Beyond The Badge: Leadership, Tactical Training, And Success With Sergeant Graham Dunne

 

Discipline, training, and mindset separate those who succeed from those who don’t. In this episode, host Brian Dewald sits down with Sergeant Graham Dunne, a former Marine, SWAT officer, and tactical trainer, to discuss the principles of self-mastery, preparedness, and resilience. Graham shares lessons from years in high-risk operations, how he transitioned into entrepreneurship, and why personal growth is the ultimate weapon. From firearms training and combat fitness to mental toughness and leadership, this conversation is packed with actionable insights on living a life of discipline and purpose.

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Beyond The Badge: Leadership, Tactical Training, And Success With Sergeant Graham Dunne

My guest is Mr. Graham Dunne, a former Marine, SWAT officer, sergeant, all-around general badass, father, husband, trainer, and entrepreneur. I am thrilled to have Graham on. We’re going to talk about so much fun stuff, whether it’s firearms, safety, and training, to staying healthy and mindset. Some of the mindset stuff we’re going to go through is just going to blow you away. I am so thrilled. Graham, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for coming.

Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me.

This is fun. A quick introduction, I do this on all of our shows. We are called BAM, which is Bad Ass Mavericks. Maverick is the name of my boutique little mortgage company. A maverick, I figured you might get a kick out of this, Graham, is someone who is unconventional, independent, and doesn’t think or behave as others do. If I mentioned that, tell me, you’re a maverick in your own right, for sure. When I say, “Unconventional, independent, and doesn’t think or behave as others do,” how does that resonate with you?

I like it. I would have to say that, without sounding auspicious, I think that I’m in that category.

From Marine Corps To Law Enforcement: A Career Transition

I would agree. I wanted to have you on because I’d like to know, you told me a little bit about this when we met, and I would like to dive in a little bit more to learn more about you. Let me preface. As I’m doing these shows, the whole premise for me is a little selfish. Obviously, I like to learn. I love to learn and grow, especially from other people that I look up to and can learn from. Secondarily, I’m hoping that one person who reads this can gain something from it. Whether it’s mental headspace capacity or a safety thing, we’re going to talk about some of that. Let’s start with some career highlights. You started at the ripe young age of eighteen, I presume, in the Marine Corps?

 

 

I was first in the Marine Corps. When I got out, I was looking for something to do. It’s funny. My dad was a police officer, and I always said I wouldn’t do it. He was a great guy, but he was bitter. He had that personality, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. If you pissed him off, he changed very quickly. He could snap. I think that was a result of police work, I do.

I was like, “I’m not sure I want to go through that and have that toxicity in my life.” I got out of the Marine Corps, and I needed something to do. Quite frankly, I didn’t have a whole lot of skills. I knew how to shoot, that was about it. The Marine Corps teaches you two things well, how to shoot and leadership, which are two big things.

Anyway, I had a buddy who was a deputy sheriff, and he goes, “You should take the test. We get a decent paycheck.” I go, “Okay.” I took the test, got hired, and was a deputy sheriff for a year and a half. That was it, nothing exciting there. I got the bug for police work, and I put in and got hired. I did 25 years with Aurora. I got out, did a year contracting for a company that trained people for US intelligence as a trainer, and then went completely on my own. Now, all I do is work for myself.

An interesting story to go from, I can totally appreciate going from the Marine Corps into law enforcement. To branch out on your own, as an entrepreneur-type, that fascinates me, for sure. That’s a lot of the people I know in that world, and I’m one. How long were you in the Marine Corps?

I did six years total, with a couple of years of reserve time.

Did you move around quite a bit, or were you in one spot?

I had a couple of duty stations, but nothing interesting. Quite frankly, my Marine Corps time, I was as a peacetime Marine. I was injured in Desert Storm, but my unit didn’t deploy. Nothing too interesting there, Brian.

That’s all good. If I’m going from memory a little bit, do you have three kids? Did I recall that correctly?

I’ve got three sons. They’re all adults now.

Any military for any of those guys?

I have a son in the Army. He’s going through helicopter mechanics school. It’s interesting, the conversation we had about that. At first, he asked what I thought about going into the Marine Corps. I love the Marine Corps, it’s a big part of who I am. It became part of my personality. I will say, there are a lot more promotional and job opportunities in the other services because they’re so much larger. My advice to him was, “I’ll go with you to talk to a recruiter because I don’t want you to get locked into some contract. If we don’t like him, we’ll go next door to the next one.”

The first one we met was an Army recruiter, and he was awesome. I liked him, and I felt like he was telling us the truth. We stuck with him, and eventually, my son went into the Army. One proud thing I have about my son is that when he was about sixteen, he wanted to start shooting competitively with me. I said, “Son, I don’t want you to embarrass yourself. We’re going to train you up.” I trained him for a good six months before his first competition. He’d already been through some of my classes, so he wasn’t a complete noob. Anyway, I took him to a competition.

At the time, I remember the first one, there were about 50 people there. He was the only junior. Everybody else was an adult. He was this sixteen-year-old, skinny-faced, zit-faced, awkward teenager. His first time, he landed somewhere in the middle of the pack. These grown men were looking at him like, “Who is this kid?” Anyway, he ended up getting pretty big in competition with me. He would shoot competitively at least once a month, I’d say. When he went into the Army, his company had 700 people. They qualified with all their drill sergeants, many of whom were combat veterans.

He shot number one. He was a rifle expert, and all his drill sergeants were like, “Where did you learn how to shoot?” He goes, “My dad has this company.” It was a big moment for him. Out of my three, he was the one who wasn’t a big athlete, and wasn’t a superstar in anything. It was a big moment for him. Whereas my other two, star quarterbacks, honor roll students, they had everything going. It was cool to see him flourish and finally be the big man on campus with something.

He got to find his own groove there and go through. That is super neat. Good for him.

He had asked me, “Should I do something like you? I’m into guns. Should I become an instructor? Should I be a sniper like you were?” I said, “My advice is that you get a trade.” I know very few people who’ve made a living out of doing what I’m doing, very few people. I can count them on one hand nationally. Most guys who teach, teach for somebody else. If you go to a gun store and take a gun class, those guys are making peanuts, and the store owner is making the money.

I said, “You’re better off finding something you like to do.” He loves to work on engines. “Find something you like to do and have a trade that you can bring into the civilian world when you’re done.” He went with that route. He’s a gearhead. He loves to work on engines, and that’s the way it goes. He’s flourishing.

How was Mama with his option and ideas to go into this and to serve?

She’s all for it. My wife and I are on the same page on most things. Anyway, I’m proud to say also, my son is fifth-generation military now in our family, and it might be longer. We just can only go back to my great-grandfather.

That’s as far as you can go back.

My great-grandfather, that is his great-great-grandfather. That’s cool.

Thank you, your family, your grandfathers, everyone. It means a lot at our house. I think it should at every American’s house.

I’m very proud that he’s continuing on the tradition.

The Jagged Blue Line: A Gripping Tale Of Police Life

Let’s talk a little bit and you can share some stories. I met you doing some training. I want to talk about some of the training stuff. I’ll bounce around here a little bit. I wanted to get on here and talk with you about The Jagged Blue Line. I met you doing some firearm training, which, again, we’ll talk about. Representing here with the Ragnar Tactical shirt. Super fun course. As I said, we’ll talk more about that. Tell us a little bit, what is The Jagged Blue Line? I want to ask you some questions about the book.

It’s funny, people have asked me why I wrote the book. I don’t have a good answer for that. There was no catalyst other than a couple of things stuck in my mind. One is, over the years, I’ve told people stories. Many times, I’ve heard, “That’s crazy. You should write a book.” That stuck in my head. Years ago, a guy I worked with wrote a book about patrol life. That guy was very articulate and very intelligent. He wrote an excellent book, but it was the average day on patrol as a cop.

What I thought it was lacking is that some of it was very boring. “I just go to this noise complaint, I go to a barking dog call, then I go to a shooting.” That’s how police work is, it’s highs and lows. The parts that were just routine stuff, I don’t think people are interested in that. I wanted to write a book of highlights and lowlights. I’m not putting down his book. It’s an excellent book. I was like, “I think if I ever did that, I would leave out the parts that are not interesting.” I think he was trying to adequately relay the average day.

I couldn’t put it down. I think I met you on a Friday, got the book, and by Sunday night, I was done with it. I’m not a prolific reader or anything, but I was freaking glued to it. It’s unbelievably entertaining. What’s the easiest place for folks to get a copy?

Consistency is the name of the game. That means week after week, month after month, year after year. Share on X

Probably Amazon. If you Google The Jagged Blue Line, my website will come up and it’ll lead you. You just click on it, and it’ll go to Amazon. I also have an Audible version that you can get on Amazon.

Can you share a story? Do you have a favorite story from the book that’s in there, maybe one that you omitted on purpose? Maybe we could talk a little bit about both. What’s your favorite story from the book?

There were a couple of things I omitted just because of slander concerns. If you notice, throughout the book, I took out names, places, and dates. When I first wrote it, I had all that in there. I had two attorneys review it. They said, “You’re opening yourself up for slander if you put this in there, even if it’s true,” and it is all true. Everything in the book is true to the best of my memory. I’ll tell you, it’s not a gripe-and-moan book. I tried not to write it as coming across as bitter, although there are a few moments in there where I bag on people, especially some of our weak leadership.

How they were toxic to the organization and how they let bad things happen, and cowered to a small vocal minority on city council and stuff like that. Anyway, I put in there some of the times that they looked after their own but jammed other people and bent over, that kind of thing. Nonetheless, if they were to pick up the book and read it, they’d know I’m talking about them.

There is no doubt about it. The standard for slander is pretty high. For starters, not only do you have to be able to prove that it’s you they’re talking about, but also that other people know it’s you. Also, that you incurred some loss, whether it’s financial or to your reputation. That’s a pretty high threshold. By simply removing their names, places, and dates, I’ve taken care of that.

From memory, the book doesn’t even mention who you worked for. It was a major metropolitan department.

I left it all out. I don’t mind saying I worked for Aurora, that’s fine. I did leave it out of the book just as part of that whole slander concoction.

I get it. I found it almost, like I said, comedic, and I’ve never been a police officer. I’ve got lots of friends that are law enforcement. I hear some of the stuff, and you probably saw this on a daily basis, the absolute lack of common sense. I’m reading it and literally laughing to myself. My wife comes in, and she’s like, “What are you laughing at?” I’m like, “This is funny.” I like to share that with her and stuff. Are there any specific stories that you remember where you’re just like, “This is the most bonehead thing ever?”

I don’t know if I’d say bonehead, just crazy stuff, though. For example, I go to a shots-fired call one night, and I’m the first one there. I pull up my twelve-gauge, and I’m creeping up to this parking lot, this liquor store. I see nine-millimeter shell casings all over the floor, like a dozen of them. I’m like, “This is a legit call.” Right as I’m there, this dude walks out of the liquor store. This is a pretty ghetto neighborhood, too. I said, “Stop, put your hands up,” something to that effect. This is like mid-’90s

The dude bolts on me. I just take off after him. Turns out, in retrospect, he had nothing to do with the shooting at all. He just happened to have a big bag of crack in his pocket, that’s why he ran. I didn’t know that. Anyway, I’m chasing him across this main street. I’ll never forget this, he’s got probably a good 30 yards on me. He turns around and looks at me, he’s booking it full speed. This car hits him. He takes out the windshield and completely somersaults over the top of the car and lands on the ground.

I’m thinking this dude’s dead or close to it. He just pops up and keeps on running. I chased him for another two blocks before he finally stopped and wanted to fight. I had to fight him and get him in custody. Once he calmed down, his adrenaline came down, that’s when he started feeling the pain. We took him to the hospital.

One of the funny parts about it is that the guy driving the car never saw me. I was in the dark across the street. I still remember the side view of his face as he was hitting the guy. He kept on going, he never stopped. That was 20, almost 30 years ago. I bet that dude went home, put his car in the garage, changed out his windshield. To this day, he probably thinks he killed somebody. He was probably drunk. It’s just funny.

That is just crazy.

There’s a lot of those. There are 1,000 of those different kinds of stories.

Inside SWAT: High-Risk Operations And Tactical Training

What about SWAT? When you spent time in SWAT, what did that look like?

I did eight years in SWAT. I was a sniper for SWAT. It was awesome. I will say that I think we were probably the busiest team in the state. We averaged about 400 operations a year. I would say the majority of those were high-risk warrants, banging down doors. Either the Narcotics Unit, the Detective Bureau, or a federal agency would give us a warrant, and we’d go execute it for them. We also had barricaded suspects. A barricaded suspect, by definition, is somebody who’s armed and in a structure.

We would handle all those. If somebody was armed in a structure and refused to come out, patrol would try to get them to come out. If they said, “No, screw you, we’re not coming out,” they’d immediately turn it over to us. We handled a lot of those. Occasionally, we’d do a manhunt. Occasionally, we did executive protection. We did a lot of EP work because we have a Space Force base in our city, formerly an Air Force base.

Whenever anyone from POTUS or his staff comes to town, they always land there because that’s where Air Force One will land. Because of that, we always supplemented Secret Service. Oftentimes, I was up in a hide with a Secret Service sniper, doing advance work with the Secret Service guys and that kind of stuff. That’s how I kind of got into that. When I retired, I had people I knew in the business call me up, and they’d go, “We heard you retired. Would you be interested in working for us?”

I do quite a bit of executive protection. I’d probably say I do at least a week a month somewhere. I’m going to tell you, I’ve had a lot of big names, and then I’ve had a lot of people who are just billionaires and nobody knows their name. It is not like in the movies at all. There are some glamorous moments. I’ve got one client who’s an NFL owner, and whenever they come to Colorado, I’m their guy. I go on the field with them if they want to talk to the coaches on the sideline or whatever, and that is pretty cool.

I’ve done foreign royalty twice from two different countries, and they do some pretty interesting events. There is some neat stuff, but 95% of it is a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. There’s a lot of pressure. There’s no room for screw-ups. A ton of logistics that people don’t think about. As far as advance work, moving with the client, follow, infill and exfil points, everything’s by the numbers, like down to the second as far as movement goes. There’s a lot of, shall I say, details, and there’s a lot of pressure.

If you screw up, you’re a 1099. They can just get on the plane and go home. There is a little bit of pressure there, and there are a lot of long hours. I just finished a detail with this family on a ski trip, and it was eight days. In those 8 days, I did 94 hours. I always log my hours. There’s not a lot of time to do anything but sleep outside of your shift. It’s one of those things where it pays well, so that’s hard to turn down, the golden handcuffs.

Is it normally you and others, or are you mainly by yourself?

I would say usually I have other people with me. The last trip, I had three guys with me. I do occasionally have to do one alone. I have had some that I did alone where I was like, “I should have more people here,” once I find out who this person is. If it’s just some billionaire, I don’t think most people are going to know who they are.

I had one a couple of years back where I found out that he was maybe the leader in the world in cybersecurity. In countries like Russia, North Korea, China, they’d love to see him disappear. I didn’t know that when I first met him. I was talking to one of his executives about it, and I was like, “I probably should have somebody with me here, somebody to watch my back.” It is an interesting world.

How long have you been doing that? Is it basically since you’ve retired from law enforcement?

I got a lot more into it after I retired. The interesting thing is, when I was on SWAT, we would do it. The only mission we had was to save them, as far as protection was. We didn’t have to have any customer service part of that. What’s interesting is, in the private sector, there’s a big customer service component to that, as far as making sure, down to the car, it’s clean. It’s stocked with bottled water and cords for their phones to charge and tissues.

Some of these things, you’ll be like, “Shouldn’t a personal assistant do this?” You’re getting paid decent, so you do it. In SWAT, we just drive in there and dump them, so we didn’t have any concerns like that. I run around clients’ kids. I’ve taken kids to school many times. It’s funny when you’re driving a kid to school, and you’ve got a nanny in the passenger seat, and the kid’s strapped in the back, and they’re playing their kids’ rock, blaring on the radio. It’s like that movie with Vin Diesel, where he’s like a nanny, but he’s a protection guy. I’ve been there.

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That’s you. That’s real life, Graham.

You have to laugh. You’re like, “Whatever.”

I like the entrepreneurial piece. That might be a good segue into how you and I met, which is through firearm instruction. I’ve taken lots of classes and things like that. I want to get your take on it. When I was training with you, and I’ve got full intent to do a lot more, I spend wintertime, and you can probably see the palm trees in the back. I’m in Southwest Florida for the wintertime.

It’s freezing here. It’s like 1 degree out.

I saw that. My poor son is at home, not feeling well, trying to keep up on all that. Let’s talk about some of the instruction you do. It’s not just firearms. Let’s talk about some of the other stuff, and then we’ll talk about firearms.

The Birth Of Ragnar Tactical: From SWAT To Entrepreneurship

My company, Ragnar Tactical, had an interesting start to it. I fell into it. I was a SWAT guy, and there was a small city in Southern Colorado that was creating a brand-new SWAT team. They inquired with our SWAT team. They go, “We’d like to get a basic one-week course on just how to do basic stuff.” Me and another guy, we go, “We’ll do it.” We had 40 guys on our team. I was already a trainer. I was already a firearms trainer and stuff like this. This was 2002. I was like, I’ll do it.

Anyway, I thought, “I should probably create an LLC, just in case.” If somebody gets sued over something, if somebody shoots themselves in the foot or something, and I get sued. I created an LLC. I go down there, we did a week-long school, like a basic SWAT skill school, like a day of high-risk vehicle stuff, a day of building clearances, dynamic entries, a day of hostage rescue, that kind of thing. We split it up into five days.

They invited me back to teach sniper school. Anyway, all of a sudden, I’ve got this business, and I’m teaching a few small police departments, but nothing crazy. It’s just a week here, a week there kind of thing. I had a buddy say, “We should get into the permit business. All kinds of people need permits.” I was against it at first. I was like, “I don’t want to be training all these goofball people.” I just thought it was going to be a crap show. Anyway, he talked me into it. He bugged me.

Finally, I acquiesced and said, “Let’s put a course together.” Anyway, the first class I put on, everybody was awesome. They were just regular people, cool people who just want to protect themselves. It changed my opinion. I was like, “They’re not like goofballs and doomsdayers. They’re real, cool people.” He fell out of it, picked up a new job, and left. I stayed on with it. All of a sudden, it just became something I’m doing almost every week.

When I retired, it became my real business. I’m teaching a class, I would say, almost every week, sometimes twice a week, year-round. I’m probably teaching about 40 classes a year. I teach Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 handgun, Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 carbine, mostly ARs, but I do get some AKs, Tavors, HKs, and some different stuff. I teach a combat shotgun course. I teach a Precision 1 and 2 rifle course, mostly for hunters. There are some guys who are into competition stuff who come too.

I teach a Level two red dot pistol course. Those are my gun courses. Outside of that, I have a course, an edged weapon seminar I teach, which is basically how to use your folding knife as a last resort if you had to, as a defensive weapon, and also how to defend against an edged weapon attack. I teach a gun-jitsu course, which is how to fight with a gun.

Explain that.

It’s a great course. We’re not using real guns for this. We use training guns, like blue guns, and then we use some airsoft guns for some of the scenarios. It’s basically how to draw while you’re being attacked in all these contorted positions, on your back, how to create space, how to avoid going to your back, how to get back on your feet if you do end up on your back.

I’ve been a jiu-jitsu guy for many years now. That’s my thing. I basically tailored a course toward jiu-jitsu, how to draw from a guillotine choke, how to draw from a headlock, and all these contorted positions. It’s all the stuff that people should practice but nobody thinks about. I have some scenarios toward the end of the class, what we call stress inoculation drills. That’s gun-jitsu. The last one I do is an active shooter course, close-quarters battle, clearing buildings, dynamic response, rapid response to an active shooter.

I also do the medical component of that too, which is the tactical combat casualty care, like addressing gunshot wounds, penetrating trauma, stab wounds, stuff like that. I’m teaching a whole variety of stuff. One thing that’s cool is that I was at the academy for eight years. That was my full-time gig for eight years. All I did was teach 40 hours a week. It was beneficial for two reasons. One is I got all my instructor certifications. They sent me to all these schools.

Between the 8 years at the academy and 8 years on SWAT, I’d get so many offers for schools. They’d be like, “We got this two-day school coming up from HK,” or whatever. I was like, “I’ll do it.” I was that guy. I was a training guy. I would go to everything. I once counted them up. I went to like 22 instructor schools and like 60 or 80 tactical schools. Some of them were a couple of weeks. I love to train. That’s kind of my thing. Anyway, it was cool because I picked up all these schools, and I also picked up how to teach in front of a group.

After about a year, I was comfortable in front of a group. I could go in there and talk and not get nervous and stuff like that. I don’t think anybody’s born with that. I think it takes time to become comfortable. That’s where I’m at now. The thing is, I’m not dogmatic at all. I think so many instructors are, meaning, they say, “You have to do things by my Bible,” so to speak, my Bible of firearms or my Bible of jiu-jitsu. For me, it’s what works for you because what works for a 100-pound female may not work for me, and vice versa.

We have different bodies, we have different strengths, we have different ages, we have different abilities, and what works for you may not work for me again, and vice versa. I like the cafeteria approach, where you take what you want and leave the rest. If I was to create the ultimate system of doing things, I would pick and choose from different systems. I went to so many schools where most of it, I’m like, “I’m not sure,” but there were 1 or 2 good things. I’m like, “I’m going to steal those. Those are awesome.”

I’m now at a point where I can dissect things because I’ve seen what everybody does. I’m a big believer in continuing that training. I still go to a class somewhere else at least once a year for a couple of days just to see what other people do. I believe that if you don’t know what other people do, how do you know what you do is worth anything? You have to be able to have that knowledge so that you can dissect it. The unfortunate thing is, most people, they only go to a couple of courses.

They just don’t have the knowledge to dissect other people’s stuff. They can’t think critically and go, “That’s okay. That’s not great.” I have people go through courses, and they come to me and they go, “I went through this course, and it was awesome.” They come to my course, and they go, “Now that I’ve been to your course, that course wasn’t awesome. It sucked.” I get that feedback a lot. I say, “If nothing else, it was a good experience because you saw what not to do, or now you can compare and contrast techniques.”

“If I show you two different ways to clear a type three malfunction, you can decide which one you think is best. You now know two ways instead of one way.” I think there’s a lot to that, to think critically, but you have to have a knowledge base to be able to think critically. I will say, when I first got out in the Marine Corps, I only knew one way of doing things. I was like, “The Marine Corps way is the way to go.” When I got in police work and started seeing other ways, I’m like, “Some of the things are the way to go. Other things, not so much.”

Lessons From A Lifetime Of Training

Through all your years of instruction and training and practice and everything else you’ve been able to share. I love your approach of maybe not just one idea, but, “Let’s think about this.” The other thing that was one of my big takeaways from your first course that I went to was just the training piece. If you don’t do that often enough, it’s very easy for regular old civilians like me to forget.

You’ve got to keep that going. You can stay on that bike. If you don’t ride the bike, it gets old. There is an interesting study that was done with college students many years ago, and it’s the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Dunning-Kruger effect is 90% or 95% of the world thinks they’re better at any given task than they are. For example, they go to the range and shoot once a year, and they’re like, “I’m pretty good.” They don’t know any better. I go to the range at least every week and shoot year-round. I know there’s a lot for me to improve. I look and I go, “I could be so much better,” especially in little areas. The same in competition.

There are certain things that come in with competition. I’m like, “I would rather do this because I’m better at that.” I try to work on my areas where I see a flaw. My thing is that, in that study, the 10% of the world that doesn’t have overestimated abilities, they think that they’re not good enough, and they’re pretty decent. I’m definitely in that category because I’m super self-critical. Again, I shoot every week, and yet, sometimes, I go to the range and go, “I could be so much better. That sucked. I need to make myself better and train harder.” I would much rather be in that camp, though, than in the camp that has overestimated abilities, where you watch John Wick on TV and go, “I could do that.” You couldn’t.

From a student’s perspective, it’s neat to hear you say that because it just reiterates that you need to keep training. You need the practice. You need the reps, if you will.

I read in Concealed Carry Magazine, which is a USCCA magazine. It’s a pretty good read. I read an article, and they said that 3% of people who get permits continue to train. The other 97%, they go, “I’m good.” They went through a class, and they put it in a vault or under the bed or whatever they do, and they never touch it again. That’s very disheartening to me.

I think people should continue that training constantly throughout their lives. It’s a never-ending journey. You’re never going to get to where you want to be, in my opinion. I know I won’t. I’m never going to get to the level of expertise that I want to be at. If you ever watch me shoot on the range or do a competition, you’d be like, “Graham, what are you talking about?”

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To the average Joe, it’s impressive.

To the recreational shooter, they’re like, “Oh.” To me, I’m like, “There are holes in my game. I could be faster. I could be smoother. I could be more accurate.” There are all those things to work on. I think you’d find that with anybody who’s challenging themselves is that they’ve got that lust to make themselves better. That’s what the whole show is about.

Get better.

One of the things that I’ve never considered myself is the smartest guy in the room by any means. One area where I pride myself on, though, is motivation. Sniper school, it’s freezing, and you’re losing feeling in your fingers because you’re so cold. You’re peeing yourself because you can’t get up. You’re laying in a hide or whatever. There are dudes who are just Adonis athletes who are going, “Screw this,” and they’re tapping out. The ability to go, “I’m not going to let it get me,” I think, is so much more important than below the neck.

That’s one thing I’ve always prided myself on, motivation. I’m very motivated. Nobody has to tell me to go to the gym. I don’t need a goal, like a 5K or a contest or whatever. I get there every day and crush it. I don’t need a partner to do it. That’s something I’m so glad that I have in me that seems like so many people don’t. They have to have some goal or something, and not that there’s anything wrong. If that’s what you have to do to do it, fine.

Most people don’t even train, or they train once in a while, and they fall off the wagon. That whole consistency, whether it’s physical fitness, whether it’s martial arts, whether it’s shooting, is the name of the game. For example, I’m 56 years old, and I often have people ask me, “How do you stay in shape being 56?” My thing is that I have been consistent in the gym for 25, 30 years. I never miss workouts. If I have to miss a workout because I’m going to work a fifteen-hour day or something, I’ll do a double the next day.

If I have to, I’ll get up at 3:00 AM. If I have to, I’ll work out on my lunch. I always watch what I eat, not to say I don’t have cheat meals and stuff like that, because I do. In my opinion, consistency is the name of the game. That means week after week, month after month, year after year. Many people do it on what I call the installment plan, where they do a month or six months hard, then fall off the wagon and don’t train for a couple of months. This is not to say that what they did wasn’t valuable, but they’ve just lost a lot of it.

Same with the guy who goes to the gym and then goes to McDonald’s and has a McFlurry, like one of my clients who I do bodyguarding for. It’s funny, but his wife doesn’t know about it. We always go to McDonald’s and get a Big Mac and a McFlurry after he hits the gym. You’d know who he is. He’s one of the most recognizable people in the world, but it’s just funny to me. I’m not going to say, “All those calories you just burned, you just sucked them back in,” but that’s what I’m thinking.

Probably more.

That 2,000-calorie McFlurry or whatever it is.

You didn’t just burn that in the gym.

Loaded with sugar. Here’s the thing. That’s my advice to people when they’re younger and they say, “How do I stay in shape? I’m falling off the wagon.” It’s all about consistency. It all works. It’s all about consistency. It’d be the same with shooting a gun. It’d be the same with martial arts, whatever you choose to practice. I think that consistency of getting in there and proper training, too. Not just going through the motions. I’ll give you an example.

I golf, not very well. Anyway, when I warm up on the driving range, if I take two big buckets of balls and hit them, I find myself just starting to whack them because I want to get through these buckets since I know it’s a lot of balls. If I just do one bucket, I take my time and focus on each hit. It’s more beneficial for me to do one bucket than two buckets. It’s the same thing with getting on the range. I would rather just shoot 50 rounds in drills, focused on that, than shoot 200 rounds where it’s a chore, and I want to get through it. Not to say there aren’t days I don’t shoot 200-plus. I want the quality, not the quantity.

Shooting Lessons: Advice For Firearm First-Timers

I love a lot of things that you just said there, but I’ve always been a big fan of a mentor, whether it’s a business coach, a marriage coach, a spiritual coach, a money coach, a guide, or a mentor. I think anything that you can do to improve your life in some capacity and learn from somebody that’s better is valuable. I’m never going to take money advice from somebody that’s broke. I want the guy handling my money to be loaded because I know he’s doing a good job.

I don’t want to take marriage advice from somebody who’s on their second, third, or fourth marriage. I love what you just said about consistency. Discipline is another great word that gets used a bunch. If I can give you a plug for your firearm instructing, that’s gold. If you want to get better at safety and all of the things in between that a normal person like me doesn’t think about, the clearing, “What happens when this happens?” kind of thing.

I love everything you just said there. There are a lot of folks out there, call it misguided, misinformation, whatever it is, but for somebody that is maybe a little shy about firearms or guns in general, do you have any advice for someone who says, “I’ve never shot a gun. I’ve never held a gun”? Do you have anybody that comes to you? What does that conversation look like?

I get that all the time. I go out of my way to be very humble, respectful, and patient with people. I only lose patience when somebody’s a prick, which is incredibly rare. I’ve only had that happen once or twice out of 23 years of being in business or whatever. People generally want to soak in the knowledge and learn. I love that when people are earnest students. The biggest advice I’d give to somebody, if you’re thinking it over but you’re intimidated by it, is, don’t go out with your buddy. They’re going to teach you bad habits, probably bad safety. You need to get formal training from a good instructor.

Here’s where the problem arises. My belief is that most people in my business are clowns. I do. I’m not trying to say, “I’m all that, and everybody else sucks,” because there are some good trainers out there. I can name probably five off the top of my head in the Denver metro area that I like. For every one of those, there are ten who are absolute goofs. What I mean by goof is they’re not necessarily bad people; they just don’t have the background and experience to do what they’re doing. Many of them are good shooters, but they don’t have the ability to impart that knowledge to their students, which is a big deal.

You have to be the complete package. I would say that anybody who hasn’t had a lot of training time as an instructor is in that category. One of the benefits I had was being a full-time instructor for eight years. I got to see pretty much everything and feel my way through what works and what doesn’t work with people. Unfortunately, there are so many boobs out there. The thing is, students go to the local gun store, take a course, and come back saying, “It was good.”

After my course, I just didn’t know, “I thought it was good, but it sucked.” It’s unfortunate. There’s no good place to vet instructors. Unfortunately, it is very easy to become a finance instructor. I’m a life member of the NRA, and I’m a big supporter, but I will say this, their civilian training program is very lacking. Their law enforcement training program is excellent. They have a law enforcement instructor school that’s 44 hours per weapon system. They have a failure rate by people. They have a qualification.

People fail. Not a high failure rate, probably 10% to 20%, but people do fail. That’s per weapon system. One for pistol, one for shotgun, one for rifle, etc. Their civilian program, though, you have to go through a one-day use course and then a two-day instructor course, and everybody passes. It’s a joke. The problem is, probably 95% or more of instructors teaching this stuff have gone through that civilian program, not the law enforcement program.

Another good program is the US CCA instructor program. From what I’ve heard, it’s pretty good. I’ve got some friends who have gone through it. Also, the Colorado POST and each state has its own POST, Peace Officer Standards and Training. They usually have a week-long firearm program for each weapon system. Those are good courses, too. They do have quality people fail. Anything that has a standard.

Unfortunately, most people just go through that minimalist course, and then they’re out certifying people and teaching people. Again, I’m not saying they’re bad people or even bad instructors. I’m just saying it’s inadequate. It’s not what you need. You need a lot of time, a lot of experience, and a lot of time in front of a group to be able to impart your knowledge and articulate your message.

I love what you said. I can relate to that on a couple of things as you’re talking. I’ve been in the mortgage business for 22 years, and there are handfuls of us. I’m not just patting myself on the back, that are great. There’s the bell curve. I think it can be said about any profession, whether it’s my business, firearm instruction, attorneys, doctors, or anything else. There’s a handful of them that are good. If you haven’t experienced one of those, you may not know the difference, and some people don’t care. I can attest that I have gone through some of your coursework, and it’s by far the best I’ve ever.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Wisdom On Getting Older And Leadership

Looking forward to more. We touched on this a couple of minutes ago, again, just learning, and I want to know a little bit more. You mentioned you’re 56. You’re in incredible shape. What does your routine look like? Is it daily? Just share a little bit of that with us.

I’ve gone to a less-is-more level as I’ve gotten older. I just don’t think you can recover like you can when you’re in your 20s or even your 30s. I do six days a week. I take one day off for mental health. I do three days of cardio, and I do three days of lifting. My cardio is not all aerobic. It’s an aerobic-anaerobic mix. For people who don’t understand, aerobic is basically 30% to 60% of your max heart rate. Anaerobic is 80% to 100% of your max heart rate.

You are not that important. Don't get too hung up on yourself. Share on X

That being said, I think a mix is best. I’ll go for a jog, but I also run sprints. The jog is the aerobic, the anaerobic is the sprints. I still box, do some jiu-jitsu, run, use the rowing machine, and use the stair climber, but I make it hard. I don’t hold onto the handles. I like to mix it up. I get bored. I might do 20 minutes of this, 20 minutes of that, 20 minutes of something else. I do like to mix it up. I think that helps you mentally. I’m not sure so much, I believe in muscle confusion.

I’ve read a lot on this kind of stuff, and I’ve gone to some schools. I was a fitness instructor at the academy. They sent us to a couple of different schools and stuff. I do think that you need to mix it up for your mental health. For example, if all you do is the same exercise every time, you’re going to get bored with that. I think you need to mix it up. That’s my regular routine. I watch what I eat. I could kick it up if I had to. I don’t know if we ever talked about this, but I fought forever.

I boxed in the Marine Corps, and I had dozens and dozens of amateur bouts. I had three kickboxing fights, four MMA fights, and one pro boxing match. I did that over a span of like twenty years, and it was never my full-time gig. I’d say it was a hobby for me, even though at the end, I was making a little bit of cash on it. It was a cool experience to me. It was more of a challenge. I just love the challenge of it. When you step into a ring or a cage in front of thousands of people, it’s like jumping out of a plane.

The adrenaline’s up, and you have that moment, “There we go. Am I just sitting across from this dude, and the only person in here is a referee? Why do I do this to myself?” All that said, it was a great experience. I got to fight in Europe twice. I fought all over the United States, and one cool thing was in 1992, I went to the amateur boxing internationals in London and was the only American who won. They sent five that year. That was cool. I silvered at the World Games, and I had some cool stuff. I lost the decision on gold.

To this day, I’m pissed about it because I went up in weight class, and I felt like I was a better fighter than him. I gassed, and he had better cardio than I did. I slowed down, and he just beat me on points. It was an epiphany. I was like, “I am never going to lose a fight again because of poor conditioning.” I became a conditioning monster. It got to the point where I think it won me some fights. There were times when I saw a guy start mouth breathing, and every time you see a guy mouth breathing, they’re starting to decline.

I was feeling fine, so that’s when I’d step on the accelerator and pick up the pace. I think that won me a couple of fights that I might not have normally won. That cardio was big. When I trained for a fight, I’d have a six-week training camp that was just ridiculous, and I’d lose tons of weight. My cardio was amazing, and it was cool. It was a good experience, and I touched on that a little bit in the book. I don’t talk about it a lot, but there are some photographs in there and stuff, just for old time’s sake.

I talk about it, and it does play into a couple of the stories because there are a couple of stories where I chased people down or fought people, and having a background helped me out in that respect. I say one of my favorite expressions is, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Even if you have a little bit of knowledge in something, whether it’s martial arts or shooting or whatever, you’re going to destroy like 90% of the world. I believe in that. I think that’s just so important, to get that self-motivation, however you need to do it.

If you don’t just inherently have it, you need to somehow change your life and fill your life with positive stuff. I’m a big believer in not bringing negativity into my life. I had this epiphany many years ago when I was going through a very hard military school. It was brutal, and I was struggling mentally to get through it because of the weather and the physical conditioning. It was just tough. Those guys, my buddies, were complaining, “Man, I’m freezing, and this sucks, and I’m always hungry, and goddamn, they’re running us to death.”

I had another guy who was with me who was cracking jokes. We’re so cold, I’m feeling it in my fingers, and I’m just miserable, and he’s busting jokes and making me laugh. The epiphany was, “I want to hang out with that guy, not those guys.” That positivity, I want to suck it in. I was probably 20 or 21 at the time, and I just remember that was such a big impact on me. Throughout my life, and this is advice I gave to my three sons, when you’re associated with somebody who is negative, I’m not saying block them out of your life.

Sometimes they’re family, sometimes they’re a good friend, but maybe distance yourself a little bit. When it comes to the positive people in your life, those are the people you need to surround yourself with. Keep that going. I listen to podcasts all the time, as well as motivational stuff about working out and entrepreneurial stuff. Like Bedros Keuilian, for example, he’s all about working out and entrepreneurship. He’s a dual fix there. There are a bunch of those out there, though.

Occasionally, I’ll read something or listen to something that is negative, and I force myself away from it because I’m getting pissed, and it’s changing my attitude. I have the ability now, as I get older, to go, “I realize what it’s doing to me. Stop doing that.” Not to say I don’t ever get in bad moods or that I’m never negative, because I do. Sometimes I’m negative, but the idea is, don’t make that your life. It’s like one thing I used to tell people when they worked for me in police work. I was a supervisor for the last seventeen years, and I usually had 8 to 10 guys a year on my team.

I say guys, meaning both male and female, but I’d have 8 to 10 people a year on my team. The first day, I’d always have a talk with them, and I’d give them my expectations as a leader. “This is what I expect from you when you do this.” Going down to interactions, “If you have a problem with another officer, I expect you to handle it alone, like big boys and big girls. If I have to get involved, it’s going to get nasty. You need to fix that without me getting involved. If you have to get me involved, I understand, but try and avoid it if it’s petty. Be adults. Don’t come running to me.”

I said, “Your expectations of me should be that I’m going to look after you as best I can. I’m going to get your time off. If you want to get a special assignment, I’m going to do what I can to prepare you for this. Do you have any other expectations that I haven’t thought of?” This was a conversation that I’d have every year. Defining expectations when you’re a leader is huge. It is because then, if they screw up, they can’t say, “You never told me. I didn’t know that’s what you wanted.” I had a long list of stuff that I had compiled over the years, just little things that I think people needed to know.

Here’s the thing, though. I would always tell them this, too. Also, understand this. You are not that important. What I mean by that is this, when it comes to the daily activities you do, you’re going to help people, you’re going to catch bad guys, you’re going to do some stuff that will help people in life, but in the end, the police department ran fine before you got here, and it’ll run fine when you leave. Don’t make it your life. Don’t make it your identity. Don’t get too hung up on yourself. We had this board, a plaque, and it had a plaque of everybody who’d done twenty-plus years in the police department.

There were tons of them, hundreds and hundreds of names. Maybe thousands. It had their name and their retirement date. I said, “Someday, somebody’s going to be standing in front of those plaques, reading the names, and they’re going to see Graham Dunne. Never heard of him.” The thing is, I noticed in my career that I knew probably half a dozen people who killed themselves. It was always after they retired, like a year or two years after. What it was, in my opinion, and I remember these people very well, is that they had made police work their identity.

When they retired, they were like, “They had nothing left.” I recognized that at a pretty early age in my career. My thing was, “I’m going to have outside friends and outside activities.” It’s not that I don’t hang out with other cops because I do. I still occasionally bump into ones. The thing is, I found that when I hung out with the other guys at work, all we did was talk about work. It was always back to that negativity of, “Screw that guy, the city sucks,” it’s pretty toxic. It’s funny. I have a couple of friends who are still on the job, like they’re getting ready to retire.

We’ll go out for dinner with our wives, for example. I have to take them off the course because they’ll start talking about work, how much it sucks, how much they hate the chief or the city council, whatever it is. I’m like, “Let’s change topics,” because you’re spiraling down that negativity hole. I don’t want to go there. I find it interesting to a certain extent but within moderation.

You don’t want that to be the center of attention for the entire conversation, right?

Right. As a cop, it does overtake your world. People just have no idea, especially in a big city. Maybe not so much in a small town, but I think small towns have their own set of problems. They know everybody, everybody’s related. In other ways, it could be more political, just in different ways. They don’t have the call load, they don’t have the crime, but they have other negatives that they have to deal with.

The Value Of The People Around You

A few moments ago, and I don’t remember exactly how you said it, but it reminded me, I’ve got a tight inner circle, if you will. Donna’s one of them, the one that introduced you and me together. I just always say, “I wanted to get your thoughts on maybe this last little piece, and then we’ll wrap things up.” I’ve always had this idea that if I hang around five smokers, I’m going to be the sixth. If I hang around five millionaires, I’m going to be the sixth. If I hang around five great golfers, or shooters, or whatever, I’m going to be the sixth. What are your thoughts on that?

I think that’s 100%. Bedros Keuilian talks about it. He says, “You are the five people that you hang out with the most.” I probably hang out with 3 or 4 people the most. If it’s outside of family, maybe two people that I hang out with a lot, maybe three. I definitely think you take on those people. You take on parts of their personality as they take on parts of your personality. If they’re motivated, you’ll be motivated. If they’re negative, that will play into your personality too. I’m 100% in accordance with that. It just goes back to what I said. I think you need to separate yourself a little bit from negative people in your life.

It adds to whether it’s separating the negative people and also adding, if I want to be more in shape, I need to hang around guys like you who are in better shape. If I want to be a better shooter, I’ve got to hang around guys like you who are better than me. There’s so much gold in those pieces of those conversations. I just wanted to highlight that real quick because that was insane.

That’s the only way to do it. Also, the self-help part of it, the podcasts, reading. I’m not a big reader. I sometimes struggle with reading. It’s hard for me, meaning just to sit down. Not the actual reading, but just to sit down and do it. I’m like, “I don’t want to do it.” I’d rather watch TV or listen to a podcast. It’s just because it’s the easy factor. That’s my inner witch in my head telling me, “Take the easy road.”

I’ve had that, too, when I’m driving to training. I’m driving to jiu-jitsu, and I know it’s going to be just a brutal workout where we’re beating the crap out of each other. My inner witch is going, “You don’t have to do this. You could just turn around and go home.” You have to dismiss those voices in your head and go, “I need to suck it up.” Adversity is what makes you a better human being, doing stuff that’s hard, not doing stuff easy.

I did a podcast shoot with a family friend of ours who’s a family therapist, and she talks about neuroplasticity. Literally, your brain grows when you’re doing something that is hard. Have you ever heard of, I’m sure you have, Andy Frisella, the guy who’s got a big podcast? He’s the founder of what’s called 75 Hard. I’ve done that quite a few times. He calls it the inner witch voice or the boss voice. “Which one are you going to listen to? Are you going to listen to the witch voice or the boss voice?”

I think finding people that have those boss voices and can encourage you is just gold, and I don’t think people realize that that kind of stuff is out there. Maybe that’s the part of it, if nobody’s into police work and shooting and things that were there, if somebody latches on, it’s just like, “If there’s one person I can look up to, to maybe help me with that, get a stronger boss voice, screw the witch voice kind of thing, maybe we can connect with somebody on that level.” That’s my hope.

When it goes back to firearms, we touched on this earlier. I understand people have a fear of firearms. I get that. A healthy respect is very good. You don’t want to lose respect for your guns, which so many people do. They start training, and then all of a sudden, they’re pointing guns at each other, and they have negligent discharges and stuff. I think you have to be very strict on your firearm safety. That’s something you should never lose, that respect. I’m sure from going through my class, you saw that with me. I am very strict on firearm safety. I’m not an ass about it, but I’m very strict about it. When it comes to all this, it all comes down to this.

This is the greatest country in the world. You need to be proud of being here. You can be anything you want if you try hard, so don't buy into this victimization. Share on X

Sometimes the stuff I like to do, like shoot, I have no problem getting out there and doing it. For the stuff that is hard for me, for example, reading, I have set a regimen for myself. I go, “I will do twenty pages a day.” If that’s too much, I’ll do ten pages a day, whatever you set the limit to be, but at least you’re doing it. It might take you a month to get through a book, but at least you’re doing it versus not doing it. Self-help books, and I’m one of those, if I read half the book and I’m just not getting it, I’ll start a different book. I’ve had a lot of books where I’ve read them back to front, and I wrote, “Go back to them five years later and read them again” because I thought it was so important.

It resonated with me. I’m like, “I’ve forgotten it,” so I want to read it again. I’m big into that. I think that all that positive affirmation is huge. It does make the difference between whether you’re going to do well in life or not, and it’s all on you. People moan about every complaint in their life, whether it’s, “I don’t have the time or people are against me,” or, “The system is set up against me.” It’s not. The system’s not set up against anybody. That’s an excuse. Everybody’s got an equal chance here. “Some people have more of an equal chance,” that’s a bunch of crap.

Don’t buy into that victimization mindset, just do it. You look at people of any demographic, they’re at the top level of anything, whether it’s sports, industry, finance, whatever. My little world is shooting and tactics. I’m not saying I’m on top, but I do find, and again, I’ve never been the smartest guy in the room, but I do have that motivation that was somehow in me, and it makes me want to be the best at whatever I do. If I fall short, that’s on me. That’s nobody else’s problem. It’s just like being in the military and being a cop. People will thank me for my service and stuff. That’s cool. I appreciate that.

One thing that does irk me is so many people complain, and they file for disabilities and stuff when they don’t need them. If you’ve truly been disabled, you deserve everything plus more, but there are so many people who don’t. I know guys who go in and fake a hearing test so they can get a payout. I know guys who say, “I’ve got PTSD.” They literally Google the symptoms, go in there, and tell a psychologist, and now they’re getting a payout and free medical for life. I just refuse to do that.

It was my honor to serve my country. It was my honor. I don’t need to steal from my country for the rest of my life. I did it because I wanted to do it. I did it because I felt like it was a duty. I wanted to serve because I grew up in another country until I was ten years old, and I felt like I owed my country for letting my family come to live here.

My parents, even though my dad was Irish and my mother was English, she’s still around, always taught me, “This is the greatest country in the world. You need to be proud of being here, and you can be anything you want if you try hard. Don’t buy into this victimization.” My folks always flew an American flag out front, and they became American citizens. They were very proud of it. Not to say they didn’t have love for their own country, too, but they were like, “We’re Americans now.” I do look with disdain a little bit at these people who want to change our country and make it more like theirs. If it’s so great, go home.

Go back.

This is our country, assimilate. It’s just like Pete Hegseth. I saw him on TV, our new Secretary of Defense, talking about diversity stuff. He was like, “What do you mean?” He goes, “We need to come together.” I agree. I’ve always felt that, we need to come together for the common goal. Can we be different? Sure. Come together for the common goal and stop making a big deal out of it.

All dividing people up does is create animosity and resentment and stuff like that. We need to come together. It’s like, “We’re in the same uniform in a military unit.” I’m glad we’re moving away from those just ridiculous mindsets, in the military, in common life, in business, and everything else. I’m glad we’re moving away from those.

Connect With Sergeant Graham Dunne

I am, too. I can’t thank you enough. I knew this was going to be good, but I didn’t think I’d get goosebumps as much as I did. There was so much gold in here. Some of my top nuggets were the leadership, and you had some amazing insights. I can’t wait to go back and watch some of the little nuances you were talking about with leadership. If I was unclear on something, it’s because I didn’t bring it up. That’s my bad. Let’s fix it and move on, I love that piece. I love all the stuff that you talk about, just training, mindset, discipline, and being excited about that. There are just some huge nuggets in there for me that I agree with 1,000,000%.

Thank you for sharing your wisdom. One more plug for the book, if you can stop what you’re doing and go to Amazon and look for The Jagged Blue Line, you will not be disappointed. It’s very entertaining. I love that I couldn’t put it down. I’m like Graham, where I read 10 to 20 pages at a time. I picked it up on a Friday after we were done training, started it that night, and I was done by Sunday. It’s a very fun book to read.

Thank you, Brian. I appreciate it. The Jagged Blue Line has been very cathartic for me. Same with the audiobook. It’s just been a great experience doing it. I love hearing back from people when they read it, telling me what they thought. I always ask people, “Do you have anything negative?” I haven’t got that yet, but I’m open to it. It’s not going to hurt my feelings.

Constructive criticism, maybe.

I’m interested. People seem to enjoy it. Also, it seems to make people think a little bit. I’ve heard several times from people that it’s changed their opinions. That is cool to me, too.

How can people connect with you? Is Instagram an easy way to, especially if they want to do some training and stuff like that?

Ragnar Tactical. It’s RagnarTactical.com, that’s my website. I’m also on Facebook and Instagram, and I have a YouTube page with some instructional videos. I’ve probably got 25 or 30 instructional videos on there. Each video is about five minutes long, how to do a combat reload, how to clear malfunctions, the principles of marksmanship, draw stroke, just random stuff.

I even have 1 or 2 on how to clean guns. I’ve got one on how to clean a pistol and one on how to clean an AR. They’re on there, and they’re not super high quality, but they’re not super amateur either, they’re in the middle. People tell me they like them, that they get a lot out of them for refreshing their memory. It’s free. RagnarTactical.com. The book again is TheJaggedBlueLine.com.

Thank you, Graham. It was an honor to have you on the show. Let’s do this again sometime. I had a blast doing it with you.

I’d love to. We could always have a talk on, say, mindset or something like that because we could go on and on about that.

For sure. I’m going to take notes. We’ll book that for sure because I got a lot of good stuff to add there. Until then, we’ll look forward to that.

Thanks, Brian.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

My pleasure.

 

Important Links

• Graham Dunne
• Ragnar Tactical on Facebook
• Ragnar Tactical on Instagram
• Ragnar Tactical on YouTube
• The Jagged Blue Line
• 75 Hard
• The Jagged Blue Line on Amazon

 

About Sergeant Graham Dunne

Sergeant Dunne served as a U.S. Marine before his 27-year police career. He served as a SWAT Officer and sniper for 8 years and also as a full-time academy instructor for 8 years.

He is highly decorated, including the Police Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, and multiple life-saving awards. He has been a pistol, rifle, and shotgun instructor since 1999 and has taught firearms, self-defense, tactical combat casualty care, and active shooter response to thousands of military personnel, civilians, and law enforcement officers nationwide.

Sergeant Dunne was the lead firearms and combatives instructor for the Steel Curtain contract, client: U.S. Intelligence. Sergeant Dunne is certified as an expert witness in federal court in firearms, edged weapons, and self-defense. He has competed both as an amateur and professional in MMA, boxing, and kickboxing, and has been shooting competitively for over 20 years.

Sergeant Dunne is a Colorado Police Combat Pistol Champion. In addition to training, he provides executive protection for many high-net-worth individuals, including NFL owners, celebrities, and foreign royalty. Sergeant Dunne founded Ragnar Tactical in 2002 and teaches year-round. He published his memoir, The Jagged Blue Line, in 2024.