By Staff Sgt. Brad Staggs, Camp Atterbury-Muscatatuck Public Affairs
 |
| Sgt. 1st Class Thomas Kreitzer, instructor with the Patriot Academy demonstrates an arm bar on Wolf Operations Group's Sgt. 1st Class Shannon Isaacs during the testing phase of U.S. Army Combatives Level 2 training held at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in Butlerville, Ind., February 2. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Brad Staggs, Atterbury-Muscatatuck Public Affairs) |
MUSCATATUCK, Ind. – The Wolf Operations Group, a National Guard Bureau training unit stationed at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, spent two weeks in January training on combatives for Soldiers, cadre and students from the National Guard Patriot Academy, a high school located on MUTC.
The United States Army Combatives program has adapted to integrate the most current techniques. Level 1 is now the Basic Combatives Course. Basic Combatives now includes post, frame, hook, and employing secondary weapons (pistol or bayonet). Level 2 is now the Tactical Combatives Course. Level 3 is now the Basic Combatives Instructor Course. Level 4 is now the Tactical Combatives Instructor Course.
Capt. Elias Donker, with Wolf Operations had a promising career fighting in mixed martial arts octagon until he put it on hold to concentrate on his military career. He is responsible for the Level 2 Combatives training coming to Wolf Ops and invited personnel from the Patriot Academy to train alongside his Soldiers.
“Our job at Wolf Ops is to coordinate and conduct training for any element that comes to the facility,” Donker says. “This means that we need to be trained up in all aspects of training possibilities from military to civilian and weapons to hand-to-hand.”
Wolf Ops has to see training not just in single vignettes, but as a whole. One event must flow seamlessly into another and, at times, that means being experts in several different skill sets during a single exercise.
“We have to prepare students for the possibility that after they enter a building, no matter how good they are, they could end up in hand-to-hand combat,” Donker says. “Our guys are being certified on Level 2 today so that they can instruct at the beginner's level and know what they're talking about.”
The training was also seen as a way to bring young Soldiers from the Patriot Academy up to a level of training that will allow them to be the future trainers. Every Soldier in the Army is required to go through 40-hours of training, which awards a basic level 1 in combatives. While level 2 training introduces students to more advanced techniques as well as re-stressing the importance of the level 1 basics.
Using combatives during an exercise while everybody is „in the zone‟ is a new way of following the vignette through to its natural conclusion, according to Donker. “The training encompasses everything and we have to be prepared to run realistic scenarios while being safe,” he says.
For the students to receive their certification in level 2 combatives, Wolf Ops brought in John Renken, director of combatives at Ft. Campbell, Ky., to run the final testing phase. Renken is an avid proponent of combatives being a basic skill on which all others can be built around for the U.S. Army.
“The first thing is that it adds the Warrior Ethos,” Renken says. “I think it‟s foundational to everything else we do in the Army. Because we do combatives, we shoot better, we run farther, we run faster, we can lift more weight, and we can do our missions more effectively.”
Renken also sees how combatives helps in the big picture of total Army tasks as well as in a person‟s outlook on the world.
Sgt. Crystal Hempstead, assistant platoon Sergeant for the 3rd Platoon at the National Guard Patriot Academy, passed her testing phase of Level 2 combatives with flying colors, even while training with men much bigger than 120 pounds, proving that size really can be overcome by using combatives.
“This is practical training, realistic training, and good combat training,” Hempstead said. “There was a lot of weight difference between myself and a lot of my classmates, but that makes the training even more realistic.”
Hempstead is preparing to depart for Army Drill Instructor School very soon. The Level 2 training she received at Muscatatuck will, according to her, give her a „leg up‟ over the others.