hike down into a natural spring in the desert of the West Bank, an area where Jeremiah traveled. We learned about the history of the land and how the desert is where some of the greatest leaders were forged.

Our instructor told us the reason we spent so much time in the desert, and the reason we were concluding our time in the desert, is because this is where leaders are forged.

So we hiked down into a large canyon and took a dip in the spring.

When we returned, we were asked three questions and given time to come up with our answers.

Question 1: One hard skill I am taking with me.

Learning how to use Jewish history, resilience, and lived experience to motivate communities to take action before a threat reaches them. Security is not just tactics, weapons, or procedures. It is helping people understand why preparation matters and creating the willingness to stand up and protect themselves, their families, and their communities before anything happens.

Question 2: One soft skill I learned about myself.

I learned that while I often have a way of doing things that works, there may be other ways to accomplish the same goal. By remaining open-minded and willing to learn from others, I create opportunities for better outcomes. Not because one way is necessarily right or wrong, but because different approaches can produce different results, and sometimes those results are better than what I originally imagined.

Question 3: Something I want to remember.

I want to remember the moment I watched the first group of Jewish people stand up and choose action over complacency. My hope is that this becomes an Aish, a spark that ignites many others to prepare, protect, and strengthen their communities before anything happens.

Some very kind words were said to me by the Jewish people in the group and by the instructors. They told me I reminded them of Yad Vashem, of the trees planted for non-Jewish people recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. They told me that, in their eyes, the work I have done for the Jewish people holds great meaning because I am choosing to do it before something happens.

That deeply impacted me.

As a non-Jewish man, to be welcomed, trusted, and honored in that way is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

After that, we cleared out our quarters and headed to the Mount of Olives for our graduation ceremony.

I am proud to share that I passed the program, completed the testing, and graduated after two weeks of intense training, stress, lessons, and growth.

There is more coming from this project that I cannot fully share yet, but please stay tuned.

Great things are ahead.

We will continue working to enhance safety, strengthen preparedness, and help the communities we serve become more resilient before anything happens.

Back in Israel - Day 20

Testing day.
Wow, what an intense day it was.

We were up before 6:00 AM and on our way north to take our final evaluations at what is considered one of the top security schools in all of Israel, and the only school that holds all levels of security certification.

One of the instructors told us we were the first group of our kind to come through their program. They said we had demonstrated courage and commitment beyond what they normally see, and that it gave them hope that there are people willing to stand up and help keep communities safe in America.

That is the goal.
To empower communities to become safer, more resilient, and more capable.

But even more importantly than responding, capable of preventing the situation from ever happening in the first place.

The day consisted of multiple tests.

We completed a stress-induced Krav Maga final. We completed a live-fire active threat scenario where we had to respond as if we were ordinary people suddenly caught in a violent attack. We discussed how we would continue this mission when we returned home.

Then we moved into a comprehensive security assessment that combined multiple disciplines into one exercise. Situational awareness, active threat response, team leadership, communication, casualty management, and emergency medical response were all tested simultaneously.

The day was stressful.
We left before 6:00 AM and did not return to our quarters until after 10:00 PM.

Other than the bus ride, there was very little rest.

It was a day of work, stress, pressure, and reality-based training designed to expose weaknesses in a controlled environment so we do not repeat those mistakes when lives are actually on the line.

Some of the most important lessons came from the final testing.

First, we must identify the threat.
Then we must stop the threat.

Once the threat is addressed, we must immediately begin looking for additional threats, casualties, and people who need help.

We must move to cover, continue assessing our environment, and avoid becoming fixated on only one problem.

But one lesson stood out above all the others.

If we have reached the point where we are shooting, something has already gone wrong.

While that may not be true in every situation, the reality is that many attacks can be prevented through awareness, preparation, assessment, and intervention before violence begins.

Awareness prevents crisis.
Awareness can prevent the threat.
The objective of security is not simply to respond faster.
The objective is to identify threats earlier and prevent them altogether.

That is something I have taught for years, and it has been reinforced throughout these twenty days in Israel.

Security starts before anything happens.
Afterward is too late.

This training has been critical in helping empower Jewish communities, organizations, and leaders. While I was the only non-Jewish participant in the program, the courage, commitment, and willingness to stand up that I have seen from these men and women has been inspiring.

Nobody else will arrive fast enough.
We must choose to take action now.
Before anything happens.

Back in Israel - Day 19

Yesterday was Shabbat, and we spent it in the West Bank at a leadership academy. From where we were, we could see Jordan in the distance.

These last two weeks have been incredibly physically demanding and stressful, and it was nice to finally slow down and rest. I could feel my body shifting. I slept in and ended up taking three different naps before around 3:30 PM.

When you have been under stress for a long period of time, the body recognizes when it is finally safe to relax. When that moment comes, it releases everything it has been holding back.

I think that is an important lesson to share.

When you are in the middle of a threat, an active shooter, an emergency, or the aftermath of a crisis, your body operates differently. It keeps you moving. It keeps you functioning. It pushes you forward because it has a job to do.

But once the situation is over, once the danger has passed and your mind begins to understand that you survived, the body shifts out of overdrive. The adrenaline fades. The exhaustion arrives. The fatigue catches up.

That is often the price we pay as protectors.

Later in the day and into the evening, we took a Land Cruiser deep into the desert. Along the way, I got to see a beautiful monastery dating back to around 600 AD. We also spent time discussing the history of Jordan, the region, and the realities that Israel faces today.

As a protector, a leader, a mentor, and a business owner, it is critical that we take time to recover and recharge. That is one of the lessons behind Shabbat.

If we are operating at full speed all the time, eventually fatigue will catch us whether we want it to or not.

Yesterday I felt that firsthand.

Last night we turned in early because today would be one of the biggest tests of the trip. We had to be up before 6:00 AM and leave for a two-hour drive to what is considered one of the premier security training facilities in Israel. It is the only facility capable of delivering the full spectrum of security certifications in Israel, and the owner himself would be evaluating us.

Today our Krav Maga skills, weapons handling, decision-making, and security training will all be put to the test through stress-induced scenarios.

Sunday will conclude our testing.

At the end, participants will either earn a certificate from Israel showing they successfully passed the program, or a certificate showing they participated but did not meet the standard.

It is a critical day.

Two weeks of training, lessons, challenges, relationships, and preparation all lead to this moment.

Now we find out if what we learned is truly there when the pressure is on.

Back in Israel - Day 18

Friday was a day.

We spent the entire day on the range, practicing skills under stress, working through scenarios, barriers, room clearing, and assessing rooms and areas from behind cover or through doorways. The goal was to identify threats, assess victims, and neutralize the threat without harming innocent people.

We did this from 8:00 AM until 4:00 PM.

Throughout the day, we were tested under stress and forced to move through scenarios as quickly as possible while maintaining accuracy and good decision-making. We had to identify threats, assess victims, and avoid accidentally shooting the very people we were there to help.

This put a lot of training to the test.

Not just speed and accuracy, but the ability to stay calm, think clearly, and properly assess what was happening around us. You cannot simply walk through life with a weapon ready to shoot anything that moves. If you do, you risk becoming a danger to the very people you are responsible for protecting.

To increase the stress, we were sprinting, doing pushups, and physically exhausting ourselves before engaging in live-fire exercises. The goal was to create pressure and force us to think through problems while tired, stressed, and fatigued.

By the end of the day, everyone was ready for some rest.

Earlier in the training, I took a short break to visit a therapist and make sure my back was holding together. As many of you know, I have been dealing with a military injury since I was 19 years old, and this trip has definitely tested it.

During that visit, he told me something that stuck.

He said, "Shane, you are a very good soldier. I can see it in the way you walk and the way you think. But sometimes good soldiers get locked into their way of doing things. That way may work, but it is not always the only way."

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that lesson applies to far more than my back.

It applies to leadership.
It applies to security.
It applies to protection.
It applies to building stronger and more resilient communities.

Sometimes we get locked into a single solution, a single plan, or a single way of responding to problems. But the reality is that there are often many paths forward. The ability to adapt, learn, and remain open to better solutions is often what separates success from failure.

The bad guys are adapting.
The threats are adapting.
They are preparing.

If we are not willing to learn, adapt, and prepare as well, then we are already falling behind.

We then headed south to the West Bank to spend Shabbat at a leadership academy where young adults, typically 17 or 18 years old, delay their enlistment for a year to focus on leadership development and personal growth before beginning their military service.

We had a wonderful Shabbat with the academy and with Ravid, who spoke to us about the critical importance of standing up in our communities with integrity, conviction, drive, and a healthy aggression when it comes to protecting innocent life.

One lesson stood out.
It is on us to protect our communities.
Nobody else is coming.
Nobody else is going to care about our communities as much as we do.
And nobody will arrive fast enough when lives are already being lost.

That lesson has followed me throughout this entire journey.
When seconds count, why wait minutes?
You are the only person guaranteed to be present in 100% of your emergency situations.

It is on you to develop the skills, mindset, and capability necessary to protect yourself, your family, and your community.

Help may eventually arrive.
Law enforcement may eventually arrive.
But the reality is that the first responder is often the person already standing there when the crisis begins.

It is time that we stop pretending someone else will solve the problem for us.
It is time that we engage in real security, real preparedness, and real resilience.

Or become the responder ourselves.

Back in Israel - Day 17

Two things are certain in life: we will all die, and "Malfunction 3 - out of bullets." - Ravid

I am behind on posting. It has been busy. I am exhausted and tired.

Thursday was a harder day. The body is tired, the mind is worn out, and thankfully the instructors gave us an evening to rest before testing began on Friday.

We had our final Krav Maga class. I helped prepare breakfast for the team, and then we began live-fire and simulated weapons drills. Our hands are raw from the constant draw, rack, and shoot techniques. We are practicing these skills under stress, given different scenarios, and constantly assessing threats from new locations.

One lesson that stood out is that you have to look before you engage a potential threat because what you perceive as a threat may not actually be one. If we simply draw and make ready without properly assessing the situation, we may create a problem where none existed.

We also learned how professional aggression, confidence, and intention can help de-escalate a situation or cause an attacker to stop because of the intensity and presence we project from the very beginning.

A prepared and confident response can often influence a situation before it ever becomes a physical confrontation.

Later in the evening, we finally got some time to rest because testing began on Friday and we would be traveling south for Shabbat.

I went to a store, bought some steaks and a disposable grill, and spent the evening cooking with new friends. It was a good way to slow down, enjoy some fellowship, and recharge before putting two weeks of lessons, training, and preparation to the test.

Now the real question is whether we have learned the lessons well enough to apply them when it matters.

One thing I have appreciated throughout this journey is meeting people from different backgrounds who share the same commitment to protecting innocent life. This week while training at thos security school, we met a Muslim IDF soldier who spoke openly about his desire to protect his community, his country, and the people around him. It was a reminder that many people reject extremism and violence and instead choose service, responsibility, and courage. That mission transcends religion, ethnicity, and background. Good people standing up to protect innocent people will always have more in common with each other than they do with those who seek to spread fear and violence.

Back in Israel - Day 16

Intensity is the word that sums up Wednesday.

Working at this security training school, our group has really turned some heads. Several instructors have told us that we bring more intensity and commitment than they expected and that they wish more people training at the school approached the work the way this group has.

We started around 6:00 AM and did not finish until nearly 11:00 PM. By the end of the day, I was exhausted and could barely move.

One lesson that stood out before the training even began is the importance of taking care of yourself as a leader. If we do not prioritize our physical and mental health, we will eventually fail the people who depend on us when it matters most.

When I was 19, I suffered a military training injury. What seemed like a simple injury changed my life. My right leg broke under the stress of training and healed improperly, leaving one leg longer than the other. Over time it curved my lower back and damaged my lumbar spine, creating chronic pain that I have had to manage ever since.

My back went out during the first week here in Israel, and Wednesday put that injury to the test.

The day began with dry-fire and movement training, reinforcing the fundamentals of making a weapon safe, moving properly, keeping our finger off the trigger until we are ready to engage, and learning how to disengage mentally from the fight while continuing to assess the environment.

From there we went into Krav Maga training before spending several hours on the range applying those same principles under live-fire conditions.

One lesson that continued to come up throughout the day was that our responsibility does not end when the threat is stopped.

We must communicate.

We must lead.

We must project confidence and authority so the people around us know we are there to help them.

We have to be capable of flipping the switch instantly when danger appears.

That is exactly what happened during the Gaza war. People woke up in their homes to gunfire, terrorists, and chaos. They did not get time to prepare. They had to act immediately.

That same reality is becoming increasingly relevant in the United States. Threats continue to emerge, and too many people are still living under the assumption that it will never happen to them.

Later that evening we moved into four hours of stress-based medical testing.

We were required to assess scenes, identify threats, triage patients, provide treatment, communicate with responders, and work through multiple casualty scenarios while operating under fatigue and stress.

One thing became very clear.

Emergency medical care must be as much a part of security as any physical tactic we teach.

Medical skills preserve life until higher levels of care arrive.

By the end of the testing, everyone was exhausted.

The scenarios were not designed to make us successful.

They were designed to make us fail, identify weaknesses, and learn lessons that may one day save lives.

Failure is part of learning.

Sometimes failure teaches us what success never could.

And sometimes the lesson is not that one method is wrong and another is right.

Sometimes the lesson is simply that there may be another way to accomplish the mission, preserve life, and create a better outcome than we originally imagined.

Back in Israel - Day 15

Tuesday was another intense day of training, and one of the biggest lessons had very little to do with weapons.

We spent part of the day learning how to better understand a person's intent, mindset, and purpose. One of the concepts we discussed is that we are not interrogators. We are looking for anomalies.

Threats rarely walk into an environment announcing who they are. They do research. They learn enough about a community, organization, or event to appear familiar. Their goal is often to blend in long before they act.

Because of that, we learned the importance of asking open-ended questions to understand familiarity and purpose. Questions like where are you coming from, what brings you here, do you know anyone here, and how did you hear about our event. The answers matter, but so does how people answer. Nervousness, lack of familiarity, avoiding eye contact, inconsistent answers, or a lack of purpose can all be indicators that something deserves additional attention.

We also discussed analyzing locations from the largest level down to the smallest. Understanding the country, state, city, neighborhood, and even the street helps us better understand the risks that may exist in a particular environment. Good security starts long before we ever arrive on site.

The second half of the day focused on weapons deployment and response after a shooting, bombing, stabbing, or other violent attack has already occurred. We spent hours working through Krav Maga, weapon defenses, weapon takeaways, dry drills, and deployment techniques before putting those skills to work on the range.

One lesson continues to stand out throughout this trip. Most good people do not want to take a life. The threat does. The terrorist does. The attacker does. They want to take your life, your children's lives, and the lives of people in your community.

If we are not prepared and capable of responding immediately, we increase the likelihood that more innocent people will be harmed while waiting for help to arrive.

That is why training matters. That is why preparedness matters. That is why facility hardening, community awareness, medical training, and professional security all matter.

For years I have said that when seconds count, help is minutes away. The more capable we make our communities, organizations, schools, and places of worship, the more lives we can preserve when something goes wrong.

The bad guys are doing their homework. They are studying targets, looking for vulnerabilities, and searching for easy opportunities.

The question is simple.

What are you doing today to become a harder target?

Back in Israel - Day 14

Wow. Monday was an intense day.

We spent roughly six hours in professional security training, learning how to build layers of security around people, facilities, and communities. We worked on assessments, evaluating buildings, locations, and clients to determine threat levels, vulnerabilities, and how to build security plans around the realities each organization faces.

In the middle of training, reality reminded us why we are here.

Yet again, we found ourselves moving to a bomb shelter as missiles were launched toward our area.

That reality continues to reinforce a lesson I have been talking about throughout this journey.

Life and death often come down to choices.

We either choose to be proactive and preventative so that we are prepared when something goes wrong, or we choose to become victims of realities we refused to acknowledge until they became unavoidable.

We are training at one of Israel's premier security training academies, and the afternoon focused on Krav Maga, edged weapon defenses, knife attack responses, dry weapons training, and stress-based training drills.

But beyond the physical skills, we spent time discussing how we bring these lessons home.

How do we strengthen our communities?
How do we create more resilient organizations?
How do we help people become harder targets?

For me, that means continuing to expand training opportunities through our Krav Maga programs, Israeli weapons training, security services, and educational programs that help people prepare before a crisis occurs.

One thing continues to stand out throughout this entire trip.

Too many people are living in the after.
The after where they ignored the warning signs.
The after where they convinced themselves it would never happen.
The after where preparation was delayed because it was uncomfortable, inconvenient, or unpopular.

Preparation does not belong in the after.

It belongs before anything happens.

If we fail to take action before anything happens, the consequences afterward are often measured in lives, and those lives cannot be recovered.

So I will leave you with the same question we discussed during training.

Why do we accept the loss of life as inevitable, yet resist the preventative measures that could reduce it?

Why do we accept the loss of children, families, and community members more readily than we accept the responsibility of preparing to protect them?

That is a question every organization, every school, every place of worship, and every community should be asking before anything happens.

Back in Israel - Day 13

Yesterday marked a transition in our journey. We packed our gear, left Jerusalem behind, and headed north where we will spend the next week focused on professional development, Krav Maga, weapons handling, weapon deployment, retention, and the practical skills necessary to protect life.

We spent much of the day working through the basics. Weapon safety, handling, and the fundamentals that many people overlook because they seem simple. The reality is that most injuries and accidents occur when these basics are violated. Mastery does not come from skipping fundamentals. It comes from repetition, discipline, and respect for the consequences of getting them wrong.

For hours we worked through dry drills, repetition after repetition, building the motor skills necessary to perform correctly under stress.

Then the day took an unexpected turn. We were invited to attend the funeral of an IDF soldier who was killed on Shabbat. Several of our instructors had trained with him and knew him personally.

Standing there was a sobering reminder of something I have been talking about throughout this trip.

The true cost of security is not a budget.
The true cost of security is life.

It is either paid by innocent people because we chose not to prepare, chose not to protect, and convinced ourselves it would never happen, or it is paid by courageous people who willingly accept risk in order to protect others.

This soldier lost his life standing watch over other people. Protecting others. Serving others. Making sure someone else got another day.

Later, that lesson continued when we were invited into the home of one of our instructors by his mother, who prepared a wonderful meal for us. We heard from a soldier who served with the soldier who passed away, and we listened as one of our instructors spoke about the cost that service often carries mentally, emotionally, and within families.

He spoke about his own sorrow, the strain his family has experienced, and the pain of losing other soldiers and friends over the years. Yet even with that cost, he said serving is worth it because innocent people cannot do it by themselves.

That hit hard.
Because that is the reality of protection.

Someone has to be willing to stand between danger and those who cannot protect themselves.

That lesson became even more real later that evening.

As we traveled back to our quarters, Iran launched another missile attack. We had to pull off the road and take cover before continuing on. Later, we sheltered multiple times in the bomb shelter as warnings continued.

Thankfully, nothing impacted our area, but we could hear explosions overhead and watch the Iron Dome intercepting missiles in the distance.

It was another reminder that preparedness is not theoretical here. It is a reality.

One of the greatest lies we tell ourselves in security is that by cutting budgets, delaying decisions, or refusing to invest in preparedness, we somehow avoid the cost.

We do not avoid the cost. We simply shift it.
And when that cost is paid in human life, it can never be recovered.

That lesson has followed us throughout this entire journey in Israel.

Preparation before anything happens matters. Not after the attack. Not after the emergency. Not after lives have already been lost.

Before.
Because once the consequences arrive, they are often final.