Hey, this is Jeff Rose. Welcome to another field exercise edition of Solder of Finance. (See video below) Today I am going to be talking about battle drills. Prior to me being deployed to Iraq, we had to do our pre-deployment training at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
A lot of that training consisted of us riding around in Humvees doing various drills and just running through different scenarios. A lot of those drills consisted of us driving through the woods of New Jersey into where our cadre, which were our instructors, would pop us with smoke or mimic hand grenades, and then we had to simulate us being hit or trying to evaluate casualties. For a lot of that training, the primary goal was to see how we would react under pressure, how we would react under situations we were not used to. That was the whole point of these battles drills - to see how we would react and how we would operate as a team.
Tight Fit
On the inside of a Humvee, it is cramped. For a 6 foot 200 pound male, it is like trying to squeeze inside a tuna can. That is what we ran all of our base operations out of, and we got used to it real quick. Part of our training in running the battle drills was mimicking being hit by the enemy.
The cadre would pop smoke or do the grenade thing like I mentioned earlier. One of the hardest battle drills we had to do was mimicking having a casualty. In one instance my gunner, who was approximately 220 pounds, was hit, and part of the battle drill consisted of us physically carrying him outside the Humvee. As you can imagine, trying to carry a 220 pound male was tough, but we were able to do it. We did not do so well the first time, but we kept running these different battle drills over and over again. We got used to it, and we functioned much better as a team.
Battle Drills in Your Financial Life
You are probably sitting there wondering how battle drills tie into your life financially. Let me give you an example. Let’s say your car breaks down.
Do you have enough to pay cash, or do you have to put it on your credit card? Do you have enough in savings to take care of it? Most importantly, what does that do to your monthly budget? Is it completely out of whack?
These are the types of drills you need to run through as a household just to see what happens in a worst case scenario. Another example is what happens if you or your spouse is laid off. Not having that income for 3 months, 6 months, maybe a year; what does that do to you? Can you function? Can you still pay the bills? Can you still make that house payment? Those are the types of battle drills that you need to run with your spouse just to see if some type of situation occurs that you are not ready for.
Another example is what happens if you lose a spouse. Do you have enough life insurance on that spouse to take care of you, to pay off the house, to keep paying the bills, to pay for your kids’ college? These are the kinds of conversations that not a lot of people are having that they need to have, and that is why it is important to run battle drills.
Battle Drills Personal Example
Let me give you a personal example, when I left my job and started my own business, I knew that I would potentially be out of income for 90 days. My wife and I knew it was imperative to run these types of battle drills to see what happened if 90 days turned into 180 days or even worse turned into a complete year. By running those battle drills, we were prepared just in case that worse happened. As a solder of finance it is imperative that you run these types of battle drills in your own household because one thing I can guarantee you is the unexpected will happen.
Be prepared. Be ready. Take charge.
My name is Jeff Rose and in my life I've trained with the U.S. Army to be an Infantry soldier. In my professional career I've trained to be a financial planner. The recent financial catastrophe brings to light how so many people have become victims of their poor