It’s about Tim

More lessons learned through fun - my mock battle

This one is from ages ago.

Back in 1992 when I was stationed in Okinawa Japan, I went with some friends to play paintball. Although my friends and I were playing for fun, I learned that day why paintball is such a valuable training tool for the military. If you’re smart enough to learn, getting popped with a paintball can be a very powerful combat teaching tool - without the nasty side effects of real bullets.

We were playing capture the flag. Two teams of about 15-20 had bases on opposite sides of hill. The center of the field was mostly open with trees around the edges for taking cover like so:

Referees stood on the high ground in the middle of the open field where they had a fairly good view of everything going on.

On my first time out I was point for a trio of red scouts moving along the western side of the map. Very soon in our patrol we came across a trio of blue scouts and got into a skirmish. We had slightly better cover and managed to get two of them fairly quickly and then it was three against one. The last guy was doing his best to put up resistance and then I heard him swear. His gun had jammed. Not one to give up he took paint balls from his cartridge and started lobbing them at us. Realizing that the balls have to travel pretty fast to break, I decided that I would just move to flank him because he wasn’t going to be able to throw hard enough to hit me. I moved out of my cover then heard several guns fire and felt the sting of no less than seven shots on my back. “HIT! HIT! HIT!,” I yelled and walked off the filed hoping my two guys would realize where the enemy was since rules state a person who has been shot cannot point out the enemy.

I had become so focused on a skirmish that was going our way that I completely lost sight of the entire battlefield. Our guys managed to get through and capture their flag, but I wasn’t too happy about being taken out so early. It was little consolation when a friend said my “death” had helped them locate the enemy. I will trust your intelligence enough to pull the metaphors from my experience.

We fought a few more battles, sometimes the reds won and sometimes the blue, but the last battle of the day was my favorite because I planned it. “I’m so sure we are going to win, and win quickly, that I am not going to fight. I’m going to go hang out with the referees and videotape this,” I told my comrades.

Remember I said the referees were in the middle of an open field on high ground where they could get a good few of everything going on. Both teams, preferring cover had avoided the open field. What my team had been doing, and I assumed the other team as well, was starting off somewhat slowly before moving along the tree borders of the field. There were delays as small groups formed and discussion was had about who would stay and watch the flag, who was going out first, who was going with who, etc. In other words, there was roughly 30 seconds to a minute of people standing around after the start whistle had been blown.

I told my team that as soon as the whistle blew everyone was going to charge to the top of the hill, where the referees had their nice view, and take out as many as they could in that 30 second window. I went to the top with the camera and told the referees I was only observing and to be ready for chaos. When the whistle blew I was surprised to see one enemy scout begin running toward the hill. I had a brief moment of panic as I realized one man might spoil the battle. But my team was moving quickly and the expression on the enemy scout’s face as he met them at the top was priceless. He turned and yelled “they’re coming! Every single one of them!” and was immediately shot in the back. My team quickly lined the top of the hill and started firing down towards the enemy. The shot back but a paintball gun loses it’s accuracy when firing up hill. I got hit, one of the referees got hit, and maybe one or two of my teammates got hit, but the enemy was reduced to one guy in less than a minute. He was dug in pretty well by the flag and managed to hold his own for a few more minutes, but with no one to defend him it was inevitable. To his credit he ran out of ammo and surrendered without being hit.

Our last victory of the day was the soundest, and the guys that went to seize the flag enjoyed the fact that they didn’t have to sneak up to grab it. I enjoyed the cheers and pats on my back. I realize that my getting shot in earlier battles was teaching me to see the big picture.

Leadership is about taking risks, but not blindly without experience.