Linear Danger Crossings: Getting Over There

Linear Danger Crossings: Getting Over There
Track Investigations, Road-Crossing & the Tracking Team
by Richard “Swingin’ Dick” Kilgore and Jake “Slim” Call
© All Rights Reserved

“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter. You will meet them doing various things with resolve, but their interest rarely holds because after the other thing ordinary life is as flat as the taste of wine when the tastebuds have been burned off your tongue.”
~Ernest Hemingway

As much fun as it is doing it like Hemingway said (especially in the bush), sometimes you have to get from here to there, and that can be damn dangerous. Many times that.s going to be across a danger area. A Linear Danger Area (LDA) may not always be the largest or widest, but they are often the most common and most dangerous of crossings. Now if you.ve spent any time in the military at all, you know there are a number of ways to cross an LDA. So we.re clear, Linear Danger Area is the term we use in this context to describe an area of greater exposure for patrolling soldiers, SWAT guys or whatever, with particular vulnerability to the flanks. This can be something as obvious as a road or firebreak indicated on maps or a terrain feature you tab onto as you.re moving, like a streambed.

Most militaries have a number of different ways of crossing a linear danger area and they.re remarkably similar. We were in a little hole-in-the-wall bar in Indian Springs, NV a couple years back when we heard of a rather different one. (We were tipping back a few at the time with a couple of salty emigres from the former country of Rhodesia at the time.the cost of those beers proved to be money well spent.). This was on the last day of a mixed service, combat tracker class over in the Creech/Silver Flag area, a class that benefited considerably from the Rhodesians. background in the Tracker Combat Unit, Rhodesian Light Infantry, C Squadron [Rhodesian] SAS, the Selous Scouts and two different SADF Recce Commandoes¡¦and this was BEFORE they went to work doing close protection for His Excellency Rafik Hariri and then a couple different expat PSCs in Iraq (how.s that for a resume eh?).

To read the full article from The Mad Duo, click here.