My early mentor and friend, John Holschen, passed away last week. John was an incredibly effective teacher who could do everything at a high level. He was smart and capable and willing to go against the tide when the tide was wrong. His teachings greatly contributed to my law enforcement career and helped me retire without any additional holes in me.
John is the guy who introduced me to Todd Green. Todd has written about it before, but didn’t mention John’s name. John was in VA for a class and invited me and Todd to join the class dinner since we were in the area. Certainly the most important connection ever made in my life, as it not only gave me my friend Todd, but Todd helped introduce me to my wife. The rest is history.
John was an innovative instructor, always looking for better ways to impart knowledge and ability to his students. He put a lot of work into his classes and was not content to just call drills from behind the line. An 8 hour day with John was a FULL 8 hour day. Time was not meant to wasted, and John kept the pace up day after day after day.
When I was overseas, John was running firearms training for Triple Canopy. My friendship with John opened a lot of doors in that community and when they found I that I had extensively trained with John, they treated me like one of their own.
Last week was a very bad week for America and while most people will never hear about or know who John was, he did as much or more for our country as anyone else the news focuses on. He will be greatly missed.
