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Document created: 1 June 2007
Air & Space Power Journal
- Summer 2007
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2d Lt Nickolas Stewart, USAF
Because deployments to forward-operating locations put Airmen in harm’s way, they must remain keenly attentive and ready for possible attack at all times. Not long ago, warfare consisted mostly of movements by uniformed armies fighting with tanks and aircraft. Today in Iraq, however, suicide bombers and jihad-motivated terrorists pose the primary threat. Unfortunately, Airmen are not as ready as they should be for dangerous, close-proximity encounters with the enemy.
This is not an issue of legal restraint or poor equipment but of inadequate military preparation. The Air Force trains its personnel well in the Law of Armed Conflict, equips them properly, and assures their proficiency with firearms, but—unlike most members of our sister services—few deployed Airmen receive extensive training in hand-to-hand combat. Such expertise might represent the difference between life and death for unarmed Airmen or those who have exhausted their ammunition.
Comments by 2d Lt Raymond Fernandez of Los Angeles AFB, California, who deployed many times to Afghanistan and Qatar as an enlisted man, typify the current situation: “If we had ever been overrun or even attacked individually, I don’t think anyone would have known what to do. I certainly wasn’t trained to fight individually.”1 Even aircrew members, some of the service’s most highly trained personnel, don’t receive much instruction in personal defense following an aircraft ejection, a skill they need if they have to fight an enemy in hand-to-hand combat.
Given these circumstances, either the Air Force can continue to deploy poorly prepared Airmen into harm’s way or it can better prepare them for the war on terrorism by providing them combat training—for example, by using “Iron Tiger immersion” to instruct all Air Force specialties in self-defense and personnel-defense training.2 This program’s defense courses would adopt the most applicable aspects of Chinese and Brazilian jujitsu, kenpo, aikido, pakua, and the hsing-i martial arts. Specifically, all of the Air Force’s enlisted basic trainees; Reserve Officer Training Corps, US Air Force Academy, and Officer Training School cadets; and officer trainees should know weapons disarmament, arms recovery, rapid-withdrawal techniques, controlled-aggression practice, takedowns, and self-defense/personnel defense. These skills, in conjunction with good negotiation techniques, could save the lives of American Airmen.
Initial training would prove sufficient to significantly improve the chances of survival in a hostile environment. It would follow Airmen through their careers, continuing at all levels of enlisted and officer professional military education (PME). From the Air and Space Basic Course to Air War College, and from the First Term Airman’s Course to the Senior Noncommissioned Officer Academy, all Airmen would continually enhance their self-defense readiness. Whether such training also occurs at equivalent sister-service/joint, intermediate, and senior developmental-education schools would remain the decision of those services and the Department of Defense.
Defense training is the natural counterpart to the Air Force’s Fit to Fight program, designed to assure the fitness of Airmen, both physically and mentally, for forward combat operations. Much like pilates or yoga, mixed martial arts (MMA) lengthens and leans muscles, strengthens the heart and vital organs, and increases blood flow as well as the ability to manage stress. A dynamic program, MMA prescribes drills ranging from three-mile, slow-conditioning runs followed by calisthenics, to takedown demonstrations and sparring matches. Airmen would see and feel the initial benefits, but the real return on this investment would occur during deployment. Including Iron Tiger in basic training and PME would promote professional competency, self-discipline, and maturity throughout the ranks.
In many respects, American Airmen are the best trained in the world. After all, “developing Airmen” is our first core competency. Yet, in other ways, we may be the weak link in the chain, compared to our colleagues in the other services. The Marine Corps developed a martial arts program in 2000 to train marines and attached personnel in unarmed combat, using edged weapons and weapons of opportunity. In several different programs, Army soldiers train in close-quarters fighting and hand-to-hand combat known as H2H or HTH, and the Army’s field manuals for 2002–6 strongly emphasize Brazilian jujitsu. According to Army Field Manual (FM) 3-25.150 (FM 21-150), Combatives,
Hand-to-hand combat is an engagement between two or more persons in an empty-handed struggle or with hand-held weapons such as knives, sticks, or projectile weapons that cannot be fired. Proficiency in hand-to-hand combat is one of the fundamental building blocks for training the modern soldier. . . . In most combat situations, small arms and grenades are the weapons of choice. However, in some scenarios, soldiers must engage the enemy in confined areas. . . . In these instances, or when your primary weapon fails, the bayonet or knife may be the ideal weapon to dispatch the enemy. Soldiers must transition immediately and instinctively into the appropriate techniques based on the situation and the weapons at hand.3
The Army and Marine programs may not create a Total Force of experts in hand-to-hand combat, but producing a fighting spirit will yield tremendous benefits. Their programs bind that spirit with character and camaraderie—the warrior mind-set. Because Air Force Airmen often find themselves in the same environment and face the same enemy as sister-service troops, they need similar training in self-defense to bolster their combat abilities, confidence, and fighting spirit. Indeed, this proposal seems to complement the Air Force chief of staff’s recent move to provide 19 hours of training in expeditionary combat skills for all Airmen deployed to a war zone.4
Despite the Air Force’s technological sophistication, combat remains very much a human endeavor. The service must train Airmen to fight the current threat of global terrorism, regardless of the cost in time and money, because it cannot allow its deployed personnel around the world to become targets of opportunity for terrorists. Hopefully, if the Air Force implements the Iron Tiger training proposed in this article, potential enemies will say, “Don’t mess with USAF Airmen—they are ready to fight.”
1. 2d Lt Raymond Fernandez, financial analyst, MILSATCOM Systems Wing, Los Angeles AFB, CA, interview by the author, 10 October 2005.
2. The author submitted Iron Tiger immersion for consideration under the Air Force’s Innovative Development through Employee Awareness (IDEA) program.
3. Army Field Manual (FM) 3-25.150 (FM 21-150), Combatives, 18 January 2002, 1-1, 7-1, https://134.11.61.26/CD5/Publications/DA/FM/FM%203-25.150%2020020118 .pdf (accessed 18 October 2006).
4. Adam J. Hebert, “Preparing for a New Way of War,” Air Force Magazine 89, no. 7 (July 2006): 41, http://www .afa.org/magazine/July2006/0706war.pdf (accessed 18 October 2006).
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University
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