The 3 levels of Situational

Awareness and how they

keep you safe!
I’ve written about situational awareness a few times on the site so far, from
defining what both situational and tactical awareness are, to highlighting some
exercises you can do to increase your situational awareness skills.

For this post, I’ve reached out to a veteran friend of mine to talk about the 3
levels of situational awareness from the perspective of someone whose life
depended on it.

He will discuss:

 The ability to recognize important details in your surroundings

 The need to parse those details and instinctively know their meaning
 Using those details to make predictions
 Why this is all useful in your daily life

Here’s my buddy Dustin – hope you enjoy the post!

A few years ago, I went to dinner with an old friend of mine who had just
recently come back home from a “deployment” (military words for going to
Afghanistan). While sitting around joking about the “good ole days,” and
taking shots of whiskey, I noticed something peculiar about him.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was different. He was acting normal
enough, laughing at jokes, engaging in the conversation and even interjecting
witty lines when appropriate. But something was definitely was amiss; his
mind wasn’t all the way involved in the discussion. It seemed to be occupied
with other things.

What happened next felt surreal, and almost like it was planned.
In the middle of what I was saying he interrupted me, sternly, instructing me to
move to the seat to my left. I complied. Not more than a couple of seconds
later, a waiter dropped the tray he was carrying (with the messiest pile of
nachos you’ve ever seen) and wouldn’t you know it. The food landed where I
would have been sitting.

Later I asked him how he knew what was going to happen. His answer, “I just
saw it happening.”

It turns out because he had just spent 10 arduous months in a combat zone,
he was still in the habit of scanning his surroundings. He called this scanning
habit “situational awareness.”