Escalation of Force, Civilian Style

The central purpose of Armor Down is to show service members (SMBRs) how to reapply military principles to a civilian lifestyle.

Understanding how to reapply the escalation of force principle is easier to do than you might think.

What is escalation of force?

Look no further than the first Transformers movie.

Remember the first battle between the special forces and the transforming scorpion in the desert?

The special forces team engaged the enemy with ever increasing levels of destruction.

First was small arms.

Then rockets.

Then gun ships.

Finally, the flying fortress (Bring the Rain).

On a side note, my buddy got back from Afghanistan with some incredible escalation of force stories.......anybody got any good ones......J-Damns perhaps?

In that scene, the soldiers continued to escalate their capacity for destruction in relation to their current methods effectiveness.

In other words:

If what you got
ain't getting it done,
use a bigger gun,
HOOAH.

Now, if your civilian world is full of alien transforming robots or other things requiring heavy fire power, get some.

If, however, you are back in a pretty regular civilian environment dealing with everyday issues your understanding of escalation of force needs to be flipped over.

Escalation of force begins at zero. To understand zero think about your own heart. If you didn't know this already, your heart beats in a spiral. At the center of your heart, like the center of a tornado, or the eye of a hurricane, there is peace.

In a combat context, escalation of force moves away from that peaceful center and into every increasing expression of violence.

Now here is something we all know, at the end of the day, we fight, we suffer, we live and die for each other. God and country may sound like a higher calling, but the highest calling is that SMBR next to you. This is called brotherhood. I have also heard this feeling referred to as love.

We can all agree that there is a universally recognized relationship between your heart and the idea of love. Everyone knows what you say when someone isn't getting the job done: "their heart wasn't in it."

Escalation of force in a civilian context involves ever expanding expression of the heart.

Now if this sounds contrary to your understanding of what it means to be a SMBR think of your heart as a force to be reckoned with. Your big gun.

The more of your heart you put into any situation, the less that situation has a chance to do anything else.

If the idea of running through hell to save your battle buddy seems normal to you, then your heart is working fine.

Now put that bad boy to work in your civilian life and marvel at what shows up.

HOOAH.

The 18th stanza of the Art of Peace, by founder and creator of the Martial Art Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba is: