The El Salvador hotel drill
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The El Salvador hotel drill was a night exercise in John Kiriakou's operations course at the Farm, and one of the very few he describes as having beaten every trainee who attempted it.

The set-up

The class drew straws for the running order and Kiriakou went first. The briefing was minimal and the scenario was all he had: "so it's just a a table and a chair and and it it looks like a flea bag Hotel... all you know in this scenario is you are in a flea bag hotel in in El Salvador good luck."

Kiriakou is emphatic about the production values. "I mean it's like a Hollywood set I mean they they this is real life they make it look like it really is going to look in real life."

What happened

With no idea what to expect, Kiriakou was interrupted by a knock. "there's a knock on the door and you say who is it and then the door opens and it's these two guys and one of them is holding a a a vacuum cleaner and they're saying housekeeping seor housekeeping and I go I don't need housekeeping I don't need housekeeping."

The second man ended the exercise. "and then the guy the second guy behind him pulls out a gun and goes bang bang he shoots me with two paint pellets I go [expletive] I said I never saw that coming."

The lesson

The instructor's rule was blunt and geographic. "if you're in a [expletive] hole Motel in a [expletive] hole country and two people just walk into your room kill them." He was then told to say nothing to the others.

The silence held, and so did the result. Back in the van with the rest of the class, Kiriakou could only say he could not talk about it, "all eight of us failed all eight of us failed."

What he took from it

Kiriakou rates the drill among the most consequential things he was taught. "That was such an important lesson I never ever forgot it."

The habit it produced was pre-emptive rather than reactive. "and so anytime I felt threatened or anytime I felt you know what in this situation I'm in right now I can see a point 10 seconds down the road where I might feel threatened I would draw my weapon just in case it happened twice just in case."

See also

- The Farm
- The shooting house
- Counterterrorist driving
- How Kiriakou went armed in Athens
