Drizzt
Member
ELK MOUNTAIN, Colo. -- While on vacation, I meet a quiet man on a busy street corner.
Or at least the outline of a stranger, hiding off to my left. I don't see his face, but I sure see his gun.
My mouth feels like flypaper. Blood rushes from my fingers as I back up into the dark alley and fumble to draw a borrowed Military and Police Smith and Wesson 9 mm from my holster. Trying to be casual, I whisper -- possibly whimper -- to former Navy Seal Team Five member, Jeremiah Miles, who has my back: "There's a bad guy right there... what now?"
"Well shoot him," Miles strongly suggests.
So I do just that. Leaning out, three rounds and the terrorist keels over in the crowded street with no argument or last thoughts. Only then do I notice the sounds -- traffic and music from a bar up ahead. And how none of it is quieted by the fatal encounter which has taken place on their lane. I wonder how many more locals -- terrorists, crazed gunmen, homicidal thugs and drunks with knives -- I'll shoot today as I saunter through their remote Colorado neighbourhood? And whether I'll keep my finger off the trigger when I round another corner and am startled by a youngster pointing a water bottle my way.
Before I leave for home, I also must remember to look through the gift shop -- perhaps buy an embroidered ball cap that suggests: "Take no prisoners. Eat their wounded." Because this memorable mayhem is a vacation many people would kill for.
About 9,000 feet up Colorado's Uncompahgre Plateau, on the western slope of the Rockies, rests the exclusive Elk Mountain retreat. Built by Thomas Forman, a six-foot-four, former professional fighter and bodyguard, it's the last word when it comes to learning how to take down terrorists on your airplane or kill invaders who have busted down your back door -- while still being able to order a smoked pheasant and wild mushroom crepe between epic battles.
This was originally designed as a family-fun shooting facility, but took on more urgency and weight after 9/11.
As al-Qaida is training their legions in sandy, hot Hell holes with no plumbing or HBO, thousands of people have come here since late 2003 -- paying as much as $900 a day -- to learn how to defend what's theirs. If the terrorists lose, it's because they can't, after a hard day of Jihad, relax with a good cigar and glass of wine by a fireplace.
Forman says his indoor pistol facility has done a remarkable job in the global fight on terrorism. Canadians, including several members of Ontario's Durham Regional Police Service, have come to Valhalla for training, officials here say.
Forman argues it's reality, not fear, that draws people.
"We can't just sit back and not go on with our lives," says Forman, imposing in tinted shooting glasses and secret service-like radio earpiece.
He went out to build a recreational and training site that combines a plush, pampered vacation with deadly tools of survival. To arrive, you use a remote road built in 1883 -- past the Half-Ass Horse Ranch and, still farther on, as the tree line turns from sagebrush to pine and then to aspen, the Freckle Dog Ranch. Forman's last man standing resort rests between Montrose, Colo., and uber-trendy Telluride, Colo.
Forman was going to build all this in Western Canada, within earshot of Banff, but started planning it here just before 9/11, when he stopped a snowmobile and looked out across 60,000 acres of adjacent national forest land.
The snow, which now lingers on branches, is as thick as the Hungarian goose-down filled comforters in my $325-a-night cabin.
The 275-acre resort boasts a stocked fish pond. There are hot-rock massages as well. But it's all wrapped around the Valhalla shooting club. In myth, Valhalla was an after-life hall where Norse warriors met to feast. Here, it is a steel-encased, 16,000-sq.-ft. facility, where civilians, police and armed security details have been taught to kill with greater ease.
MEMBERSHIPS
Warriors here end their days with medium rare bison burgers, while later lounging around in plush Egyptian bathrobes. Just ask basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and retired U.S. General, Norman Schwarzkopf -- both hold $68,000 memberships here. Though lesser known mortals can book a room and pay for days of "executive cane fighting" or "counter vehicle-ambush" training.
You won't find reliable cellphone service, but you will face your fears, as former special-ops experts have you imagine everything from your child being sexually assaulted in another room to a terrorist taking over the first class section of your plane.
I am in the last class of the season -- a two-day, armed home defence course. It's just myself and Rob Corson, a 40-year-old married, general contractor from Houston, Texas. He's come because they've trained some of America's most elite special ops soldiers here. And, as well, crime is getting out of hand where he lives -- having heard stories of people kidnapped from mall parking lots and women being raped and burned alive as the man of the house lie beaten by thugs.
"I feel better knowing what I should do," Rob says, as we sit in front of a fire -- guns strapped to our hips -- to eat lunch. A nearby stuffed bear watches us without lingering hunger of his own. A bookshelf is stocked with tough titles like, Small Arms of the World and Men at War.
We seem to be writing our own chapters, as we're sent, again and again, into different scenarios -- so many I'll begin to recognize the faces of the dummies I shoot.
At one point, I'll catch hell from my trainer when I apologize to the mannequin I've just killed.
"Don't say you're sorry -- he was going to shoot you," barks John Brown, a former active duty instructor at the naval Special Warfare School.
"It's a Canadian reflex," I try to explain.
In one scenario, the room is pitch black. I can barely make out three different attackers -- two guys and a girl. All point guns my way. Using a beam of a small flashlight, I fire at them as I'm instructed who dies next.
Spent brass casings hit the floor like pennies from heaven.
"The tough part is mustering the control when your daughter is screaming," says Brown. "If you get yourself killed, and you're the only gunfighter in the house, everyone else is dead."
DARK ALLEYS
If the rooms of the resort are world class -- 450-thread-count linens -- the small-world within the shooting house is Sin City. Alleys are dark. The subway newsstand is filthy. The bar pulses with agonizing heavy metal music and an even weightier sense of impending doom. Blank stares follow me everywhere.
The walls and cheap furniture of a full-size home scenario are peppered with past gun fights. I would have moved ages ago. But it's not the dirty comforter or awful paintings in the rooms, I dwell on, but rather an unopened Bible on the nightstand. It has not yet been baptized by the live fire.
I'm making my way through the house, this round using non-fatal ammunition, while dragging my son, who's actually a six-foot tall Valhalla employee.
I'm to get him safely out of the house. He's a damn stupid kid and, wondering if I should just shoot him myself, I have to keep grabbing him to get him to move.
Suddenly, I realize a shooter has swung around behind us. I grab my son and pitch him harshly out of the line of fire -- in this case, using Canadian made Simunition training pellets. I no longer slowly check rooms before entering, instead I manhandle my son toward the exit. The attacker won't be shot. But my boy and I will also survive.
Here, you can learn to shoot a man when he's so close you can feel his breath on your skin. But, for the most part, I'm just trying to keep my pants up. I take a needed pee break -- holding onto my drawers, which are weighed down by my weapon and extra magazines.
I don't seem near the vision of the debonair man pictured in a poster, hanging on a wall near me. He's wearing a tuxedo, and the caption boasts: "Today, you rescued the plane, prevented a car jacking and shot your way out of a crowded subway car ... and you never left our resort."
I'm living a lifestyle usually reserved for action heroes and secret agents, it assures me, as I grab my falling cargo pants.
Over two days, I will fire 800 rounds into a night gallery of homicidal maniacs. I'll listen to stories of how to kill a wild boar with a three-and-a-half inch knife. My knuckles will be raw from pounding on dummies inside the facility's fighting Dojo. By the second night, my blood thick with testosterone and inhaled gun smoke, I will dream of tank battles and trains run off their rails.
And I will wrongly begin to think I have an idea what it's like to shoot another human. The man who spent time watching my back, trainer Jeremiah, knows better. A navy assaulter, he's spent time in Iraq. Has seen bullets go into flesh. And pulled the trigger out in the real world.
TUNNEL VISION
During those moments, he recalls for me, you develop tunnel vision. Time slows. And you hear nothing, as your body, prompted by signals dating back to the dawn of our species, shuts down your hearing.
"I didn't even hear the shots going off until it was over," he recalls of his first gun fight.
Jeremiah earned a Bronze Star for Valor. As for me, from the Valhalla gift shop, I'll consider buying a book of Warrior Psalms, but will instead take home a commemorative Valhalla coin, and paper citation, which will fool this Canadian into believing I'm qualified to face the brave new world.
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2008/01/06/4755068-sun.html
Or at least the outline of a stranger, hiding off to my left. I don't see his face, but I sure see his gun.
My mouth feels like flypaper. Blood rushes from my fingers as I back up into the dark alley and fumble to draw a borrowed Military and Police Smith and Wesson 9 mm from my holster. Trying to be casual, I whisper -- possibly whimper -- to former Navy Seal Team Five member, Jeremiah Miles, who has my back: "There's a bad guy right there... what now?"
"Well shoot him," Miles strongly suggests.
So I do just that. Leaning out, three rounds and the terrorist keels over in the crowded street with no argument or last thoughts. Only then do I notice the sounds -- traffic and music from a bar up ahead. And how none of it is quieted by the fatal encounter which has taken place on their lane. I wonder how many more locals -- terrorists, crazed gunmen, homicidal thugs and drunks with knives -- I'll shoot today as I saunter through their remote Colorado neighbourhood? And whether I'll keep my finger off the trigger when I round another corner and am startled by a youngster pointing a water bottle my way.
Before I leave for home, I also must remember to look through the gift shop -- perhaps buy an embroidered ball cap that suggests: "Take no prisoners. Eat their wounded." Because this memorable mayhem is a vacation many people would kill for.
About 9,000 feet up Colorado's Uncompahgre Plateau, on the western slope of the Rockies, rests the exclusive Elk Mountain retreat. Built by Thomas Forman, a six-foot-four, former professional fighter and bodyguard, it's the last word when it comes to learning how to take down terrorists on your airplane or kill invaders who have busted down your back door -- while still being able to order a smoked pheasant and wild mushroom crepe between epic battles.
This was originally designed as a family-fun shooting facility, but took on more urgency and weight after 9/11.
As al-Qaida is training their legions in sandy, hot Hell holes with no plumbing or HBO, thousands of people have come here since late 2003 -- paying as much as $900 a day -- to learn how to defend what's theirs. If the terrorists lose, it's because they can't, after a hard day of Jihad, relax with a good cigar and glass of wine by a fireplace.
Forman says his indoor pistol facility has done a remarkable job in the global fight on terrorism. Canadians, including several members of Ontario's Durham Regional Police Service, have come to Valhalla for training, officials here say.
Forman argues it's reality, not fear, that draws people.
"We can't just sit back and not go on with our lives," says Forman, imposing in tinted shooting glasses and secret service-like radio earpiece.
He went out to build a recreational and training site that combines a plush, pampered vacation with deadly tools of survival. To arrive, you use a remote road built in 1883 -- past the Half-Ass Horse Ranch and, still farther on, as the tree line turns from sagebrush to pine and then to aspen, the Freckle Dog Ranch. Forman's last man standing resort rests between Montrose, Colo., and uber-trendy Telluride, Colo.
Forman was going to build all this in Western Canada, within earshot of Banff, but started planning it here just before 9/11, when he stopped a snowmobile and looked out across 60,000 acres of adjacent national forest land.
The snow, which now lingers on branches, is as thick as the Hungarian goose-down filled comforters in my $325-a-night cabin.
The 275-acre resort boasts a stocked fish pond. There are hot-rock massages as well. But it's all wrapped around the Valhalla shooting club. In myth, Valhalla was an after-life hall where Norse warriors met to feast. Here, it is a steel-encased, 16,000-sq.-ft. facility, where civilians, police and armed security details have been taught to kill with greater ease.
MEMBERSHIPS
Warriors here end their days with medium rare bison burgers, while later lounging around in plush Egyptian bathrobes. Just ask basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and retired U.S. General, Norman Schwarzkopf -- both hold $68,000 memberships here. Though lesser known mortals can book a room and pay for days of "executive cane fighting" or "counter vehicle-ambush" training.
You won't find reliable cellphone service, but you will face your fears, as former special-ops experts have you imagine everything from your child being sexually assaulted in another room to a terrorist taking over the first class section of your plane.
I am in the last class of the season -- a two-day, armed home defence course. It's just myself and Rob Corson, a 40-year-old married, general contractor from Houston, Texas. He's come because they've trained some of America's most elite special ops soldiers here. And, as well, crime is getting out of hand where he lives -- having heard stories of people kidnapped from mall parking lots and women being raped and burned alive as the man of the house lie beaten by thugs.
"I feel better knowing what I should do," Rob says, as we sit in front of a fire -- guns strapped to our hips -- to eat lunch. A nearby stuffed bear watches us without lingering hunger of his own. A bookshelf is stocked with tough titles like, Small Arms of the World and Men at War.
We seem to be writing our own chapters, as we're sent, again and again, into different scenarios -- so many I'll begin to recognize the faces of the dummies I shoot.
At one point, I'll catch hell from my trainer when I apologize to the mannequin I've just killed.
"Don't say you're sorry -- he was going to shoot you," barks John Brown, a former active duty instructor at the naval Special Warfare School.
"It's a Canadian reflex," I try to explain.
In one scenario, the room is pitch black. I can barely make out three different attackers -- two guys and a girl. All point guns my way. Using a beam of a small flashlight, I fire at them as I'm instructed who dies next.
Spent brass casings hit the floor like pennies from heaven.
"The tough part is mustering the control when your daughter is screaming," says Brown. "If you get yourself killed, and you're the only gunfighter in the house, everyone else is dead."
DARK ALLEYS
If the rooms of the resort are world class -- 450-thread-count linens -- the small-world within the shooting house is Sin City. Alleys are dark. The subway newsstand is filthy. The bar pulses with agonizing heavy metal music and an even weightier sense of impending doom. Blank stares follow me everywhere.
The walls and cheap furniture of a full-size home scenario are peppered with past gun fights. I would have moved ages ago. But it's not the dirty comforter or awful paintings in the rooms, I dwell on, but rather an unopened Bible on the nightstand. It has not yet been baptized by the live fire.
I'm making my way through the house, this round using non-fatal ammunition, while dragging my son, who's actually a six-foot tall Valhalla employee.
I'm to get him safely out of the house. He's a damn stupid kid and, wondering if I should just shoot him myself, I have to keep grabbing him to get him to move.
Suddenly, I realize a shooter has swung around behind us. I grab my son and pitch him harshly out of the line of fire -- in this case, using Canadian made Simunition training pellets. I no longer slowly check rooms before entering, instead I manhandle my son toward the exit. The attacker won't be shot. But my boy and I will also survive.
Here, you can learn to shoot a man when he's so close you can feel his breath on your skin. But, for the most part, I'm just trying to keep my pants up. I take a needed pee break -- holding onto my drawers, which are weighed down by my weapon and extra magazines.
I don't seem near the vision of the debonair man pictured in a poster, hanging on a wall near me. He's wearing a tuxedo, and the caption boasts: "Today, you rescued the plane, prevented a car jacking and shot your way out of a crowded subway car ... and you never left our resort."
I'm living a lifestyle usually reserved for action heroes and secret agents, it assures me, as I grab my falling cargo pants.
Over two days, I will fire 800 rounds into a night gallery of homicidal maniacs. I'll listen to stories of how to kill a wild boar with a three-and-a-half inch knife. My knuckles will be raw from pounding on dummies inside the facility's fighting Dojo. By the second night, my blood thick with testosterone and inhaled gun smoke, I will dream of tank battles and trains run off their rails.
And I will wrongly begin to think I have an idea what it's like to shoot another human. The man who spent time watching my back, trainer Jeremiah, knows better. A navy assaulter, he's spent time in Iraq. Has seen bullets go into flesh. And pulled the trigger out in the real world.
TUNNEL VISION
During those moments, he recalls for me, you develop tunnel vision. Time slows. And you hear nothing, as your body, prompted by signals dating back to the dawn of our species, shuts down your hearing.
"I didn't even hear the shots going off until it was over," he recalls of his first gun fight.
Jeremiah earned a Bronze Star for Valor. As for me, from the Valhalla gift shop, I'll consider buying a book of Warrior Psalms, but will instead take home a commemorative Valhalla coin, and paper citation, which will fool this Canadian into believing I'm qualified to face the brave new world.
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2008/01/06/4755068-sun.html
