Imagine if the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel happened in the United States, not in one city, but dozens. And on top of that, the plot was calculated to be as devious as possible, leveraged to hurt America where it was softest. Kurt Schlichter’s The Attack is just that; nearly everything we feared post-9/11 but writ far larger, enabled by our callous and feckless government that has left the border unchecked.
 
There’s a lot to unpack, but I’m only going to cover the high points. Frankly, it took me a while to finish the book and consolidate my thoughts on it. When you live in a world like I do, researching this stuff and having a job that involves bad things happening to people, you get sensitive about reading fiction. So my apologies to Kurt for not wrapping it up sooner.
 
All while reading the book, I felt a sense of rage. The carnage in the story is appropriately outrageous but also the ability to generate strong emotions is a sign that the author did a good job. More than this, my emotions came with the understanding (and fear) that this is indeed plausible. Some disclaimers:

1. I think the scale is improbably large, but this is a work of fiction and we allow “unbelievable” things in fiction to make the story work.
2. I think the reader looking to draw lessons to learn from should look at what happens at a macro level and not as a whole from the work.
3. The unholy alliance thing wouldn’t work out in quite the same way.
4. I am a California State University certified literary critic and literary criticism approaches things differently from book reviewers. This means I don’t go on and on about what I liked and make certain assumptions and arguments about the author’s intentions.

 
The book implies that casualties (both dead and wounded) were in the low hundreds of thousands, without creating a spoiler. Please note I’m taking the story by its spirit and am not offering criticism based on my very high bar of verisimilitude. It’s all plausible; I just think at a much smaller scale, but it’s done well enough that even my borderline autism can accept it.
 
Now I say this part largely to the people who have no real conception of risk analysis, not to criticize the plot. I do not think mass terrorist attacks, with guns and bombs alone, are capable of creating hundreds of thousands of casualties. I know many of you watch Fox News and assume every brown person crossing the border is a terrorist, but that’s not the case. It’s hard to mobilize a legitimate army, let alone one of such size.
 
The 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that were the first “at large” mass shooter style terrorist assault had a kill ratio of 10:1, but this was largely based on target selection that included a crowded railway station and two hotels. The October 7 Hamas attack, despite having approximately 3,000 terrorists to 1,143 victims killed, had a .38:1 ratio.
 
A 10:1 ratio would require over 10,000 attackers. While that number comes across the border in just a few hours, I seriously doubt that many can keep their mouths shut. We’re taking about people who are less-well disciplined than a buck private drunk at a strip club who’s about to deploy. Heck, Al Qaeda tried to get 20 people in to attack the US and only managed to get 19, plus a few other losers who were rounded up after-the-fact.
 
So no, at this scale I can’t see it happening, so even with the millions flowing unchecked across our borders. It’s too hard to get enough people dedicated to that and keep their mouths shut. Plus, the USA is huge in both area and population, so that kind of per capita terror would be hard. I could see the magnitude of such an attack occurring in Great Britain, but not the United States. In the UK, the infiltration of Muslims across society is far greater than the US and in the former, the level of radicalization is much higher. Not that it can’t happen here, but for the same level of permeation it would take more time and great numbers of immigrants.
 
With its head start and the British police unwilling to offend Muslims, plus the practical toleration of radicals in their midst, it is the perfect breeding ground for such an attack. Couple that with largely unarmed police and a disarmed populace and you have a recipe for widespread slaughter. In the US for real, we would probably see a number of attacks across major metro areas, say perhaps a dozen. They may even occur in smaller towns to create a perception of “nowhere” being safe.
 
Kurt certainly carries that across in the book when residential areas are attacked. Again, I don’t think this would be part of anyone’s deliberate plan, but it is useful analogue to things that might happen. For instance, an October 7 cross-border couldn’t really happen in the US the way it did in Israel, but similar events could happen for different reasons. Like the neighborhood attack could be a looting horde of rioters and urban gang members or, in a more dystopian future, racist cartel gangs from Hispanic controlled cities. Or it could be warlords in a James Wesley Rawlesian SHTF collapse (which he did write about).
 
The leftists joining the terrorists? Well the last week’s campus protests certainly opened my eyes to the possibility, although I don’t think such a thing would be pre-planned. Also most of these people are just idiots, not willing to go along with such slaughter for slaughter’s sake. Again, however using fiction as an allegory, what if these dumb kids converted to Islam? Instead of the leftist Weather Underground, they become soldiers of Allah? Or instead of being a Muslim attack on America, it’s a socialist revolutionary pogrom against Republicans or something? Such atrocities have happened in most, if not all, communist revolutions.
 
There are some things I feel Kurt left out. I don’t blame him for some of it. A book can only be so long. Also, Kurt is a legitimate lawyer, officer, commentator, and author; he can’t go to all the dark places that an unaccountable self-published author can. Besides, that’s a good thing. Until now, I’ve always felt “safe” reading Kurt’s books. Kelly Turnbull always saves the day and even the nasty, uncomfortable things that make me as a reader squeamish are handled very softly.
 
Yes, even I who professionally deals with mangled people and horrific stuff get a little soft when it comes to torture, abuse, tragedy, etc. Even though The Attack made me nervous, Kurt wasn’t gratuitous about any of it. Just enough darkness to communicate the emotion and message but also with enough heroism and revenge to rally the dampened spirit. And the part about the .45s? Heck yeah! We would TOTALLY do that. (That part is clearly drawn from how the Israelis responded to the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre).
 
The calls for revenge would be absolutely nuts in the United States. Someone would have to be nuked in reality. Heck, even a president like Obama would probably do it just to avoid a scene out of the French Revolution. Kurt is subtle about it, but it’s clear that America plays by the Big Boy rules after this and is totally unapologetic, as we should be. Our respect with countries like China and Russia, if they had clean hands, would probably ironically go up.
 
The infrastructure attacks are also entirely plausible. I figure in any World War conflict with Russia or China, our power plants, water systems, and communications grid will be hacked and destroyed. Kurt hits the nail on the head with this section and it’s been discussed widely, so we don’t need to go there too much. Just keep in mind that even a conventional war in the 2020s will bring American infrastructure to its knees.
 
Ethnic violence against mosques and Muslims would be commonplace and unstoppable. The fury the American people would pour out would go beyond righteous retaliation to…dark places. Reprisals would be awful in the vein of the Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shootings. Predominately Muslim communities like those in Michigan might even come under siege. Police would be too buy responding to the attack, dealing with the aftermath, or otherwise “non-mission capable.
 
The main theme of The Attack is that police are utterly overwhelmed by the scale of the attacks. This is a fair possibility even in the real world due to the nature of police staffing and tactical responses. Smaller cities may take their entire scheduled force for the day to equip the equivalent of one military squad. 8-12 officers for a major city can be the police presence for an entire district/division of a city, meaning that reinforcements have to come from the next one. Then you need officers on perimeter, officers to evacuate the wounded, officers doing crowd control, etc.
 
Also it’s not like a light goes on in these incidents where cops drop their procedures and act as soldiers might. Cops aren’t trained to handle these like spot fires; put one out and move on to the next. Christopher Dorner was one man who tied up LA law enforcement for a week, and when they cornered him, cops had to hold back other cops who wanted a piece of the action. Every cop from miles around will swarm to these scenes and not in an organized fashion.
 
So yes, law enforcement would be rapidly overwhelmed. Most cops aren’t tactically minded nor do they have the mindset of soldiers. Plenty will be brave, but a lot more, even if they don’t chicken out, simply will not know how to respond appropriately. If their agency gave them active shooter training, it’s likely against one loser in a school or something, not a fire team of jihadis. The average beat cop will be ineffective. Look at how badly LAPD was pinned down by the North Hollywood bank robbers.
 
This is where the militia system should fill the gap. If we were a serious country, American minutemen would be able to rapidly respond to the incidents as they cropped up. But we lack any mechanism to organize such a response and most men who have the willingness, and the equipment to, don’t have the training. I’m sure that plenty of veterans or gun-bros would step up and fill the gap, but not enough.
 
We’ve already seen this happen to some extent. During the Mandalay Bay shooting in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017, police reported citizens were attempting to arm themselves from police cars (allegedly Dan Bilzerian) to fight back. When that ex-airman shot up a church in Texas, some dude in town grabbed his rifle and took the loser out. And let’s not forget United Flight 93 where the passengers probably beat to death one or two of the hijackers and almost took back the cockpit with hand-to-hand fighting.
 
America has something that practically no other country, even Israel, has: a very well-armed populace. We have men who make tactical shooting and preparing for events just like this a hobby. Guys would come out of the woodwork to fight back. The shame of it is that our laws prevent the willing volunteers from being better armed and trained as a civilian auxiliary. Even so, anyone fighting back will disrupt the terrorism.  
 
Kurt touched on this somewhat but I feel that the scale of it was less than it would in reality but hey, you can’t cover everything. If police couldn’t control the situation, guys with ARs and plate carriers would enter the fray. I certainly would. Spontaneous self-organization response teams would form as would neighborhood defense groups. Long-term, private tactical response groups would form the way that adult softball leagues do. I gotta point out that the “just respond” attitude for particularly federal law enforcement was great thinking; don’t respond to your office or group, just go stop the killing nearest to you.
 
In fact, this is the entire idea behind the militia concept. Citizen responders with military-grade firepower at home can handle the situation themselves without waiting for SWAT or the military to save them. How many lives would have been saved in Israel if their people had ARs and plate carriers at home? That’s the big take-home lesson from The Attack. At some level, in some places, America will one day soon have something like this occur. It is one of the inescapable lessons of history that barbarians will eventually come.
 
As I’ve said in my own books, fiction can be a way to help us mentally prepare for “unthinkable” scenarios. The Attack should be seen that way by the reader. How would you react? How would you prepare? How will you feel when it or something like it does happen? Let the story tug at your emotions. Feel them. Consider you and your family being in that situation. Can you rise to the occasion? I’d like to think that the book would serve as a stern warning to our officials and authorities, but we all know government is deaf, dumb, and blind.
 
You may also want to monitor Big Country Expat’s blog; he’s also going to do a review and I’m sure he will colorfully express things I wholeheartedly agree with, but in his customary “frank” style. Sometimes you just gotta be honest with how you feel and he’s got a great way of being blunt and true to the emotions. (He also went to an art school so he’s good at the literary criticism thing too).

We actually didn't shoot, despite putting targets down range. Why? No cans, for one. Two, the idiots were actually so close we thought it would be rude to start shooting in the darkness. The morons would have probably been utterly terrified that we were shooting and they would have no idea we had everything under control while wearing NODs.
 
Second, we also had a thought that they might be homeless or at least boondockers, and while fucktards who camp at any time, night or day, on a BLM shooting area, don't deserve any courtesy, disturbing homeless car campers who aren't shitting up the city itself would be too inconsiderate of us.
 
Third, they were outside the ricochet zone but they wouldn’t know that. Also, unlike during daylight shooting, there would be no way to see them and one of the dumbasses might be out in the moonlight without a cheap flashlight to mark their position. Might be bad.
 
Finally, we were up-moon from them, meaning we were backlighted. If they felt threatened and were armed, they had a clear silhouette of us.
 
 
Discretion being the better part of honor, we packed in the targets after we played around with the different settings without firing a shot. I established a rough converging zero on that Somogear fake PEQ-15 I picked up. I have some questions about the illuminator (IR laser flashlight) but need to try it on a moonless night.
 
One thing we noticed that under the monocolor of NODs, a white painted steel target doesn't really stand out. The lasers will reflect off it though.
 
 
So we went driving in the darkness on desert roads. Driving IS possible with a monocular like the PVS-14, but there are a couple of caveats.
1. We had a full moon. Great contrast and the shadows weren't really deep.
2. We left before astronomical twilight was over, meaning there was a lot of sky light available.
 
If you have both eyes open and enough ambient light, your brain will fill in the image well enough to give you some depth perception. I had issues keeping it "between the lines" so to speak but otherwise did fine. Got up to 80 on some sketchy roads. Pretty sure hearing a truck blasting by a high speed in total darkness freaked out the 'tard campers.
 
Also when driving at night you gotta cover up the instrument cluster and turn off the dash iPad, I mean the stereo screen. This isn't a Crown Vic or Tahoe where you can just hit the blackout button.
 
The nice thing about being the driver and wearing NODs is, that unlike my limited professional experience with them looking for agricultural thieves, I can control the vehicle and didn't get seasick. With more practice a passenger shouldn't have this problem either, assuming the driver isn't a jackass or a bad driver.
 
 
As far as my personal PVS-14, well you can see I need to get a better photography solution for it than holding an iPhone up to the eyepiece. The three camera system in the iPhone Pro sucks for this kind of thing.
 
Also the halo (ring around bright lights) are why I suspect this otherwise flawless tube was kicked from the military line to the civilian side. NV tubes for civilians are the ones for the military that don’t make the grade for some reason or other; not quite “rejects” but that’s literally what the engineers call them. All ITT Pinnacle tubes of that era had a noticeable autogate whine but I’ll take that over a big, splotchy black blem any day.
 
 
Lastly, I think I need a 2.26” riser for proper passive shooting through my red dot. The 1” riser didn’t cut it, and the 1.93” was a stretch. BUT the biggest issue was one of focus. NODs can’t really focus on everything like your eye. You can focus to infinity, put on the day cap for a pinhole effect, but neither will make the red dot and the target come right into focus.
 
Again, I’m late to the passive shooting party so I need practice, but I’ve read that focus and aligning a monocular behind the red dot can be challenging so it’s not entirely me. No, active IR won’t get you killed; using it stupidly and without discipline will. But that’s for the book. 😉 Otherwise, it was pretty easy to get the rifle at least up and on target, especially with the laser.
 
And yeah, that Somogear was WAY brighter than the Steiner COBL CQB laser I was using. I could see the dot but not as clearly and it too slightly more mental effort to recognize it. In full moonlight or ambient conditions, I’m going to have to pony up some money for a proper IR laser.
 
Video taken of the valley through the PVS-14 itself using an iPhone.

A link to the Twitter thread if you want more video.

My Somogear “airsoft” clone PEQ-15 arrived. This is a Chinese replica multifunction aiming laser (MFAL) that retails for $250 and is touted as having laser output levels in excess of civilian-available laser modules. According to reviews and enthusiast testing, this device exceeds the federal guidelines for laser power, which is its major appeal.
 
Before we continue, I did not buy this for operational use. I have Steiner COBL that real use and an Aimpoint Pro Patrol on a Unity riser. Eventually I’ll buy a MAWL but I’m cheap. This is for testing and evaluation (T&E) purposes in a training environment. As for why specifically I got this when I already have one was to mess around with the laser illuminator.
 
Note that devices like the PEQ-15 have a few features; visible and IR aiming laser pointers and an infrared illuminator. You need an IR spotlight to identify targets downrange the same way you would use a white light. My COBL doesn’t have an illuminator and my white/IR flashlight is not good at long range.
 
Now rather than use LEDs and reflectors, proper MFALs use laser illuminators which are basically laser flashlights. A separate infrared laser (not the IR aiming laser) is designed in such a way that the beam is broader than the aiming beam, but still tighter than a flashlight beam. This gives you a powerful, narrow beam that is capable of lighting things up at long-ish range.
 
The full power element comes in because, surprise, a more powerful laser will go a lot further than a neutered civilian one. The Somogear is billed as a “full power” or at least higher power that is not compliant with federal laser safety regulations like your civilian version PEQ-15, the ATPIAL-C, does. Apparently the Federal Laser Police have better things to do than bust imports of these things.
 
Do you need a “full power” laser? Not really. You aren’t lasing targets for an A-10 but the aiming portion isn’t why I got it and not why you want full power. Again, I have my own laser that I can pick up at 500 yards, but to summarize, full power is about the laser illuminator, not the laser pointer.
 
I do not endorse using Chineseum products, especially for operational purposes. If your life depends on it, buy American or at least European. Again, this is a training tool that I’m going to review, not something I’d trust my life on.
 
Now if you can’t afford to drop another couple grand on a quality MFAL but you already have night vision, this isn’t a bad temporary halfway measure. However, understand that it may fail you when you need it. It should be replaced with a quality device as soon as possible.
 
Reviews indicate that these things can have problems. Chinese quality control sucks and at this price point, it’s hit and miss. The electronics are supposedly “potted” to withstand rifle recoil, but some users report no issues after hundreds of rounds and others failures after only a few shots. The polymer case can crack (there is/was someone replacing them with aluminum housings). While they generally hold zero, the mechanism isn’t as robust in the real thing. Again, these were intended for airsoft and probably just beefed up a tiny little bit once the Chinese realized American gun owners would buy them.
 
Field use will follow in later posts, but I want to summarize a couple things.

1. Buy a quality laser if you plan on using it for real.
2. IR light discipline matters as night vision is more common.
3. You don’t need a full power aiming laser, you want a brighter, further reaching laser-based IR illuminator.
4. Don’t buy this if you would lose sleep if $250 fell out of your pocket and caught on fire.

 
For what it is, it’s not bad. Clearly not a real PEQ-15, but it feels robust enough. The remote switch is crappy but whatever. You get a nice pouch with it.