Fr. Robert McTeigue, SJ: Parishes Preparing Their People for…What Exactly?

“The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat.” —Richard Marcinko, founder of SEAL Team Six

Ordinarily, do untrained and unprepared people “rise to the occasion” when faced with enormous challenges? In great fiction, they often do. In real life? Well, that’s another story.

People who work in fields where error can result in death (e.g., soldiers, law enforcement, firemen, pilots, emergency doctors) will all tell you that “people don’t rise to the level of the occasion; they fall to the level of their training.” In life-or-death situations, when a split-second decision is required, if you must stop and think about what to do next, you’ve already failed. Careful training—including training under conditions of extreme stress—prepares individuals to act well in perilous situations. You can find innumerable accounts where survivors said, “My training saved me.” …