Karen Schrader

Claude

P23:4 Training & Instruction

Claude, Texas

Always alert and ever vigilant. P23:4 INSTRUCTION AND TRAINING, LLC·MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2019 Most of us like to believe that our homes are our safe spots. They are the haven to which we retreat at the end of a long day. Our home is our castle and it is there that most of us feel most safe and secure. That’s what I thought, too, until... It was a Thursday evening. My husband and I had gone to an early dinner with friends and so we got home later than normal. I was in condition white as we approached the house. I was full, happy, and didn’t think there was anything to be concerned about. That’s when I noticed the car parked by our mailbox. Condition yellow. My radar went off. Why is that car parked here? It doesn’t belong to any of our neighbors and no one is around. Alert, but not worried, we park our truck and as my husband heads to the barn to feed the horses, I go inside the house to let the dogs out. Condition orange. The door is open. Dogs run frantically around my feet trying to alert me to the fact that something is wrong. I continue on to the kitchen where I see the baby gate MOVED from the doorway to the living room and leaning against the wall IMMEDIATELY, I go to a heightened sense of condition orange. Running back outside, I tell my husband that someone has been in the house. While he goes inside to investigate, I begin trying to corral the dogs who are running crazily around in the yard and barking like fiends. Then I turn to see him exiting the house, pistol in one hand, cell phone in the other. I hear him say, “No, sheriff. You need to get here now. There is a strange woman asleep in my bed.” Condition red. As I wait for the sheriff to arrive (which, by the way, took 25 minutes), I see our intruder walking around in our home. Then she walks quietly out the back door, as if to leave. We have to do something. Fortunately, she responded to my very intense command to stop right there. There’s more to the story, but suffice it to say, it could have ended much differently. She could have been armed. Our daughter could have been home alone when she broke in. “She” could have been a big, burly “he” with foul intentions on his mind. So many variables. And the one thing I knew I had to do. I had to prevent myself from ever feeling so helpless again. I signed up for my CHL class the next morning (after bleaching the entire house). I became involved in beginning a chapter of The Well Armed Woman, and I found a new purpose for my life. To instruct women so that they are never a victim. #NOTMe

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