Kevin Whalen

Retired Green Beret. Private investigator, entrepreneur and author

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

Coming Winter 2026...

WHAT LIES BENEATH WHITE CREEK

- A heroine struggling with the trauma of an abusive relationship
- A hero dealing with survivors guilt from his time at war
- An Antebellum southern mansion with hidden passages and dark secrets
- A southern gothic mystery dealing with serial murder, kidnapping and corrupt officials
- Realistic action scenes written by a Special Operations combat veteran

Elaine Hollis hoped buying White Creek House would be start of a new life. She believed restoring the old southern mansion would be a way repairing her shattered soul following her horrific divorce. She even found hope in her sudden attraction to Matt Grady, a scarred Army Veteran turned mechanic, whose quiet strength was such a contrast to her ex-husband's cruelty

But White Creek House hides a dark history that reaches back to the days of the Underground Railroad. There are people who will stop at nothing to ensure Elaine doesn't discover those secrets. Meanwhile, Carson Atwood, Elaine's manipulative, FBI Agent ex-husband, is looming over everything, pulling strings for his own dark purposes.

Elaine and Matt must now reach deep within themselves and face their pasts if they are to have any hope for their future.....

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

@price_dominie @Schwalm5132 That's how I was when I did a rotation at CJSOTF and was asked to build a metrics slide for commanders nightly brief.

I stand by my assertion that "Office Space" is the best GWOT documentary ever made

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

@MichaelFKane There's a scene in one of the Mass Effect games (ME 3 I think) where a drill sergeant is explaing the physics of a rail gun round and finishes by saying "What she would we conclude from this? That Sir Isaac Newton is the most lethal SOB who's ever lived!"

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

The Olympic class (of which Titanic was the second) was only marginally bigger than big passenger liners of the time. This thing is 8 - 10 times the size of the biggest ship currently in service. Design on this scale isn't a matter of of taking existing designs an multiplying by 8. The complexity goes up on an exponential scale.

Then there's the logistics. As big as Titanic was, it was still designed around the maritime logistics and maintenance of the time. There isn't a port on earth that can service this thing and EVERY ship needs port service. The ocean is a harsh environment that beats the hell out anything that floats on her

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

One of the issues I see here is that the attacker is doing CQB movement (stance, smoothly rolling feet, confidently breaking threshold) while not employing tactics. This exercise focuses on the attacker making one specific mistake. Good if the attacker does what is expected, but if I running the training, I'd be throwing in some variations. Make the student react to the unexpected. What if the attacker glances around the corner without exposing the weapon? What if the break with the weapon in a high or low ready (those things get heavy after a while). Introduce som dynamism. About the only thing you can expect with untrained people is that they'll do the unexpected

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

This is getting blasted in the comments. From a pure tactical sense, there IS a lot to make fun of. Rifle guy isn't clearing his corners (and that's like day 1 CQB stuff). Once it turns into a fight for control of the weapon, he really doesn't put up much of a fight. I have a particular quibble with how a lot of these moves simply won't work if the rifle is slung.

That said, this appears to be active shooter defense training. We don't know where in the program they're at, how long the program is, how much more gets taught, or what context it's being presented.

What I do know from years of studying mass shootings and teaching preparedness classes is that effective immediate resistance cuts the body count WAY down. Is this the most effective way to resist? I have quibbles, but I'd argue that it's better than lying down and waiting to get shot. If it's presented that way, and as part of a RANGE of options, I can see some value. If this is the ONLY option they're being taught, yeah... then I really have issues.

[MERICA MEMED @Mericamemed]

so do all criminals not fight back?

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

I get it, charging unarmed into a rifle isn't for the feint of heart. And simply getting out of the building raises survival odds by an order of magnitude. Looked at as ambush, the first rule is to get off the X. That said, at least the infantry guys should be taught to organize and counter attack - because that's what their job is all about

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

@RSimbacca @YPersisted And that gun is probably going to go off the second the barrel gets grabbed. The noise of a rifle going off indoors is gonna be hella shocking.

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

Notice I didn't slam the training as bad. I was defending what we saw from the slamming it was getting in the comments. We're only seeing a slice of what could be all day affair. We don't know what else was taught.

However, what we're seeing is canned and static and fights never are. If there's more, great! If not, and this is being presented as "this what you do" without being realistic about odds of success, then I have an issue.

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

No I'm not. I said in my post it CAN be good but needed more context. Trying to teach people to be properly aggressive in a life or death situation is a good thing. Let's be clear here though, 9 out of 10 people who try this are probably still going to get shot, but I'll go for that 1-10 chance option every day of the week if that's all I've got left.

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

@PancakesRevenge @DaggerAndBullet Because it's much easier to take his gun after you've put him down from a distance?

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

@T00ManyCommies Yeah, psychologically, most of them go from being a bug to being a god among men for few minutes. Once they realize they aren't actually a god, they go to pieces really fast. Hence the high rate of self deletion the moment the meet effective resistance.

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

@bearjew_1C4 IF you get an incapacitation right out of the gate. In my experience, humans are pretty damn resilient to incapacitation so you better have a back up plan.

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

@bearjew_1C4 Been there done that. If shooter is actively fighting, the odds of landing a face hit are pretty small. It can work, but requires a lot of things to go right

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

There's that too. When I taught these courses, I told them I could show them some moves but the odds of retaining them were really low without practice. Rather than going hand to hand, I recommended blunt, heavy objects swung with all your might. Mass and momentum can make up for a lack of commitment or technique. There's a reason the club was the first weapon humans ever invented.

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

@price_dominie The mark of a true leader is assembling sacrificial staff to blame your F ups on. 🙄

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

You're just not gonna take the gun away and the rifle has a lot less range of motion. The shooter can just drop and pummel you in the face while your hands are occupied trying to control the rifle (or he can go for a secondary). Hell, if he grabs the rifle, just roll with it, land on your back and the grabber will find himself staring down the muzzle while you still have control of the gun.

The sling changes the dynamic. You simply can not gain full control while it's slung. Your best option is to use the rifle to pull him close and keep it pinned between you while you fight some other way, but we don't see that in the video. If you allow any space, he's gonna have a gun and you don't

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

For rapid engagement between multiple targets, it can help drive the gun from target to target but at the cost of precision.

One of the things that I found helped me in CQB is backing my hand up a little bit so I can extend my index finger along the barrel. I can drive the gun as well as I can with a classic C clamp and if I have to snap shoot at point blank, I just point my finger at the target and pull the trigger.

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

That's your companies lawyer talking. For some bizarre reason, they take the possibility of getting sued seriously😆

In all seriousness, the DHS guidance is based around getting people out of the way and in a position that won't interfere with law enforcement. But as the saying goes, when seconds count...

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

@ed_haywood Yeah, as long as they're clear about the chances of success. I'd equate it to the pistol disarms they teach in SERE school - low chance of success but low chance is better than no chance. If you're gonna go down, go down swinging.

[Kevin Whalen @DetWha]

Special Forces ODAs can be pretty informal when it comes to rank just because of the the nature of what we do. Even that should have limits. I never referred to an officer by their first name unless the situation required it (sometimes we need to obscure rank) and the most well run team I was on was led by CPT out of the 75th Ranger Rgt. He never insisted we call him "sir" but he referred to us all as "Sergeant" and we responded be calling him "Sir".

An officer is a necessary component of the team, but he's NOT one of the boys. They get too familiar and they start putting the boys above the mission and the point of whole machine goes sideways. It's the NCOs job to worry about the boys and make sure their ready perform the officers mission. The military need that delineation to function properly