Carl the Killing Machine

It was in Brown Mountain, North Carolina when while staying at my son's summer camp I met Carl, who was working as resident staff together with Patricia, his wife from Honduras. He was on his way out after being fired because of a situation with the camp's director. We came into conversation when I asked him about his old BMW convertible and so we had a longer chat, where I learned that he had been in several war zones as a hired soldier to protect the Red Cross. During the war in Bosnia, Carl's nervous system was destroyed in a poison gas attack. Thanks to a combination of drugs and his service dog that reminds him when to take the shots, he maintains his biochemistry functioning and himself alive. I knew that dogs were used to sniff drugs, bombs and to find people after earth quakes, but I had never heard that they can smell if a patient needs to take his meds.

Carl is a senior combatant, a fighter, a real mercenary, a man of war, a man of conflicts, a man that provides safety and security for his clients, a man that is willing to lose his life protecting others for money, a man of stealth blue eyes faithful to God and our flag, the star spangled banner.

He keeps his ripped and vein covered body in shape by performing exercise routines he learned from Russian mercenaries. Hundreds of daily push ups, squads, sit ups and other routines using his own body weight are necessary to maintain the core of this well functioning killing machine. Special training of leg grappling, back bending, arm-twisting, disarming, gun pulling and neck locking techniques allow Carl to put down anybody in seconds.

He does not require any weapon, but he knows them all and keeps a five-inch Cold Steel folding knife in his front jeans pocket. With this razor sharp instrument he can cut through tendons like through butter. He needs no gym, nor weights, nor Crossfit PT; he trains anywhere at any time. Although in his late 50s, the disciplined practice of different routines, allows him to throw his shoulders into the knees of opponents within seconds and with flexibility better than any 10-year-old kid. His hands are fast and strong like the paws of a bear and his back is a little bit bent, but still solid like a wooden mast of an old ship that has sailed many oceans.

Even though Carl does not have a high level of education, he is clear about his limitations and conscious about his strengths. His position is set by his rare abilities acquired in combat since the 70s. At least 900 $ per day he charges to be in protective international mission or to perform a security training. But before putting a human weapon on your side, you want to know if this person is psychologically sane and stable. How can you know? Asking for personal references or only hiring through trusted security companies? Carl asked me to go into business with him: He would do the teaching and I would take care of marketing. For sure there is a necessity, especially for executives traveling to Latin America, but I realized that this is not my essence. I do not want to be in the business of surviving and killing, I want to be in the enterprise of creating good.

How did I find out? I asked myself the question: "Where would my soul go if during my life I had been responsible executer of uncountable fatalities like Carl" Nobody really knows for sure, but there are different believes around this question depending on what religion you ask. The Catholics would either forgive or send you to hell. The Buddhist would let you be born again as an inferior form of live, like an insect or a rat. And it would take many lives to clean up your karma. The Muslims would send you to a paradise full of virgins if you exterminated mainly the infidel. The Taoist would probably say that Carl is meant to be and represents one extreme in the continuous quest of the yin and yang balance.

Besides learning some neck snapping techniques, what I got out of this encounter with Carl was the realization that even though I like martial arts and weapons, I do not want to be a survivor from the evil, I want to be a creator of good. So remember, next time you face a challenging situation or you meet a person that has an impact on you, look through the first impression, read in between the lines of what happened and think about what message the universe is delivering to you.