Training the Best

In an effort to relieve my boredom while waiting to start API and to better prepare me for busting up squid bars, I enrolled in a class to earn my green belt in our MCMAP program. That was a month ago. I finally earned my belt this week.

Sometime ago, Comandant of the Marine Corps General Jones decided that he wanted all Marines to be ninjas. Well not exactly, but he had to do something; our hand to hand combat training really needed some work. It was called LINE training: Linear Infighting NEural override. Yeah, ask your average marine to explain what the hell that means.

LINE training was incredibly complicated, hard to remember and not applicable unless you wanted to put your bootheel through your opponent's head or rip off his testicles. Wanna detain that unruly citizen? Sorry, can't help you, I'm gonna have to kill him; all or nothing.

So a bunch of marines got together with a bunch of experts from judo, karate, jujitsu; heck even the WWF got in on it. I'm not kidding about that either. They all got together and came up with a martial arts system designed to work progressively through a belt system like karate, building a base of knowledge which the marine could build on and truly become proficient. The most important part is that it is designed to actually work in conditions we will be facing; wearing 50lbs of gear, heavy boots, restrictive flack jackets, and likely tired as hell already.

Right now, every marine in boot camp or TBS earns their tan belt and through further training earn their gray, then green, brown, then black belts. As you go up in the belts you learn more moves which build on the previous belt skills and as a result you become more an more confident. Earning belts can become addictive; the more you learn, the more you want to learn.

I remember when I left bootcamp, I thought I was the baddest motherfucker in the room everywhere I went. I was sizing everyone up and inevitably deciding that I could take them. I'm glad I didn't actually take anyone on, I think I would have gotten my ass kicked. The difference now is that I really have skills which are useful in defending myself from attack, subduing a non compliant person, and if necessary, eliminating them as a problem. No more 20 year old bravado, I actually have skills which are applicable now.

So for an entire month we met at 0645 every morning to train. We ran in boots and utes, we ran with rifles, we ran without rifles, we ran on the road, we ran trails, you get the idea. We body hardened and we stretched. We trained for two hours a day, throwing each other to the ground, grappling, sparring, generally kicking one another's ass. In addition to all of this ass kicking, we did LZ drills. God I hate LZ drills.

An LZ drill can take place in any open grass field, but LZ stands for landing zone, I'm guessing to give the torture exercise a cool name. Your instructors set up several stations around this LZ and you complete them as a team. The exercises don't seem hard at first, but they build on one another and if you don't do the exercise to the instructor's liking you will repeat that exercise. Some samples; the buddy squat. Place your buddy of equal height and weight on your shoulders in a fireman carry, squat until your thighs are level with the ground, and stand. Repeat 15 times. "NO, the marine on the far right didn't get his thighs parallel to the ground, do them again!" Squad pushups; in a line, assume the pushup position, placing your feet on the shoulders of the marine behind you. Fifteen reps. The exercises are only limited by the instructor's imagination and degree of sadism. Every time before we start the drill, our instructor would tell us "Your goal is to finish this drill in X minutes, my goal is to make sure you don't."

By far the most hated and most painful of all the exercises is the buddy low crawl. In a low crawl, your body is flat against the ground, you propel yourself along the ground using your elbows and knees without your chest or hips ever breaking contact with the ground. Now take, in my case, a 180-190 lb person, place him on your back, and crawl for 20-30 yards. It is excruciating pain on top of the pain you have already endured and the pain yet to come.

When you are done with the LZ drill, you "build the house", which means assuming the pushup position with your back bent into the air, hip to hip with your team. The last man low crawls under all of you, assumes his place at the end of the line, and you repeat this until you have reached the middle of the field. Once you do this the pain is over. I have few times been so physically drained after only 45 minutes of exercise. Every muscle hurts, it is work just to breathe. But when it is over, there is a feeling of accomplishment, a feeling of pride that you have done something. It feels even better when the squids are doing their weak little morning PT session on the field next to you. I wish I could hear what they are saying and thinking sometimes. I imagine it is something like "Those marines are fucking crazy man, look at that shit. I'm glad I joined the Navy."

It is good to be a marine.