International Awareness

Whenever I do my Situational Awareness PowerPoint presentation, we discuss the need for increased awareness when you leave your community. When you leave home, which in some cases is a quiet or even a gated community in Naples or Marco Island, which is really itself a gated community with just two bridges and its own professional police force, and head up to a busier environment like Ft. Myers, Miami, Tampa, or Orlando you really need to get tuned up and be on you’re A game of awareness. Now, to take that thought a step farther and ask yourself, how you should prepare for a trip overseas. Is just being aware of your surroundings enough? It may come as a surprise to some of you, but not everyone in the world likes Americans. Thankfully, if you do the research, you will see there are actually very few attacks on Americans abroad. However, violent incidents do occur in foreign countries and just being in the wrong place at the wrong time could put you in harm’s way. So, how do we travel safer when we go abroad and how do we use situational awareness to our advantage? The first thing you should do if you plan on traveling abroad is sign up for a My Travel Gov account with the State Department for a Smart Traveler Enrollment Program STEP report. This will not only allow you to research the country you are planning to travel to, but it also signs you up for email updates on any new concerns in that country. You will receive travel advisories, alerts, and routine messages once you have subscribed. Kathie and I just returned from a trip to Europe. We started in Venice, Italy before traveling to Montenegro, Croatia, back to Italy and then southern France before ending up in Barcelona, Spain. I assumed that Croatia and Montenegro could be problem spots where we might have issues, based, I guess, on what occurred in the early 1990s with Croatia’s civil war. But when I got my STEP report from the State Department, it reported that both Croatia and Montenegro were Level One - generally a safe destination for travelers and to just exercise normal precautions. Your STEP report also gives you contact information for every US embassy and consulate in the nearest city of the country you are traveling to. So, if Croatia and Montenegro are generally safe for US travelers, Italy, France, and Spain must be a breeze, right? Nope, guess again. Although many Americans and people from other countries visit Italy, France, and Spain without incident, the State Department showed these countries all being Level Two – exercise increased caution. The warning was very general in nature with no specifics; Italy had some railroad sabotage, France possibly some demonstrations and civil unrest, and Spain also had some issues with civil unrest. Did we see any problems in any of the cities we visited in those countries? Nope. The people were all friendly, the transportation was first rate, even in Venice with water taxis running around like New York City cabbies. But the point of getting a STEP account and report is that it gets your head in the game on possible issues. You will be advised to avoid demonstrations and crowds, monitor local media for breaking events, adjust your plans based on new information, and be aware of your surroundings. Also, a reminder that pickpocketing and phone thefts are frequent crimes. So, how can we fine-tune ourselves to become safer travelers? First, I have mentioned this before and it is worth repeating: DON’T advertise your nationality or political beliefs. Walking around Rome, I saw a few people wearing both NY and LA ball caps. Were they Americans? I have no idea, but if you have someone who is anti-American, an American logo is a good way to make yourself a target.

I mention in my PowerPoint presentation that I had a friend in the 80s who traveled to Europe for the Grand Prix racing circuit. Andy and his wife, proud Syracuse, New York residents, always wore Canadian logo clothing when in Europe; heck, everybody loves Canadians! Not to overthink this, but it’s what I do. I was going to wear a Munich, Germany ballcap, but hey, maybe Croatia and Montenegro folks have long memories about WWII, so I elected to wear a Venice, Italy ball cap, NOT a USA logo cap. Seriously, in discussing how you present yourself, how you carry yourself, I always say be like a piece of uncarved granite. This means carrying yourself upright and looking aware of your surroundings. You look like a person who knows what is going on around them and seems to be capable. But you don’t actually give off any information or message, just strength. How are you going to protect yourself from pickpockets and thieves in general, be it a trip to New York City or Rome? Gentlemen, pick up a smaller wallet; you only need to carry photo ID, your driver's license will do, one or at most two credit cards, and a money clip attachment or wallet pocket for cash. Also, everyone in your group should carry a photostat copy of everyone’s passport information/picture page. Leave your passports, medications, and valuables in your hotel room safe. The reason to carry a copy of everyone’s passport information is just in case someone in your party goes missing or some other issue arises. And carry both your wallet and phone in your front pockets, or if you’re wearing cargo shorts or pants, in the zippered side pocket, zipped closed! Ladies, same thing: a small purse or zippered pouch attached to your belt is your best move. If you have a purse with a shoulder strap, consider attaching your purse where the strap meets the purse to your belt or belt loop on your pants or shorts with a carabiner or some other type of fastener. If someone grabs your purse, this extra attachment will give you more time to react to a purse snatcher. I carry a shoulder bag that hangs in front with zippered pockets for my full-size camera, water bottle, etc. Being in front of me, the pockets are more secure than behind me like a regular backpack. Phones are a huge item for thieves, and the main way this occurs is when one gets snatched out of the owner’s hand while taking a picture. If you’re going to use your phone for photos, I did, think over the shot you want, then bring the phone up with both hands, take your pictures and bring it back down next to your body. Try and get out of the habit of holding the phone away from you while framing that perfect shot or checking your pictures for an extended period. Next question, what is your bailout plan? What is your plan if you and your group find yourselves in the middle of some incident? First, you must be aware of your surroundings in the first place, be in what we call that condition yellow, relaxed BUT alert. Sounds, people’s actions, smells even should be something you notice; take the time to occasionally scan your surroundings. And have a security word your group all know that will alert everyone without going into a long explanation that you see or hear something you don’t like. A security word is a big thing in our everyday lives. Advancements in AI voice and even video cloning of people are now commonplace. That call grandma gets from little Johnny with his Boston accent asking grandma to send him bail money is an AI production SCAM! By having a family security word, grandma can ask Johnny for that word before she agrees to send him the cash. Grandkids know the person saying Mom asked him or her to pick them up after school is really on the up and up when a security word is in play. Something simple like BANANAS will work. Our security word is AVALANCHE.

Last year we were in Munich, Germany, watching the puppets on the church in the town square along with a couple hundred other people when my friend, who is not a first responder but knows the value of safety and awareness, said, AVALANCHE in a normal voice to alert us he had seen something. I looked at where he was looking and I saw one guy who was not looking up but walking through the crowd looking at men’s pockets and women’s purses; it was so obvious he had to be a pickpocket. The idea is that a security word is not used to alarm anyone; it’s just used to get everyone’s attention. So, what is the plan if you do hear or see something that makes you nervous: yelling, an unknown disturbance, loud noises, revving car engines, fireworks (HINT: it’s never fireworks until you 100% know it is)? The plan is to leave quickly. Leaving the area quickly is always the number one plan for survival. This needs to be clear to everyone; if something does not feel or look right, we throw out the security word, get everyone’s attention, and just exit the area. What makes this even better is when you are traveling about, outdoors or in a building, take just a second or two to look over the area and think about where you would exit the area in advance of any problem occurring. Okay, last thing. What is the plan if you become the victim of an actual physical attack? Well, first, as you Second Amendment proponents know, when you leave our US borders, your Second Amendment rights stay on the ground. But to go farther on this, that folding pocketknife you normally carry might get you in trouble with the local authorities too. This is why having a plan and RUN is the absolute number one way to go. I will say when I travel, and this includes flying, I carry in plain view on my backpack a tactical pen and mini flashlight with a strobe feature. The tactical pen body is six inches long, made of sturdy tungsten steel and aviation aluminum alloy with a sharp “window breaker” tip. The strobe on the flashlight will disorient anyone I point it at. The idea of this would be to give my group and me time to put plan one in place: RUN! So, for traveling both within our wonderful country, be it just up the road or to a vacation spot, or doing that bucket list international trip, situational awareness and having a plan is always the key. It’s not being paranoid; it’s just being aware. SAFE TRAVELS!