Do you think that the Special Forces can't handle themselves without a weapon? You better think again ... real fast.
In the back of a helicopter flying at 9,000 feet over a dark, remote area of Afghanistan is probably the last place you would expect to see hand-to-hand combat. But that's exactly what happened one night in early 2002, and everyone lived to tell about it because of the actions of one well-trained soldier.
During an early phase of the war in Afghanistan, while the wreckage of the World Trade Center in New York was still smoldering, a Special Forces team placed 15 Taliban prisoners in the back of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter for transportation to American-controlled territory. The Chinook is a large dual-rotor, heavy-lift helicopter, the kind often seen on the news carrying U.S. troops. For this short trip, the prisoners' hands were bound in front of them and at the time it was determined that only one guard would be needed to watch over them.
But a few minutes into the nighttime flight, with the prisoners seemingly docile and with thousands of feet of elevation making escape unlikely, the guard, who was watching the prisoners through night-vision goggles-which offer a very restricted peripheral field of view-inadvertently turned his back on one of the prisoners seated near him.
In the moment it took for the guard to lose sight of him, the prisoner grabbed him with his legs in a triangle-like choke and began to squeeze. The combination of the helicopter's deafening noise and the guard's constricted movement made it impossible for him to signal for help. But an alert door gunner turned and saw the commotion through his own night-vision goggles and moved to help.
Fall of Death
The gunner, who had been trained in basic hand-to-hand fighting skills as part of the Modern Army Combatives Program, was tethered to the aircraft with a harness designed to catch him if he fell out, but he applied the rear naked choke from his position behind the prisoner, pulling the attacker and his victim back from the open ramp and the certain death of a fall.
As he was choking the prisoner, the gunner backed into a second Taliban who dug his teeth into the gunner's backside in an attempt to assist his compatriot. Enduring the pain from the second prisoner's tooth-hold, the door gunner continued to apply pressure on the choke until the first prisoner released the guard. He then struck him in the face with downward elbows, driving him to the floor of the helicopter, where the guard was able to control him long enough to more securely bind him.
No shot was ever fired, and there was no fiery crash, because of the actions of that aviation crewmember, who reacted with his wits, using fundamental maneuvers he learned at the Army's Combatives School.
A Way of Life
These stories may never make the news back in the United States, but as many soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq can attest, hand-to-hand combat is a fact of life in this war and scenes like the one in the Chinook repeat themselves every day.
For U.S. troops, the modern battlefield is rife with technological advantages, up-armored vehicles (HUMMVs with added armor), high-speed personal protection gear and all sorts of lethal weapons. But hand-to-hand fighting, in which a soldier must be close with the enemy, is still one of the most fundamental aspects of warfare and has become a regular occurrence in Iraq and Afghanistan, even in the most unexpected places.
The Army Combatives School is taking an aggressive approach toward preparing our soldiers, pushing them to their limits of pain and endurance, and instilling the warrior spirit needed to overcome the fear of closing with the enemy.
This is the first of many columns in which we will share some of these life-and-death stories and the lessons we have learned from them.
The Authors
Matt Larsen is the commandant of the U.S. Army Combatives School at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and director of hand-to-hand combat training for the entire Army. He is also the author of "FM 3-25.150 Combatives" and can be reached at
or visit www.moderncombatives.org.
John Simons III (Modern Army Combatives Level-4 certified instructor) is the founder/writer of "Youth Spotlight" and the "Modern Army Combatives" departments. He can be contacted at
or visit www.odysseymartialarts.com.
As a former Marine, Gulf War vet and current soldier in the CA Army Nat'l Guard I can attest for the validity of the article. As a Marine, during bootcamp we went thru a whole week of hand-to-hand combat(called L.I.N.E. training), but it was more Karate/Kempo style and somewhat stiff. I used to train in Hapkido as a teen and I have always loved the Martial Arts(I'm 35 years old now) so imagine my surprise when I learned that the Army was teaching a new method of Combatives, but it is mostly for active duty or SPECOPS personnel . However I have a SGT, SFC Kevin Canant, who started teaching hand-to-hand combat during our unit monthly drills and that's when I got introduce to BJJ and I fell in love with the style(I also like to train in Muay Thai) and one weekend he got Charles Gracie to come to our unit for a couple of hours and teach. SFC Canant is a great leader and friend and a great supporter of BJJ. I'm glad the Army went with a more unconventional style of Martial Art to base combatives, because today's battlefield is unconventional.
Posted by Nelson Rodriguez, on September 3, 2006 at 2:14
I have trained and still do in the Army Combatives program. IT is awesome. If you want a website to go to for the full curiculum, send me an e-mail. Otherwise buy the H2H combat book. The system is awesome. Incase you didn't know it is the entire gracie jiu-jitsu blue belt program with some muy thai thrown in. Plus some weapons stuff. Freakin aweseme. Arguably the best system out their. And yeah, the US Army uses it. Ought to tell you something.
Posted by Jay, on January 19, 2007 at 20:44
i want so info about fighting
Posted by Justin Paxton, on May 25, 2007 at 21:50
It is nice to see that the US Army has caught up with the rest of the MMA World and updated the H2H Combat.
I was a H2H Combat Basic Traning Instructor as well as a 3 rd. Degree Black Belt in Military Combat Sambo granted to me from the USMC Top Instructor at the time Cardo Urso. I have competed for the USMC at the 1999 Combat Sport Spectaculer, US National & PAN-AM Sambo Championships at MCB Quantico. Also I did represent the USMC at the Martial Arts Festival at Disney's Wide World Of Sports in 2000. There were no ARMY Comrades of mine there except the USMC.
The USMC had the jump on the cutting edge of Martial Arts and change the way they were doing things in the Mid-to late 1990's. Even though I have 26 years in the US Army and was a 1SG.( I am now in retiree reserves) The Marine Corps Wrestling Great Greg Gibson welcome me to the USMC Team at those Championships. I have Compted all over the World at many Sambo Championships and have never seen a US Army Soldier represented at any Championships. England, France Bulgaria, and here in the US. except me. I also Train with Team Irish and UFC Marcus 'The Irish Hand Grenade' Davis and I have been doing the NAGA .
At the last NAGA Championships ( North American ) I did see a team from USMA and it was nice to that somebody was doing something. ( I have taught COMBAT BASIC Training at West Point 2003-2005.
At 53 years old I am still competing and I know that the US Army has Great Wrestling and Boxing TEAMS but all of these years where was the US ARY Combative Team and what are there backgrounds? They are not winning UFC or Pride Championships? You are only good as your Competion and where was it at? Again better late than never that the US Army has decided to update there program 'FM 3-25.150 Combatives. I still have the old one from 1971. The First US Army Martial Arts Fighter on the Box of Wheaties... 1SG.James Chico Hernandez.
