Be a Hero: The Essential Survival Guide to Active-Shooter Events

Life-threatening events anytime, anywhere, are a certainty in an increasingly violent world. Your immediate response may mean saving you, your family, your friends, innocent bystanders. Learn how to react, recover, respond, retaliate. Be prepared. Read this book.
--Jim Hawes, former Navy SEAL officer

In a world where crazy things happen and those crazy things drive us crazy with fear, this book is a source of timely sanity. Written by a former member of the Special Air Service--SAS, British special forces--Be a Hero will give you the edge that might just save your life and the lives of others in a terrorist or active shooter attack. What you'll find here is less about mere survival than about self-actualization at the most intense level. Lead author John Geddes explains how to harness your primal evolutionary physiology to prevail against both your panic and the aggressor's weapons. Geddes writes: 'Given good fortune, a brave heart, and the glimmer of an opportunity, the skills you learn in this book could help you stop an active shooter in his tracks.' For real.
--Alan Axelrod, author of Miracle at Belleau Wood: The Birth of the Modern U.S. Marine Corps and Patton on Leadership

An active shooter event can occur in a second, anywhere. Be a Hero offers valuable life-saving guidelines for ordinary people who find themselves suddenly caught in the middle of a horrible ongoing deadly situation. Author John Geddes uses his years of experience fighting terrorism to teach you how to make good decisions and act on them when chaos and terror have you almost paralyzed. Don't be a victim--don't leave home without first reading this book!
--J. Wayne Fears, author of The Pocket Outdoor Survival Guide

The naive optimist in me hopes that Be a Hero by Geddes and Rees, once read, will sit on your shelf and gather dust. The pragmatist inside me suspects the techniques and strategies contained within your well-thumbed, dog-eared copy will be committed to memory. Believe me, and I am not being alarmist when I write, this book could save your life.
--Richard Syrett, veteran radio and television broadcaster, frequent guest host on Coast to Coast AM

I met John several years ago, when he started teaching classes at our gun range. As a twenty-five-year veteran law enforcement officer and use of force self-defense trainer, I often find myself highly skeptical of trainers that I don't know. After spending a good deal of time with John discussing mental preparedness and tactics involving critical incidents, I must say that he is absolutely top-shelf. John has been able to take his hard-earned life experience and put it to pages in his books.
--John D. Johnson, chief operations officer, Talon Training Group, Tallahassee, Florida

Capped by a riveting account of the downing of Flight 93 on 9/11 Geddes promises much and delivers in the calm voice of someone who has fought on traditional battlefields and mastered survival on the urban terrorist front. From escape and evade to tactics and triage Be a Hero is arguably the best civilian handbook of its kind.
--Roger Eckstine, author of Shooter's Bible Guide to Home Defense and Watch Your Back: How to Avoid the Most Dangerous Moments in Daily Life

Alun Rees is a freelance journalist and author. He has covered conflicts across the globe in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. He also covered the two most deadly active shooter events in the history of the UK. He lives in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Don Mann is a bestselling author and a former member of Navy SEAL Team Six (retired) who played a crucial role in some of America's most daring military missions for more than two decades. His books include Inside SEAL Team Six, The U.S. Navy SEAL Survival Handbook, and the Thomas Crocker thrillers.