Because they froze, they were scared. You need to be trained to react like that. Think about what someone does when you come up behind them and scare them...the freeze. Do the same to an animal and what do they do? They run. It’s instinct. And, the only thing that overcomes instant is training. Decades in the military taught me this.
EXCELLANT POST.
And military is training OVER AND OVER AND OVER till it becomes ‘muscle memory”. The reason the military “overtrains” is that in a stressful situation you may be 70% instead of the 99% you do in training...but that’s still enough.
I didn't get decades, I got a tiny bit of State Guard training. Not even close to enough.
However, I do have an interesting personal characteristic, brought on by years in the illicit drug world (when I had yet to 12 Step, and recover from the hopeless state of mind and body).
I don't scare. People try to surprise me and generally, I look at them cooly and assess what to do next. In a crisis, I tend to go all logical and emotionless.
I like to think I'm the one guy in a crowd that, even lacking military training, might actually be able to act, and reasonably effectively for a civilian.
Numerous times I have had guns drawn on me. I don't panic.
Am I deluding myself or do I have a shot?
Exactly!