LMS Defense Kent Mundell Memorial Carbine Course

On the evening of December 21, 2009 Pierce County Sheriff’s Deputies Kent Mundell and Sergeant Nick Hausner responded to a domestic violence call in Eatonville WA. The report stated that a man, David Crable, was fighting with his daughter and brother. After entering the home, the Deputies convinced the intoxicated man to leave the house when he produced a previously concealed gun and fired ten rounds at the officers.

Both Mundell and Hausner were hit but despite being wounded, Deputy Mundell managed to remain focused, return fire and killed Crable. The suspect's brother and daughter even put themselves at risk to pull help the wounded Hausner out of the line of fire by pulling him into another room.

Deputy Mundell was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he remained on life support in the intensive care unit for the next seven days. On December 28^th, 2009 with his wife and other family and close friends by his side, Kent Mundell passed on. He left behind his loving wife, two children and many other grieving family friends and colleagues.

While still reeling from the loss of another Officer here in Washington, Kevin Williams a primary instructor of LMS Defense in Washington came up with an idea to help raise funds for the family but also to help train others to possibly avoid a situation like this in the future. With the LMS Defense training team on board Kevin started to organize the event for February 2010 and announcements went out to LE agencies, past LMS Alumni and across message boards like Lightfighter.net that help connect many of these professionals from all across the globe.

Support poured in from all across the country in the form of monetary donations as well as raffle prizes in support of the memorial event. The typical course tuition for an event like this would be $190 but for this event, all the money that was collected went to the Kent Mundell Memorial Foundation. And with a class size of 26 and hundreds more offering support it’s no wonder that this one day even raised nearly $8,000 for the Mundell family.

On the cool early morning of 27 February, 2010, 22 shooters gathered at a shooting range nestled in the foothills of mount Rainer. But we all came together with one goal in mind and that was to honor Kent Mundell in a special way: Train hard.

Kevin started off the morning with introductions around the group which included Officers from many different departments, Firefighters, EMTs, Soldiers industry professionals and civilians. Some were SWAT, some had combat experience, others had real world trauma experience, previous tactical courses and experience contracting overseas in theatres like Iraq and Afghanistan. From there Kevin gave a range safety brief and then laid out how the course would unfold throughout the day. The training plan included:

-Pistol and rifle qualifications

-Shooting from standing, kneeling and prone to include barricade shooting

-Shooting while moving, box drills and the infamous Roadhouse Rules

-Lunch and Prize Raffle

- Transition drills, malfunction drills, reload drills

-Tactical Trauma and life saving skills

You could tell after this course brief that the pace of the class was going to be fast and the bar set high to perform well. Not only did you want to shoot your best but Kevin said there would be certain events where there was some quality prizes being donated by some of the tactical industries most reputable names.

The training day began with pistol and rifle qualifications. For me being a .mil guy, shooting rifle from only as far as 100 meters and closer was a no brainer. Having done this for years with only iron sights was easy but doing it with a micro-dot on a well tuned LMT rifle made it very easy. I managed to hold my own pretty well and shoot accurately, smoothly and consistent.

Next up was the pistol qualification evolution. For me, I knew this would be more difficult since I have only seriously begun pistol training and drills over the last few years and never anything 50 meters out for record. I had confidence in my Glock 19 to keep me from looking like too much of an ass and after it complete, I scored well and was even told by a few of the LE guys that I did a lot better than many LE guys that have the chance to shoot this course monthly at a minimum.

After all the scores were tallied up Kevin brought out the first of the surprise prizes. A DB-L knife to each winner donated by the good folks at Strider knives. If you know anything about Strider knives you know they are top notch kit coveted by many as the hardest working knife out there and they are not cheap or easy to get.

Over the next few hours Kevin put us through many scenarios and drills including reloads, transitions, barricade shooting, multi-target and shooting on the moves. It seemed as we learned something we just kept adding another step and making it more advanced until the evolutions culminated with many shooters moving quickly, acting confidently and engaging with professional accuracy.

Being a lefty I do things differently than most when it comes to shooting. Not only is it the fact that I shoot rifle left handed but couple that with me shooting pistol right handed. Many have pointed out during training that this is a very odd way of shooting. The amazing part was there was not one, but two shooters in this class that also suffered from this ‘affliction’. One of them, a Pierce County SWAT guy who has been on the job for a long time and the other was Scott, a regular at many of the LMS Defense courses. It was nice to see that though we had never met before, we were all using the same technique with a subtle difference here and there due to body types and gear setup.

The morning flowed so well that everyone kept pushing to learn and shoot at an insatiable rate. Finally Kevin called a working lunch and everyone gathered under the overhead cover to eat some food, drink up, dry off and reload. Kevin used this time to start the raffle. There were donations from many great companies, gear makers and distributors. Probably the most coveted item that everybody wanted to win was a Primary Weapons System MK-1 series piston upper assembly. If you are not familiar with PWS then you really have no idea what you are missing. The good folks at PWS make some of the best weapons and accessories out there. Not only did they donate such an awesome item but two members of the PWS Team drove all the way from Idaho just to show their support and shoot with us and brought some nice little goodie bags for all in attendance. There were also gift certificates for training with the great Pat Rogers from EAG Tactical, a huge selection of gear from Tactical Tailor, holsters from Blade-Tech, knives from SOG and much, much more.

After the raffle and lunch wrapped up, we began the Tactical Trauma evolution. Kevin had reached out to his fire fighter brethren and arranged for two EMTs to give us this block of instructions. These guys were nothing short of professionally passionate about what they do. One of them has nearly 20 years on the job and the other is also a Special Forces medic who has seen combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This was not a full blown trauma course but rather a condensed block about saving your partners life. Most gunfight wounds have one major thing in common: blood loss due to extra holes in the body. This was all about being able to stop that bleeding and moving your partner to safety. From pressure bandages, to wound packing with Kerlix, to applying tourniquets-it was all expertly covered. Then the big surprise came out with the introduction of live tissue to apply everything learned.

In the final few hours of training we covered more shoot and move drills and malfunctions. Malfunction drills hold a special place in my heart as I feel this is a skill that everyone who makes a living behind the gun needs to not only know how to shoot but they need to be able to problem solve and fix their gun when it goes down. It was said to me once years ago and I say it often: If your gun goes down in a gun fight you have the rest of your life to get it working again.

Kevin teaches some very solid methods in getting your gun up and running to put get you back in the fight. It wasn’t just a show and tell either. The practical application part of this was the Blue Falcon drill where you set your partners gun up with a failure and then they have to work through the problem. Everyone really took a liking to this evolution since it gave you the chance to be creative and really mess with your partners head.

By the end of the day everybody was dirty, tired and a little wet from the occasional showers well known in the Pacific Northwest. More than 20,000 rounds had been expended and the ground literally glowed with a brass hue. After we assembled for a final class photo Kevin gave us some finals thanks for helping out the Mundell family and honoring his name and sacrifice. However we were only a small group of 22 that represented a much larger group from all over that helped make this event possible.

Thanks to the LMS Defense team and Kevin Williams for putting on such an event. Without their effort this event would never have happened. To all the vendors that donated so much: Primary Weapons Sytems, Pat Rogers of EAG Tactical, Strider knives, Blade-Tech, Magpul, LaRue Tactical, SOG Specialties, Tactical Tailor, SLiP 2000 and many others I know I am forgetting we all thank you. This was a great day spent training for a great cause.

The loss of Officers lost in the line of duty happens far too often in our country. Mindset, training and preparedness can give that much needed edge when it comes to being the Last Man Standing in a fight. Train hard, train often.

Train with LMS Defense!