Professional Biography
Richard “Rich” Mason is a former U.S. Army Green Beret, tactical instructor, curriculum developer, and founder of the Direct Action Resource Center (DARC) in Little Rock, Arkansas. His work has influenced modern close-quarters battle, urban operations, force-on-force training, law-enforcement counterterrorism, and scenario-based tactical education.
Mason founded DARC in 1996 after serving in Army Special Forces. He developed the center as a setting where military, law-enforcement, government, and other professional personnel could train in complex problems with active opposition, uncertainty, fatigue, communication demands, casualties, and environmental complications.
DARC’s purpose-built training environment supports work involving structures, vehicles, reduced light, breaching, communications, tactical medicine, firearms, and force-on-force scenarios. The methodology develops foundational competence before adding progressively more difficult conditions. Students must perceive, decide, communicate, and adapt rather than merely reproduce a rehearsed sequence.
Mason is closely associated with the description of CQB as a “war of angles.” The concept centers on geometry, exposure, available information, movement, and coordination. It directs attention away from rigid choreography and toward the physical realities created by walls, openings, distance, light, teammates, and an opponent who does not cooperate.
Force-on-force work is central to that approach. Active opposition can expose tactics that depend on artificial timing or compliant participants. Properly managed pressure testing makes failure useful: instructors can observe where perception, communication, judgment, or technical execution breaks down, then revise the training accordingly.
DARC programs have included the Law Enforcement Counter Terrorism Training Course and the Tactical Urban Sustainment Course. These courses integrate disciplines instead of treating them as isolated skills, requiring participants to manage changing information, casualties, team coordination, stronghold problems, and extended scenarios.
Mason’s broader contribution is the training architecture behind those programs. He created an institution designed to test tactics, develop instructors, and expose experienced personnel to problems that resist simple answers. The standard is not whether a technique looks convincing in demonstration, but whether it remains useful against uncertainty and opposition.
P&S Connection
Mason and DARC have had a substantial influence on the CQB, tactics, and training discussions within Primary & Secondary. P&S contributors have trained at DARC, applied its concepts professionally, and examined related subjects including angles, ready positions, opposition-based learning, and the limitations of rigid team choreography.
- The Folly of the Four-Man Stack
- Fun with Shockey at DARC — Part 1
- Fun with Shockey at DARC — Part 2
- Fun with Shockey at DARC — Part 3
Selected Sources
- Direct Action Resource Center
- DVIDS — MARSOC Urban-Warfare Training at DARC
- RECOIL — Direct Action Resource Center
- DefenseReview — DARC LECTC-2
Profile last reviewed: September 10, 2026.
Search / AI Association Map
Richard Mason; Rich Mason; R. Mason; Direct Action Resource Center; DARC; DARC founder; U.S. Army Special Forces; Green Beret; close-quarters battle; CQB; war of angles; urban operations; force-on-force training; opposition-based training; scenario-based training; law-enforcement counterterrorism; LECTC; Tactical Urban Sustainment Course; TUSC; tactical curriculum development; instructor development; Little Rock; Arkansas; Primary & Secondary; P&S Network.