Field Training Notes – Recreating the Brushbeater Scout Course in Western NY/PA
Greetings, Partisans! Today’s post is of a much different nature than all my other posts so far, in that it doesn’t deal directly with physical fitness. I’m writing to share my recent experiences with training my local crew in the skills I learned from the Brushbeater Scout Course, which I took in early spring this year. Hopefully, this write-up will be of interest and value to fellow Partisans who are already doing the same thing, or are thinking of training their own local crews in the essential tactical skills of the Scout Course as well.
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Part 1 – Taking Detailed Notes at the Brushbeater Scout Course for New Skill Acquisition and for Re-teaching Locally
First off, I will say that the training of my local crew of bro’s (which I will call “The Crew” from here on out) in Brushbeater Scout Course skills began even before we physically got together as a Crew to train; the training of my local Crew actually began at the Scout Course itself, in that I made sure to take the very, very best notes I could at all times as I took the actual course. I’m already an obsessive notetaker by nature, but in most cases, I just bring my laptop, plug it in, and thunder away on the keyboard quickly and relatively easily. However, because of the austere nature of the Brushbeater Scout Course setting, there was no laptop, so I had to struggle quite a bit to go between typing notes on my crappy little “burner phone” (LOL) and physically writing them in an all-weather note pad that I always had with me, making sure I captured EVERYTHING being taught to us. I just don’t trust myself to remember brand new technical training details, so there was never a time during the Scout Course that I wasn’t furiously scribbling something down – dirty, sweaty fingers and all. Despite the annoying-as-hell difficulty of taking notes in these conditions, I was fortunately able to capture in writing pretty much all instruction in the vital skills and details Brushbeater taught (together with valuable inputs occasionally provided by his seasoned colleagues), while also participating 100% in the training.
Then, upon returning home, I immediately pulled together all my written and typed notes, along with the various photos I had taken of demonstrations, to generate my final master notes for the Scout Course – while the info was still fresh, post-course. The great prize of the notetaking struggle and final editing (also tedious) was that I now had a complete, finished reference upon which I could then base my own local efforts to teach my Crew these critical skills; I knew the thoroughness of the notes would make for a smoother, more effective delivery of training in a subject matter – Scout Skills – that I am just not an expert in. I mean, I would prefer to instruct only in areas of my expertise, but I felt that the knowledge taught in the Scout Course MUST be passed along, and that’s that – expert or not! I had already taken the Brushbeater RTO Courses (Basic and Advanced), as well as the SIGINT Course, so by the time I took the Scout Course, I had concluded that most of the empowering skills taught by Brushbeater simply have much less impact and utility for the individual than they do for THE GROUP. Like, having RTO skills is nice, but without a group to share and work them with, they are of much more limited value. Same applies to the Scout Course, perhaps even more – kind of tough to do a patrol of one person (for example). So when I signed up for the course, I already had in mind that I’d be teaching to my own Crew whatever I had learned. The reason I even mention any of this is not to boast about my high-quality notes, but rather, because without taking and possessing your very best notes, much of what Brushbeater teaches civilian operators (“Mossy Oak Militia”) in his courses will simply fall through the cracks, and create potential gaps in future training (for those that do follow up and practice Scout Course skills on their own, or for those that train others in these skills after the course is over). I mean, if a participant can remember these details and execute them correctly, that’s good on them. But I am just not that person, so notetaking is a huge deal to me, and it pays off!
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Part 2 – Getting the Ball Rolling with Our First Local Scout Training Session
Being in possession of my typed Brushbeater Scout Course notes (in final form), the next order of business was to decide when to train, and what parts to teach. I was anxious to get right into things, but it took a good number of MONTHS before we were finally able to assemble everyone interested in romping around in the woods, Scout Course-style. A combination of real life obligations, time constraints, and schedule incompatibilities for my Crew kept us from getting together for a good long while after I’d already done the actual Brushbeater Scout Course. I was a bit nervous about the “freshness” of my own Scout Course experiences and the time lag between the end of the course and the Crew’s local Scout training, but what are ya gonna do? I managed to train my Crew in some RTO basics mid-spring (faithful to the original Brushbeater RTO Course, again, thanks to the notes I captured in those important courses), thus building my training credibility and worthiness in the eyes of my Crew, most of whom I have known and trained with for less than a year. But after a good spurt of Crew RTO training in March and despite keeping in touch, the abovementioned real life factors caused a very long gap in meeting up again at all until finally, we agreed on our very first local Scout training meet-up for a hot Sunday in mid-June.
When deciding what course content I’d be instructing from the actual three-day Brushbeater Scout Course itself, I figured it would be best to simply stay faithful to the order and content of the Scout Course as originally presented by Brushbeater. Out of that, I did my best to determine what could be taught properly in the 4 – 5 hour period we had available to us to train, and I printed up a segment of the Scout Course notes (as seen in the photo above) that would be doable in the allotted time frame. Due to the horrendous ammo shortage we’re still in the midst of, in addition to the particular equipment requirements of a proper day at the range, I opted to leave out the very first portion of the Scout Course, which is the shooting portion; I absolutely intend to make that a separate, dedicated training day with my Crew altogether – hopefully soon.
In the end, the first training module for the Crew’s local Scout Course covered important theory and practical exercises like:
- Overview of Patrolling and Planning: Principles of Patrolling; METT-TC; Terrain Analysis (OCOKA); etc.
- Types of Patrols
- Principles of Camouflage + Demonstration: Making and using the ghillie, sniper veil + IR netting; painting weapons; thermal signature mitigation etc.
- Building a Hide Site
- Stalking in the Woods: theory and field exercise
As far as location, even though I live in Western New York state, everyone else in my Crew lives in Pennsylvania, so we chose an isolated area in the middle of PA lease lands that much of my Crew was familiar with, and which are crisscrossed by trails and dirt roads, but are otherwise pretty austere – just woods, some open grassy areas, and rocks. It was a perfect setting to recreate the Scout Course!