Fortunately, over the course of my life, I have been around and been associated with some of the most dangerous men in the world. Early on, I came to the conclusion that compared to them, I am a Boy Scout. There are no illusions on my part about where I stand in relation to the really focused and competent among them. All of them, in some way, serve as inspirations and examples to me.

The principle in this is that no matter how good a shooter, fighter, or trainer you might think you are, there’s somebody, perhaps a lot of somebodies, better than you. Competency and capability are always relative.

In addition, as SSA John Hall, former head of the FBI Firearms Training Unit put it: “In every encounter, there’s an element of chance involved.”