The Stoic Analogy of Close Quarters Combat
Placing your body between the enemy and those you care about
The Stoics loved their analogies. There was the analogy of the “ship”, of the “fair”, of the “smoky room”, and many others.
The goal was to vividly articulate a Stoic precept that you could then use in your day to day living.
I hope to add to this ancient stockpile with modern examples.
Close Quarters Combat (CQC) is a science – it is the science of clearing a room, a building, or a complex of the enemy. It is a game of angles and aggression.
Two fighters line up on either side of a door. Inside of the room are enemy combatants.
The One Man’s role is to enter the door first. In three perfectly placed steps, he goes from Room A into Room B, heel-to-toe walking along the inner wall to clear the far corner of the enemy. The One Man’s primary purpose is to clear his corner and then oscillate his rifle across the rest of the room with his eyes on the sights.
The Two Man, however, has a greater responsibility. Not only must he three-step through the door to clear the opposite side of the room from the One Man, but he must do so as quickly and smoothly as possible because the One Man has already alerted the enemy in the room.
For the briefest moment, if there is an enemy shooter in the Two Man’s uncleared corner, the One Man’s back is exposed – utterly and completely and helplessly exposed – to the enemy’s rifle.
The Two Man’s role is to use his own body to protect his brother and clear his corner. He is a shield. He must choose to be useful. He must take the risk of entering the room, and then the additional responsibility of protecting the life of his teammate.
Now what if I don’t play the role of Two Man? The One Man smoothly enters the room, finger on the trigger, and the fight begins. I hear his calm single fire shots into his corner; I hear the screams of the enemy combatants and the panic in their voices. What if I'm lost in thought for a second, focusing on my exhaustion or my gear? Or what if I hear the sounds of shots fired in that room, and stand in momentary wonder at how much louder gunfire is when it reverberates around halls and walls and concusses the ear drums, and I didn’t expect it, and it stuns me, and the One Man is alone in that tiny room with the brilliant white muzzle flashes while I'm standing outside this door like a fool?
The world contracts to this one single moment in time in which each second is as long as three lifetimes.
Now what do I do? Either I enter the room or I stand outside of it. The three τόποι (topics or disciplines) of Epictetus can be my guide:
If I enter the room, then I am choosing to be grateful for the task set before me.
If I enter the room, then I am choosing to fulfill my role as a brother.
If I enter the room, then I am choosing to master my inner discourse.
If I do not enter the room, then I am choosing to be ungrateful and a false-brother and a beast.
What then? Why would we not resolve to be the Two Man in every situation in life we will ever face?
The Skeptic disagrees with me: “How is the role of the Two Man applicable outside of combat? I don’t see a need for this kind of devotion and risk taking in my day to day.” That’s because you’re not looking for it.
The fighter trained for CQC never walks through a door in the same way again. He doesn’t enter like you do with a single minded focus on the stand of oranges in the middle of the super market when you walk through the double doors. He sees the birthday card holder to the immediate left, then the customer support counter ten degrees further in, then your orange stand, then the blueberries, then the flowers, then the windows, then the opposite corner that has evidently not been swept in weeks. It is embedded within a fighters mammalian brain to build a “sense” of the room he is in or about to be in. To “own” that room.
Why all this attention to detail? This merciless obeyance of reality? For one reason: it is meant to make him useful to others no matter how loud the gunfire and painful the bullets and terrifying the screams when things go wrong.
How then can you apply it? When your partner is trying to open the car door and both her hands are full of those oranges you’re obsessed with, do you stand there absentmindedly or do you maneuver around her and hold the door? When you’re stopped at a red light and an 18-wheeler is making a sweeping turn and cutting it close to your car, do you lean forward to see how close it’s going to get and visualize the righteous anger you’ll spout off with if he nicks your bumper, or do you proactively go into reverse to support him?
But these examples are merely being useful to others. The Two Man is dual use: his greater role is assuming risk for another. When a stroller rolls off a curb into traffic, will you assume the risk? When a child is drowning in a rip tide, will you assume the risk? How will you know if you’re not primed for it, or if your slope-shouldered over your phone, or if you’re stunned?
It’s attention to detail. It’s going out of your way whether it’s saving a life or alleviating a minor inconvenience. If you don’t see a shred of value in any of this, I hope that you’ll never be anyone’s Two Man in a fight.
“But it’s not my responsibility.” Just place your body between the corner and your brother.
“But we all get lost in thought sometimes.” Just place your body between the corner and your brother.
“But I’m exhausted.” Just place your body between the corner and your brother.
There is a saying in the SEAL Teams that, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.” This is not a bad way to live a life.
What is required? I need to meditate on the worst case scenario, visualize it, and harden myself for it. What then is the worst case scenario? Getting shot as I cover the One Man? No – this is simply fulfilling my role and completing my task and accepting the consequences. Is it death? No – Epictetus would remind us that death is never the worst case scenario; I'm doing to die anyway, at some point, and in some way, so why not die in this way?
The worst case scenario is not being there for others when it actually matters; it is having every single moment of your life to prepare to be useful and refusing to do so; it is having the power to master the inner discourse and blowing it off. How seriously did I take my studies? How deeply did I think on them? How aggressively did I implement them and practice them and write about them?
Be the Two Man. Place yourself between that uncleared corner and your brother or sister or son or daughter or friend.
There is a saying in the SEAL Teams that, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.”
My husband apparently should have been a SEAL. He is a police officer. Same thought process I guess. Thank you for your service.
I like this one a lot Sam. I have been the one man and two man literally and figuratively numerous times. ( both at work and in life) You need to trust each other that if one is a half step ahead or behind that the other will pick you up and cover you. There is no trust greater than knowing your partner or teammate has your back when you are not looking.