Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees

This article was originally published in RECOIL, issue 22 in 2015.

Clint Smith is one of the founding fathers of the modern tactical training movement. Been to a tactical class in the last 40 years? Thank Clint. He and his band of contemporaries, including Jeff Cooper, Louis Auerbach, Chuck Taylor, Jim Cirillo, to name a few, were the fathers of the dynamically dynamic teaching schools and methods we all take for granted.

How the hell the 66-year-old legend has the energy to continue teaching classes is beyond us. But he does. Out on one of the nicest ranges we’ve ever shot at, we watch as Smith addresses a line of students at Thunder Ranch using a wireless PA system. The same system that was cranking AC/DC while he and his cadre set the range up for the class.

He carries a lighter gun than he used to, moves a little more carefully, but still commands his class with an incredibly deft touch that’s half drill sergeant, half kindergarten teacher. And, you don’t get to choose which one you get. Your target does.

Smith’s adult life began when he joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1967, knowingly bound for Vietnam. His career as a firearms instructor began shortly after in 1968 when he was assigned to the USMC Combined Action Program, whose mission was to reinforce and train the Vietnamese.