When did you leave "Condition White" behind?

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From 3rd grade on i was constantly terrorized, picked on, beaten and insulted on a daily basis by a select number of individuals at my country school. That is until i got big enough in 7th grade to pick up a louisville slugger and take my revenge. Unfourtunatly most of the agrssors had graduated by that point. But the half dozen that were left felt the wrath for all of them. Funny how the teachers never seemed to be watching us at recess when i recived my "weenie whippings" as they were known. It was then i leaned you ALWAYS carry a BIG F'ING stick. In my case at one point literally. Nothing like good old hickory meeting flesh. I dont remeber that day really. I was told later i took a softball bat tip to teh kidneys and didnt even flinch. I just kept stackin em up like cordwood. Though im sure at one point or another in those 4 1/2 miserable years that i wondered if anyone would ever stick up for me, it took my that long to realize for myself that nobody in this world will stick up for me and if i wanted to stop being someone elses punching bag i better be doin it myself.

SW
 
gotta thank my father for this one (Thanks, Dad!)

I was raised around firearms, and from the crib was raised to be aware of my situation... never was really "cindition white"...

long about 5th grade, a group of eighth graders wanted to take a round out of me... i caught on before bthey had me surrounded...

that little elm branch put three of them in the hospital for stitches, and 2 more on the ground with very sore nether-regions...

never was picked on again...
 
Condition white

Probably about 15 years ago when I started carrying a gun for a living as a corporate security officer....
 
its been a LONG time....but remember like it JUST happened

I was closing a service station one night after high school, a bit nervous as there had been several rural stations in the next county robbed and the attendants shot and killed. I was in a small town less than a block from the police station (I could see it out the back window of the shop) and felt a BIT safer for that.

I had cleared the island till (remember THOSE?) and was counting it out into the safe tray when a man in a trenchcoat walked in and asked if he could use the restroom. I looked up into the barrels of a sawed-off 12 ga with MAYBE 6 inches of barrel left. :what:
He handed me a cloth sack and told me to empty the tills and the safe tray, which I did. I also stepped on the pressure switch under the dk green tile in a black and white checkerboard pattern floor. That was the switch for the alarm in the local PD. I was SWEATING as he asked me if there was more money in the safe...I figured that I had best get it for him and that I might live longer if he was waiting for more money from the safe.

As I went to walk out from around the counter I saw behind the perp, the form of a friend's father at a dead run for the station. His Dad was a retired Marine (Gunnery Sgt) and the commander of the night shift police in my town. Sgt never broke stride as he ran THROUGH the glass of the door and tackled the perp with a wrap-up tackle that left the perps gun hand with several broken fingers as the gun was stripped and his wrist broken. I just stood there and SHOOK for a while.

The next day after school, Sgt and my friend were waiting for me, Sgt asked if I owned a handgun (not at that time, my father was VERY anti HANDGUN,:banghead: but owned a rifle and a shotgun - he owns a S&W 681 now after a home invasion and 2 burglaries), when I answered in the negative he invited me out to their place for supper. There I was introduced to the .45 auto and the Colt 1911. I went home with one that night, Dad and I had QUITE a fight over that. but after what had happened the night before, he stopped before I walked out the door for good.

That gun was stolen in college, but it started me shooting handguns,( I already hunted) the incident started me being AWARE of what is around me...even in "safe" environments. Except at work, I am never out of reach of a handgun and there are long guns in various places in my house. I have lost a few when I was burgled a few years ago..but all were recovered.

I have tried to teach my boys to be aware, they both shoot, one hunts and they are more savy than many of their peers as they are reaching adulthood and growing through highschool (ages 19 and 15)

Aaron
 
My freshmen year in highschool. Thats about the time I figured out I was queer, It was one of those things I never knew existed until I really sat down and thought about it.

A guy I knew, a gay student in his sophmore year had been run off the road and in the middle of nowhere..chased by yahoos before they beat the living snot out've him and left him for dead in the middle of a horse pasture. They'd carved a word, which I wont repeat here into his face and just left him there.

I heard about things the next day, and suddenly became aware of how fragile the illusion of soceity really is. I drove those same roads, at night and alone. I too was defenceless, and I hadnt thought twice about it until then. I started with a crowbar beside my seat and a CB radio, (couldnt afford a cell) and soon after I moved up to a proper axe. I never had much of a father growing up, so without anyone to offer advice I sauntered down to the gunstore on my 18nth birthday and left with a Marlin 336. Taught myself to use it, and spent alot've time with my eyes firmly fixed on the rearview at stoplights.

I just got my holster and my handgun shortly before, and now I'm on my way to a CCW. I enjoy shooting, but at the same time regret that I have to defend my safety from my fellow man with a firearm. People should be better than that.:(
 
Attempted home invasion in 2002. I heard my dog (Basset Hound) barking and growling at the door (he never did this and has not since) around 2AM on a weekday. Shortly thereafter I heard the voices of two males, possibly three yelling through my door and trying to kick it open.

They were facing the working end of a Bushmaster XM-15 with 31 SS109 bullets when they had the door cracked enough to see me across the room. It was at this point, like an earlier poster said, that the facade of society came off - I attended a five-day class to learn to use that 'fancy poodle-shooter' within a month of this incident. I wouldn't wish it to happen to anyone, but it was a cheap lesson.

JE223
 
We don't use colours like this in the UK, but if we did I don't believe I've ever been in 'White', Mum is disabled & father left when I was 5, had great Grand parents but was teated like I was made of glass until school.
I was pretty quiet and got jumped at 13 (17years ago now!!) by the school bully....... and beat the living snot out of him.
My buddy's still recall it now, as looking like a WWF fight, I don't remember it, but apparently I threw him all over the place.

That was around the same time we got burgled twice in one week,

Life's hard when you're teenager:)
 
I suppose I was always a little more alert than most people, from having worked in the woods where you always have to be aware of potential dangers. But in general that was a kinder, gentler time for me when I really didn't expect foul play out in the boonies. Too high of an altitude for cougars and back then black bears were hunted all summer in CO so they were both rare and rarely seen.

The real life change for me came from a "non-violent" (if you can call it that :rolleyes: ) attack on some friends of ours by the church that we also attended at that time. I just could not believe such a backstabbing attack from supposed "friends" and "brothers/sisters", and I haven't been the same since that moment. It's carried over to where I really don't trust anyone very much anymore.
 
Boating in a lake full of stumps teaches you to be keenly aware of your surroundings, especially after you've been in a boat that hits one and sinks. When you're 7. In November.

After that, I guess it was when I smacked my forehead into a low beam at the dojo when I was in high school. "Well, don't bleed on my mat," says sensei :rolleyes: "That's a good lesson in situational awareness for you," says sensei :banghead: <--wow that smiley is accurate in this case

Studying various forms of martial arts since I was 10 taught me some situational awareness, and that awareness enabled me to minimize the damage done when some wannabe 'banger decided he should take a swing at me with an aluminum bat. My girlfriend saved his life by screaming loud enough to kick me out of my rage right before I ran him over.

Carrying a weapon has heightened my awareness even further, as being armed comes with more responsibility.
 
Growing up in post communistic country we were raised to be alert at all times. Basiclly the country was and to some point still is run by organized crime groups, and the goverment is the biggest one of them. when I still lived there everyday was an adventure between 10 -15y.o. a day in which you didn't get chased was a good day. Been chased with gunfire, peper sparyed, stabbed by the time I was sixteen. but the worst of all was when I got stripped down to my underware they took everything sneakers jacket shirt jeans hat. after that I never went walked through an underpass I sprinted and if some one was in front of me I rammed through.
I was always picked on by older kids cuz i was very tall, but then i got so tall/big people didnt dare try to rob me unless armed.

In my second life in the U.S.
I thought everything is safe here or at least safer than back home well it is to a point. My eye opener to CCW 24/7 was when is started bouncing at a night club in Philly. I couldn't belive how many weirdos tried to get in the club with a gun. One dude even dropped his pistol while dancing.
now the P95 is where I go.
 
In 9th grade when I began getting the certifications that granted me the nickname MedGirl is when I began leaving code white behind in certain situations such as at the pool (Life guard) and when camping (Wilderness survival, search and rescue). Two years later a friend of mine was raped in her car at the local mall. After that I started learning self defense (which I now teach in conjunction with my university police) and practicing variouse forms of martial arts.
 
The first time I recall genuinely being aware of potential danger was in 4th grade. My best friend and I had had a falling out over whatever 4th graders get mad about. He called me one afternoon after we'd not spoken for a while and asked if I wanted to come over to a third party's house. This third party was a sort of fringe friend at the time, and not really anyone we hung out with outside of school. I don't recall exactly what he said, but he kept trying to get me to come over there. I found out many years later (we reconciled within a week of the incident and kept in touch through college) that he and the other guy were planning to jump me at the third kid's house.

I don't know if that's what precipitated the way I feel, but I've been a bit cynical and distrustful of people for a long time. I'm also an avid people watcher, so I tend to have my head up and looking around all the time, anyway. I've never been mugged, jumped, robbed, or anything else, and I certainly consider myself lucky.
 
Raised that way

I think I have to agree with others that I was raised that way.

My dad always worked for the government on one Top-Secret thing or another. I didn't catch it when I was younger but as I grew older and to this day I can recognize his training in me. He was always attentive and ready to act, without looking like it.

I ride motorcycles so think I have also been more "tuned" because of the constant threat against motorcycles by other automobiles.

From time to time I catch myself taking subconcious inventory of people. I do it constantly without even realizing it anymore.

Respect,

Chappy
 
When I refused to let a guy in front of me in heavy traffic. He got out and began beating on my window. I was totally unarmed and unprepared for such a situation. It's been about 7 years.
 
Hurricane Katrina

Living on the gulf coast of Texas and witnessing the mayhem in NO prompted me to become more prepared. Rita was close, but by that time I had two firearms in the house. My first guns.

Fortunately I've never been the victim of physical violence, but I realize it could happen at any time. I just received my Texas CHL.
 
My background

My best guess: April, 1989, (age 8) with losing my maternal grandfather (thankfully, not to enemy action, only an incompetent MD--prescribed MASSIVE overdose, and overrode the pharmacist's concerns). What came out of the "catastrophic systems failure" was firewalled to Condition Red, and only throttled back to Orange, and then Yellow, at several-year increments.

However, since a pattern has developed through my college years of being a magnet for lady friends (not as in "romantic involvement", but still very close friendships) with violent, potentially-lethal problem exes, I'm back in the high-Yellow/low-Orange range.
 
By the second or third grade, I had learned that you have to fight sometimes. There was a bully, a couple of years older than me on the bus with green teeth, he used to punch me..... at first I took it and said nothing. Finally I fought back and things stopped. It was about that point that my parents got involved also as they didn't know.

High School.... tall skinny kid.... not very physically agressive....was not in the cool group... a lot of hoods in school and sometimes things were fairly tense. About Junior year, I had enough and fought back and it stopped. Actually gained a lot of respect that day and I'll never forget it. Really didn't have mnay problems after grade school, but sometimes you can only take so much.

Life's little lessons have taught me to always be as aware as possible of my surroundings. I am not a violent type and prefer not to fight. But, sometimes things happen and you have to be alert. But I would rather be alive and uninjured than cut up or shot, so I will usually try to avoid things as much as possible even to the deteriment of my pride.

A police officer told me that in my county no police officer would ever cite me for having a loaded gun in my vehicle as long you act responsibly regardless of the law or CCW legalities. Interesting actually, which is why I put off getting a CCW for so long as I really don't want to carry, and not having a permit will not affect my decision to carry if I feel my life is endangered.

You have to pay attention in certain situations and areas. Things like having been robbed while I was home sort of cement attitudes about self defense.
 
Left condition white when I became a prosecutor. I knew there was evil in the world, but I did not realize that evil was the norm, not the exception, until I dealt with it on a daily basis.
In general, people will do whatever they want, regardless of who it hurts, if they can get away with it. Alot of people like it better when they do hurt someone. Hurting is what they enjoy.
Recently, a colleague said LEO's like the way I pursue child predators.
"Well, that's b/c I think we should always give all kids our second best", I said.
"Second best? Why do you say second best?" he replied.
"Because our best would be to shoot all these b*st*rds in the head and throw them in a ditch. But the Constitution doesn't allow that. So we give them our second best, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. And never quit", I replied.
"I figured you'd say something like that", he said, and ended our conversation.
With that, I'm going to work on a search warrant for a pervert's computer. Guess if he knows what's coming....:)
 
Based on some of the page 1 postings, looks like 7th grade was a bad year for most of us! Actually, mine was the summer before 7th. I was riding my bike past the Jr. High just to check it out, and there were about six 7th-8th graders hanging out (three of each). The three boys wanted to "impress" the three girls, so they stopped me (held my handle bars) and started to tease me. The girls told them to leave me alone, and I made a bee-line for home. About half a block (around a corner where the girls couldn't see) the leader of the bullies caught up with me on his bike and tried to apologize. I probably should have accepted, but I told him to f-off, at which point, he started thrashing me. I was saved when some guy watering his lawn shouted. The kid yelled back "he's my little brother" and rode off. I just booked it home and told my older brother. I was too scared to tell dad. Most my brother had to say was "There's a@@holes out there, and you gotta be aware of them. Watch your back, and remember bullies are just big cowards."

His advice stuck with me. Later that year, I was in lunch line when a big bully pushed me back and cut in line in front of me. I told him to move it and he turns and says "Don't you know who I am? I'm supposed to be in the 10th grade!" My reply? "So hit me, jerk. Most that's gonna happen is I get a bloody nose, and you get suspended. That must be why you're still a 7th grader, huh?" I was shaking inside, but darned if he didn't just turn and go to the end of the line!:D
 
man this is kinda depressing - we've all got our butts kicked in high school! Just kidding... but seriously, there are a lot of us that have white knocked WAAAAAAY outta us a long time ago.

I lost white the first time "out of country" w/my unit in USMC. all that training was wasn't enough to compensate for the feeling of actually being in a combative situation. I never complained after that about training.

Ugh, my stomach sinks remembering...
 
1995. My future wife and I took a long trip across the country and camped our way from Ohio to San Diego. Then her parents met us in SD and her Dad and I drove back to Ohio in 48 hours straight. We were driving a Pontiac Grand Am 2-door coupe I had owned for all of a week before the trip.

We stopped for a quick stretch and a sandwich at a lonely rest stop somewhere I can't remember in the New Mexico/Arizona desert. I think it was between Seligman Arizona and the NM border on I40 but my memory may be off. It was pretty desolate country. We pulled off to let my future father in law burn a few Kools (he smoked then, but not in my car!) and eat bologna sandwiches & Cokes.

While we were eating a couple of dudes walked around the place talking to people. They were kind of scruffy, wearing jeans, Tee shirts, denim jackets, biker hats, beat up boots. They approached us and spun a tale about how they were driving from here to there and almost out of gas and could we lend them $20 for gas. I told them, truthfully as it was, that we were driving all the way back to Ohio like the car tags said, and we had just enough money for gas for us, and if I had extra I would share but sorry, didn't have any extra money.

The guys just seemed... shady to me.

There were about 5-6 RV's and a dozen or so cars pulled off. There were people cooking weenies on hibachis and kids playing Nerf football. There was a dry wash behind the bathroom building and I went down there looking for fossils after eating a sandwich; my father in law smoked a few cigarettes and walked around and took photos of the desert. I don't know how long we were there. It was late evening and I noticed it was starting towards sunset and we had miles to go. I climbed out of the wash and headed towards my future father in law.

Then I noticed the two dudes sitting on a picnic table by the bathrooms scratching on the table with a big f-ing knife. Then I noticed that the last people other than us were climbing into a big RV and heading out... leaving only one car in the lot...ours.

If they needed gas, where was their car?

At that moment the little alarms started going off. My FIL was waiting for me and said, "We ought to be leaving." and kind of nodded at the dudes. By now they were getting off the table and kinda huddled talking to each other and giving us sideways looks and then started moving in our direction.

I took our blanket we had been sitting on and the bag of food and went to the car. My FIL started repacking the cooler. I noticed the dudes were now walking directly towards my FIL.

Even though I was until then in Condition White my whole life momma Price didn't raise no dummies. I had been travelling and tent camping all over the US with my young girlfriend. At that time I had no CFL. However, I had my Colt King Cobra 4" stainless .357 Magnum with Hydra Shoks packed rolled up in my sleeping bag. I carried it all across the US and I am sure violated lots of laws doing it. I took it out, tucked it into my belt, and headed to help my FIL, who, to carry the cooler, would have to have both hands occupied.

Dude #1, moves wide around us, trying to get between us and the car. "Hey man, you sure you can't help us with some gas money?"

Dude #2, Keeps bearing down on my FIL. "Yeah, man, we are not gonna make it far down the road."

FIL starts towards car.

Me:"So where is your car then?"

Dudes look at each other.

"Well, why don't you give us a ride then?" says Dude #2, the one I saw with the knife in his pocket, hand on hilt.

Dude #1 is now walking backwards trying to keep between us and the car- this is because we are walking fast enough they can't quite get us seperated.

It was one of the most beautiful moments in my life. My thoughts were crystal clear. I could have counted each piece of gravel in the parking lot. I slid my jacket open and put my right hand on the Colt revolver's Pachmyer grips and lifted it slightly so that the cylinder was clear of my belt but barrel not quite clear yet...

Me: "Sorry guys, the cooler goes in the back seat, there's no room in the Grand Am."

Dude #2's eyes get as big as saucers when he sees the gun. "No problem man." I see him let go of the knife hilt in his pants pocket.

I turn my body so that I am side on to Dude #1. He now sees the pistol and takes two steps back and puts his hands up. "Hey hey, just go. Don't want no trouble." says Dude #1.

They retreat back to the picnic table. We load our stuff and go. I put the Colt into the center console and we get the Heck out of Dodge. I pull off at the next exit, stow Colt back in rolled up sleeping bag in trunk, and call the law. They take the report on the phone and say they will "Check it out."

I really hope those scumbags didn't hurt the next poor SOB's to stop there.


From that day foreward I realized that there was no time that you can afford to be innocent. That there are those in the world who wait for that moment when your guard is down just to violate you. Call 'em GOBLINS or whatever you want. Evil is alive.

I got my Florida nonresident soon thereafter and as soon as Ohio got CCW I got my OHCCW.
 
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