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Tactical Scenario:  02-2005

                                                                                                         

 

The Mountain Hideaway Scenario

 

 

It is a warm mid-afternoon on the first Friday in May.  You have departed work early to go to the mountain hideaway cabin that you & your family own.  It is located on 10 acres of hardwood and evergreens and has a commanding view of the mountain peaks.  The lane to your family cabin is 100 yards from a little-traveled county road and the nearest small town is about 8 miles away.  Neighboring summer cabins, although you cannot see them, are approximately 300 yards on each side of your cabin.  Behind your property are state game lands used by hunters.

 

Your wife & 2 adolescent children will arrive about 6:00 PM.  You park your Jeep Grand Cherokee around back and since this is your first visit of the year, you turn on the electricity and then walk around the cabin to see if there has been any damage caused by the winter snows or by vandals who have been known to break in and occupy summer cabins.  You see no evidence of damage or willful destruction so you unlock the back door & make yourself at home.

 

You note that the well pump is filling the hot water tank and you then check the telephone and find that the line is dead.  Believing that a tree branch probably downed the line, you make a mental note to use your wife’s cell phone to call the telephone company.  Not knowing if your wife remembered to bring her key, you unlock the front door.  Since you have a couple of hours until your family is scheduled to arrive, you go to the desk in your bedroom & boot up your Hewlett-Packard laptop computer hoping to get some work done before they arrive.  About 2 hours later, the sun has set behind the mountains and dusk is approaching.

 

From your bedroom you hear voices at the front porch.  Thinking that your family has arrived, you begin to shut down the computer.  Suddenly, from inside the cabin, you hear a male voice shout, “Anybody in this f---ing place?” followed by another male voice saying, “I think we’ve got this place all to ourselves.”

 

Not recognizing either of the voices and knowing that your family is to arrive at any time, you must take immediate action.  You are armed with a Ted Yost prepared Colt Lightweight Commander loaded with 9 rounds of Remington 185 grain BJHP ammo in a Milt Sparks Versa Max 2 holster on your strong side.  An additional Wilson Combat 8 round mag is in a Sparks #17 mag pouch on your left side.  You also have a Spyderco Endura folder clipped to your off-side pocket.

 

How would you handle this situation?

 

The Mountain Hideaway Response

BY:  EAF in Atlanta

 

 

Well, isolated or not, I’d be reluctant to keep the front door unlocked.  So that would be the first thing I’d change.  Obviously, this isn’t the first time I had been here and there would always be the chance that the phone in the cabin wouldn’t work.  If my wife didn’t get a phone call from me she was to presume the phone didn’t work and to honk the horn in a certain way on arriving to let me know it’s her and to unlock the door.

 

As for me, I’d take a trunk gun with me since I’m alone on the woods and a long arm is nice to have against some of the critters that inhabit the woods like bears and such.  And, as it turns out, I just happen to keep my trunk gun in the bedroom when I’m not using it.  Quite handy, it turns out, since I’m being home invaded.

 

Since I know that I’m out numbered and my wife is on the way, I’m going to elect to exit stage right, grab the trunk gun and take a header out the bedroom window.  No challenges, no shooting, just un-ass the A.O.  Work my way into the woods, all the time, trying to figure out how many of the home invaders there are, where their vehicle is, and work my way to the road that leads to the cabin.  My plan is to intercept my wife before she gets to the house, drive away and call the police or the sheriff.  If I can disable the home invader’s car with the bayonet on my trunk gun (yes, my trunk gun has a bayonet), the better, but my primary mission is to keep my wife and family from walking into an ambush.

 

Once I reach the road, I’d camp out and wait until my wife shows up or they leave whichever comes first.  I’d flag down the wife, and drive to the police or sheriff.  If the home invaders left before my wife arrived, I’d do the same thing.  Who knows, maybe they just murdered someone in my cabin and I wouldn’t want the wife to walk into that.  Nope--go find the gentlemen with the badges and let them search the cabin.  Heck, after an evening like that, I might even consider selling the cabin!!