Learn How to Fight… Because the Terrorists Are

There is a comforting lie we tell ourselves in polite society, especially when it comes to violence: someone else will handle it. The police. Security. A good guy who knows what he’s doing. Someone other than us. Anyone but us.

But that’s a lie. It’s a lie that gets people killed.

When violence erupts, it doesn’t wait for uniforms, radios, or sirens. It arrives fast, chaotic, and personal. And when it does, you are either capable of defending yourself—or you are a victim hoping for mercy.

Look no further than the recent terrorist attack in Bondi, Australia.

In a country where citizens are largely disarmed by law, ordinary people were forced into an impossible position. A man moved through a crowded public space attacking innocents. Bystanders reacted with courage—charging, distracting, attempting to intervene. Some even managed to wrest control of weapons away from the attacker in moments of sheer desperation.

But they apparently didn’t know how to use the weapons that they bravely wrested from the terrorists, which resulted in them getting shot as well, and the terror attacks continuing. They didn’t know how to fight well enough to keep themselves, and others, from dying.

I want to stop for a moment to reflect on the enormous courage it took to attack someone who had a loaded firearm. What incredible bravery. I hope that if I am ever in a similar situation that I would have the same level of courage.

But courage without capability has limits.

They couldn’t stop the attack.

They couldn’t end the threat.

They could only slow the bleeding until a police officer arrived and did what had to be done.

That gap—the space between the first scream and the first siren—is where reality lives. And in that space, the only thing that matters is what you can do.

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Violence Is Not Fair—and It’s Not Scheduled

Modern society has trained people to believe that violence is rare, orderly, and handled by professionals. That belief collapses the moment blood hits the floor.

Violence is fast.
Violence is ugly.
Violence doesn’t care about laws, social norms, or your personal comfort with confrontation.

The attacker at Bondi didn’t make an appointment. He didn’t wait for police to be staged nearby. He exploited the same assumption most attackers do: that no one would be ready.

And they weren’t.

Not because they lacked character—but because they lacked preparation.

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The Police Are Not Coming in Time

The police are not coming in time to save you. This isn’t an anti-police statement. It’s a factual one.

Police officers are reactive by nature. They respond to crimes already in progress. Even the fastest response time still leaves minutes—sometimes long minutes—where you are on your own.

In Bondi, those minutes mattered.

In schools, churches, malls, and city streets across the world, those minutes always matter.

Expecting the police to save you in the opening moments of an attack is like expecting a fire department to stop the match from being struck. By the time they arrive, the damage is already done.

Your safety in those first moments is your responsibility.

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Courage Is Not a Skillset

The bystanders in Bondi were brave. No one disputes that. They ran toward danger while others fled. They tried to protect strangers.

But bravery does not equal effectiveness.

Wanting to help is not the same as knowing how.

When people without training attempt to stop a violent attacker, the results are predictable: hesitation, poor positioning, lack of coordination, and an inability to finish the fight. The will is there—but the capacity is not.

And violence does not reward good intentions.

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You Don’t Rise to the Occasion—You Fall to Your Training

This cliché exists because it’s true.

Under stress, your fine motor skills degrade. Your vision narrows. Your brain reverts to whatever patterns it knows best. If you have no training, no conditioning, no experience managing aggression—then panic becomes your default setting.

Learning how to fight is not about becoming a predator. It’s about refusing to be prey.

It’s about understanding distance, balance, aggression, and control. It’s about knowing how to move when fear is screaming at you to freeze. It’s about having options when the world turns hostile.

You don’t need to be a professional fighter. You don’t need to live in a gym. But you do need to accept that violence is part of the human condition—and pretending otherwise does not make you safer.

If you can go armed, be armed. And be willing to use those weapons. If you can’t have a weapon, know how to disable someone without one. No rules, no regrets, Just pure violence.

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Preparedness Is Personal Responsibility

The lesson of Bondi is not that bystanders failed. The lesson is that society failed them by convincing them they would never need to fight in the first place.

We have spent decades telling people that self-defense is unnecessary, that reliance on authorities is sufficient, that personal preparedness is paranoid or extreme.

Meanwhile, attackers keep proving the opposite.

If you are physically capable of learning to defend yourself and choose not to, that is a decision. But it is not a neutral one. It is a gamble that nothing bad will ever happen on your watch.

And history is not on your side.

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Learn How to Fight

Not to look tough.
Not to intimidate others.
Not to live in fear.

Learn because when violence shows up uninvited, it does not give you time to think. It only asks one question:

Are you ready—or not?

In Bondi, the police eventually arrived. They always do.

The tragedy is what happened before they got there.
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Charles served over 27 years in the US Army, which included seven combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with various Special Operations Forces units and two stints as an instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He also completed operational tours in Egypt, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea and earned a Doctor of Business Administration from Temple University as well as a Master of Arts in International Relations from Yale University. He is the owner of The Havok Journal, and the views expressed herein are his own and do not reflect those of the US Government or any other person or entity.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.