(Truth or Bullshit, you decide and I am sure you can tell since you know the man from only his written word, on a blog and on a wiki site, right?)
Bout a man named Jed, no wait, that is another story. This story may be true and it may not, you decide. I admit I like fiction but often fiction is based on fact and truth, right? No, aw crap … bwahahahaahhhaaaa
Long ago in a far off state a very young man started to run with a questionable crowd of druggies, dealers and all round thugs. He was befriended by one, a ex-con not long out of the Raiford State Prison.
Wayne Horton was his name and his game included bulking up the young man and teaching him how to be tough.
The pair created their own jail house weights with a boom handle, two large coffee cans and some cement.
Next came the toughening/tough part. Wayne boxed in prison and on the prison boxing team.
Their came blood, bruises, abrasions along with damaged hands and being knocked down, out and getting stomped - lessons, after a time learned.
Sweeping swiftly through the next few years: Wayne got pissed and came at the young man with a knife - you fill in what happened; Wayne got caught later and went away; a brother decided the incident on TV about a monk in Vietnam Nam was cool so he doused himself in as and lit a match; the young man's older brother went on a rampage and went to one of the lesser state prisons; and the young man learned that getting away would be better so - at the last several years of the police action joined the military and left for boot.
Boot was exactly what the young man was looking for, another tribe to be a member and he became a solid brother in arms. His lot was not to go to combat much to his disappointment but he found other ways - He drank a lot; had some run-ins with other military fold who tried to toss him out a second story window while in a deep drunken sleep; his from him when he came to apply some revenge the next day after reveille, he walked in holding a large full trash can with evil in his eye and anger in his voice ready to take on the crew who attacked him with an aggressive intent; later he me a Hawaiian whose uncle happened to be a luminary in the martial arts world and who himself was also a combat vet and expert in the Hawaiian version of Okinawan karate, he liked to sneak up on the young man and surprise him with bows from behind - guess if that worked out; the young man reached E-5 and while touring the barracks was ambushed by another less than honest and noble man using a baseball bat - that came out well; the young man volunteered and went to Chicago to end up recruiting in the rough and dangerous hood-Cabrini Greens; as a corporal, E-4, tasked with taking a team out to the field for training found at the training point, out in the boonies, the team had other ideas, they immediately jumped him but found their target wasn’t such easy prey - he survived and they were totally taken aback when returning from the field they didn’t find themselves up on charges for attacking and assaulting a senior; another time when coming to the end of a twenty-four hour tour of duty he was resting his eyes, with one boot on the floor, when something caused him to open his eyes, another military person standing over him with a steel student driven sign poised in a spear like fashion aimed at his head - guess what happened; later, on duty as a recruiter, he and a perspective recruit walking the streets of a bad neighborhood in Chicago felt funny so turned to see a group of thugs following so he turned, faced them, pulled his combat knife and they took off - avoidance first thought of as a good tactic but would not become a part of his teachings in karate self-defense until much later;
Splitting this part up for easier readability.
Wait a minute, lets turn back the time warp a bit! There was a time when the young man took up boxing at the local boxing gym, this before his association with Wayne Horton who taught him how to actually box, not be a punching bag for the local boxing team; oh, and there was that drug deal gone bad where a very large, muscular, strong and did I say very large guy kicked a door as the young man was entering slamming it and him into the door jam, then chasing him down and finally facing off with him ready to pummel him badly - wanna guess how that turned out?
Ok, back to the last point of this story before a need to time warp, a time warp happens because memories tend to be a bit squishy as to time and such other brain things.
The young man, as a military recruiter, waling in the halls of projects seeking out perspective enlistees walked with other recruiters who carried personal firearms for protection. Maybe the young man was stupid because he didn’t fear the place or maybe he was just LUCKy. Regardless, he encountered gangs and such but managed to survive and actually get the job done - mostly; later when serving overseas his responsibilities included a tour as a “Village Bouncer for his military brothers.” It was actually called Ville-Patrols where an NCO, me, and two NON-NCO’s would patrol the streets of the local village outside the main gate of the base much like a bouncer controlling the environment in a bar but for the entire village so as to manage the military personnel when drunk and rowdy to break up fights and restrain his brothers so he could escort them to the base before the local authorities took change and that involved a beating with nightsticks and being dragged to the gate for medical help and to get the idiots off their streets; one particular night a couple of drunks getting rowdy and displaying threatening postures started to wind up toward a fight so we moved in, restrained and took down the two, applied some supposed pressure points, where he learned such things don’t always work when the subject is under the influence, to control and take to the base but again he felt something was up so turned around to see the local police standing there tapping his night stick in his palm so the young man turned, bowed respectively and stood aside but the police instead bowed back and indicated we could proceed, lucky drunks they avoided a bad beating;
Splitting this part up for easier readability.
Ville-patrol was a part of the weekly duties, three nights a week, for the entire years tour and the young man ran into other situations that allowed him to vet his skills especially those as he learned more about karate;
Wait a minute, lets turn back the time warp a bit! The time back at his first duty station the young man also met a Hawaiian of a Samoan heritage who wanted someone to train with, to fight. So, the young man being full of piss and vinegar said, sure. This went on for a time but it was mostly a Samoan karate-ka with street experience, smarts and moxy who pounded the young man a lot but still teaching him a lot about fighting, not self-defense as I know it today but fighting-dirty fighting with some karate mixed in … stuff you know.
Ok time warp back; “Question, shall the story continue?” One night while the young man was sleeping it off others decided it was time to get even, so they tried to take the young man out with a large 2x4, across the forehead but alas the young man had a hard head and a bit of luck for he woke, jumped up and reached for the assailant whose eyes went wide, he turned and he ran like the wind while being chased by a very angry young man; not too many nights later the same tried again but thought it might be easier to set him on fire in his bunk so luck was still with him, a young man by the name of Balthazar woke the young man when pounding on his lower back under the cover of the blanket, he woke, turned over but noticed that instead of being assaulted Balthazar was pounding out the flames, flames on the young man. As luck would have it the fire had not yet spread or penetrated the blanket and sheet on the bunk - phew, still alive dammit they said; the young man encountered another significant person who became his Sensei, who served in Korea as well as Viet Nam, who tested his skills in those two combat zones as well as on the streets of villages in country as a fighter; who tested out his skills in martial disciplines like karate and judo on the streets in places like Washington D.C. where once he actually admitted being jailed because of drunkenness and rowdiness that led to fighting and actually fighting with a group of police; he brought that intensity and way of fighting to the sparring floor of our dojo at the base on Okinawa where every session, five nights a week, we spent the last hour fighting while working out certain principles and certain techniques and combo’s along with his fighting strategies and tactics where we bleed, hurt, broke fingers and toes, were abraded, scraped, bruised and sometimes muscles were damaged, strained and became temporarily disabling in the fight; he brought the street he trained in - into the dojo; he kept that up with the young man after the island tour over the next fifteen years in the dojo’s of the young man at other duty stations and in civilian life as a civil servant at the place he worked teaching karate for special services today referred to in the military as MWR or Moral Welfare and Recreation; the young man began to study the ancient classics and the arts of war along with the ever popular go-rin-no-sho;
Note: In the era or 1965 to 1970 there came a change in the military and about the perception of the military often thought because of Viet Nam but in truth it was about the political atmosphere at that time. It bled over into the worst era for the military and especially for the Marine because moral hit the dumper, the brotherhood atmosphere all but disappeared, race self-segregation ran rampant especially during the period of 1972 to 1975 and a bit into 1976. This lead to a loss of discipline that was the hallmark of the Marine attitude, the can-do anytime and any where attitude that permeates the Marines history. In the barracks fights happened, drugs abounded and the discord driven by individualism without the camaraderie of the brotherhood drove the atmosphere and environment into one more attuned to conflict and violence except on those occasions certain individuals stood duty in those very barracks. At those times the more predatory aggressive types took their anger and angst out to the local towns to party and get into trouble. Two particular NCO’s, one a Hawaiian and the other his student, the young man. The young man saw things well and attacked himself to those combat vets who had already served during that period of 65 - 70 and now in the seventies. Clashes happened where both had to subdue and restrain other Marines in order to enforce things like standing at attention and saluting for morning colors or evening taps. Marines not saluting the colors, what a state of Marine moral and duty and honor during such a trying and troubling time. This was the era of Colonel Boyd who rocked the boat, challenged the status quo and achieved great things that led to lives saved not just at the end of Viet Nam but into other battles to come later that century like Iraq. These were the tumultuous times of military service for the young man and many of his hero’s of the Viet Nam war. If only he could have served in that area during those early years to help close out the Viet Nam effort. Sadly it was not to be …
Moral of the story or lessons learned:
- Assholes attract trouble just because, so being an asshole exposes you to conflict and sometimes violence.
- Learning to not be an asshole works toward self-defense.
- As you progress through life and if you find yourself moving further away from conflict and violence maybe your learning and doing something right.
- Experiences come in all sizes, shapes and durations but it is still experience. A lot more than most but not as much as some, but experience all the same.
- You don’t have to actually fight to gain experience in both conflict and violence for they both take many more forms than merely fighting.
- Be proud of the progression from conflict and violence in life to a state of avoidance, deescalation and escape and evasion tactics, a lot less dangerous and damaging (damaging legally, physically, mentally and economically).
- Note that if you find your aggression and experiences less dangerous that maybe you have learned something and have become more of a socially acceptable person.
- You learned that your early experiences no matter the quantity do have quality in that your actions and state of being and mind have grown so that a need to fight physically but with your mind means you have grown and learned and prospered from those early years.
- Survival means learning, understanding and changing your ways.
- Your goals and idea’s all change constantly to the betterment of the way you live and interact with others.
- You find that your brain and mind actually feel and change due to your experiences no matter the level of conflict and/or violence involved.
- You need to learn, you need to learn to understand, you need to change and that means constantly in order to grow.
- That success and winning include avoidance, deescalation and escape and evasion over fighting (remember because it took me till the last ten years to understand and know fighting is illegal).
- As you grow and age you realize that there are better ways in conflict resolutions and avoidance of physical violence and even verbal/psychological violence.
- Expanding your horizons to take in things that are uncomfortable, outside the comfort zone, and not of your belief system, etc., means you have a chance to be enlightened. Not the perceived enlightenment often depicted in the ancient Chinese sage sitting outside a cave upon “The” mountain meditation and spewing out wise platitudes and meme’s to the seekers of the mountains wisdom but an inner honorable, humble and wisdom like attitude turned in so that when facing outward presents the best of human kind as humanly possible, at least in some small part in some small seemingly insignificant way.
- To lean that all self-defense begins with yourself, internally, defending against our monkey brains insistent barrage of stupid shit and asshole actions that are the very core to much of conflict and violence especially in our modern times.
- Realizing that sometimes winning a fight has nothing to do with actual fist fighting or street fighting and learning how to win while making friends with the enemy (still trying to learn and apply this one but then again all of these are an ongoing process)
- Learning that all of this is actually an ever changing ongoing process of discipline and intestinal fortitude where glory comes to those who find another way to reach a goal of survival in conflicts and violence.
- To realize that even when the empathy gene is turned off you can fake it enough to connect and live a better way and that means a better way to handle conflict and violence - a part of our very nature as humans.
- Learning about brotherhood of men before it is too late and learning how to be one.
- Knowing that what you did and what you became regardless is still significant and leads to growth.
List in progress, come back for updates and there is more to the story so stay tuned …
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