Have you ever gotten lost? Perhaps a better question would be when the last time you got lost was, and what the circumstances were. Maybe you got turned around in the woods and lost your bearings, and all your landmarks started to look the same. Maybe you were driving around in circles last time you were in D.C., looking for “M” street. But have you ever been lost in unfamiliar terrain in another country while locals were out hunting you? Dodging ambushes, remaining invisible and moving about without drawing attention to yourself in an area that is foreign to you might seem like a daunting task. However, these skills are just a few of those taught at OnPoint Tactical Tracking School.

OnPoint Tactical Tracking School, located in Tabernacle, New Jersey, was founded by tracker and survivalist Kevin Reeve, former director of the Tracker School. Reeve has been involved in many high-profile tracking cases, aiding in the recovery of lost children such as three-year old Aiden Burke, who was lost in the Redwoods for 20 hours. Reeve has also tracked escaped fugitives and even a tiger that escaped into the New Jersey suburbs, In addition, Reeve has helped with police investigations, using forensic evidence to help lead to resolutions of cases such as a homicide (originally ruled a suicide) in Florida.

Reeve brings his 12 years of tracking experience to the table, offering classes in combat tracking, search and rescue, forensic tracking and escape and evasion, as well as Scout classes for graduates of Tracker School. In addition to his tracking expertise, Reeve also has years of teaching experience and has trained SAR teams, police forces and elite military groups, including elements of the US Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Rangers and Marine Force Reconnaisance.

Reeve grew up playing chess from a very early age, and has always been interested in strategy, tactics and military history. At Tracker School, he became a student of small group warfare, guerilla warfare and unconventional tactics through an in-depth study of the Apache.

“I gathered a very large collection or library of books on the Apache, over 100 titles on Apache history and I read voraciously and really studied both contemporary accounts as well as the historical accounts how they were successful in holding so many US and Mexican soldiers at bay. I mean at one point Geronimo had about 1/4 of the US army in the field against him and he only had 30 warriors and 100 women and children and was able to evade them at will.”

Reeve believes that the tactics used by the Apache apply today more than ever, that in low-intensity/asymmetrical and non-conventional warfare these are the tactics that are being employed against us and to a large degree the tactics that our special operations community is using against our enemy today. Tracking skills are being used all over both Afghanistan and Iraq, and in fact OnPoint Tactical Tracking School just taught a group of students how to pick up and pursue the trail of a roadside bomber.

Classes at OnPoint Tactical Tracking School run from three to five days, and attempt to simulate the stress of real life situations. “The best way to prepare for an evasion situation is to have to escape and evade. If you’re a combat tracker the best thing you can do is conduct a trackdown and follow up or whatever you want to call it where you have to actually pursue and capture or eliminate your quarry” says Reeve.

Reeve’s favorite class is Urban Escape and Evasion. This class is designed for those working or patrolling outside the green zone in urban areas, such as military personnel and those who work for contractors like Blackwater. The class focuses on skills necessary for those who may find themselves trapped and alone behind enemy lines in an urban setting. “You know, we really spend a lot of time teaching our soldiers, especially our pilots and aircrew men how to evade and escape through SERE school, which is focused on a wilderness setting,” Reeve points out. “This is a class for how to do that in an urban setting, so it has a lot of nonconventional skills. You learn how to do reconnaissance and gather intelligence on the area you’re working in, so that if anything happens to you, you have good background on where you are. You also learn how to conceal yourself and how to move in an urban environment. What kind of camouflage works at night, how to blend in, how to move in the context of the baseline of the city, which is completely different than the woods.”

OnPoint uses Chinatown in Philadelphia as a “foreign country” during simulations, where students spend a full day maintaining a low profile and trying to hide from teams of people who are actively hunting them. “There’s a hustle and a bustle and energy (in Chinatown) that’s completely different than if you cross over Market street into another part of the city, where everything’s a lot more relaxed,” Reeve points out. “So you have to understand how everything is moving, what the flow of traffic is, the noise level is, you have to learn how to blend in by moving in the same context, with the same level of excitement. If you’re moving too slow or too fast or you’re too quiet or you’re too noisy then you’re going to stand out,” The class teaches other unconventional skills such as lock-picking, evasive driving skills, countersurveillance and more.

OnPoint Tactical Tracking classes are different from Tracker School in that there is a lower student/instructor ratio and the skills taught are very distilled. Although Reeve loves the cultural history behind the skills, he structures his classes with more of the practical, hands-on skills. While Tracker School classes often have about 75 students with 4 or 5 instructors (and a team of volunteers) Reeve believes that one-on-one hands on training is very important for military and law enforcement and keeps the ratio at 1 instructor per 7 or 8 students.

“The skills I’m teaching are life saving skills,” Reeve says, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a lot of fun as well. Classes are extremely informative, but they are also a heck of a lot of fun.”

For more information, contact Kevin Reeve at enroll@onpointtactical.com or go to the school’s website at www.onpointtactical.com.