Close Quarters Combat Advice From General Patton
General George Patton once said…
“The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his.”
While this battlefield mantra has been a driving force for decades in our military mind-set of “never giving up” in combat, applied to the reality of a real street fight, these words ring just as true.
I’ve seen countless street fights where the person “losing” the battle just gives up…basically curling up into a ball and waiting for the kicks and punches to stop.
Sometimes they do…and sometimes they don’t.
So let me throw a different spin on General Patton’s quote…The object of surviving a real street fight is NOT to lay down and take your beating…but to NEVER give up on turning the tables on your attacker.
Even under the worst conditions, you must dig deep for your will to survive and assume that it’s life or death when you’re on the losing end.
If you lay down like an armadillo, you’re an easy, non-moving target for full force kicks, punches, and bar stools.
Whether your attacker(s) intend to kill you or not, the leg of a chair driven down on your head will do the work just the same.
From my perspective, self defense techniques are great tools for winning a fight…but developing a “never give up” mind-set is an even more important factor.
I couldn’t agree more Jeff. Developing a killer instinct and the ability to ‘pull the trigger’ (mentally) is critical to surviving a violent street encounter as there are no refs in the street that will stop the fight when someone taps out.
I could not agree more. I have never given up when it comes to survival, and God knows how many times I have been in such a situation. But I keep studying everything that I can in order to make myself a better street fighter. It is very dangerous out there, and you need all the information that you can get your hands on. Thank you for sharing your know how with us good guys.
I told him to leave the two old ladies alone. He jumped me and I went with him and drove his head into the table corner like Capt. Romulas in RED OCTOBER when he killed the russian security officer. The guy was a 40+ ex-con and he pushed my head partially through the wall and came at my face with a HAMMER. I could barely see it and knew I was dead but he would have to earn that.
Then I realized the hammer was coming down at me r-e-a-l s-l-o-w. I caught it in in my left palm and drove it into his eye socket once twice, thrice. The lady said,”your going to kill him” and he replied I’m trying to kill him, just as the Police Officer came in. Its been 2 years and he still cannot drive and I have 9 Motorcycles in my garage. I am a retired Master Chief w/7y in Viet Nam and I was 70 years old. NEVER GIVE UP, SUCK UP THE PAIN USE YOUR HEAD AND ALL SENSES. Teach me to fight. I have the spirit and am still strong and able!
Inspiring! Thanks and thanks again for taking the time to write this.
Wow Master Chief, good job. You take all my excuses away for “just” being 53. Thank you and Thank you for serving your country
Way to go Master Chief!
Very rarely do I like or agree with what people have to say on self defense, but I really like your stuff man. Keep up the great work and thanks for the tips
Followed six guys into an alleyway. They’d chased a guy from a bar across the street and into the alley. When I arrived, the guy was on the ground and the guys were kicking him. I jumped the two nearest guys, caught the one on my right on the ear with the flat of my hand as I cracked the knee-joint of one on the left. Two down. Keeping momentum, I jumped over the guy they’d been kicking and did a push-thrust with my hands on the chest of the guy across the way. His feet left the ground and he flew backwards. I spun on the guy on my left, and making a claw of my right hand, I laid open his left cheek. As he fell back, I turned to the other two who were just now reacting, took the blood on my fingers and made warpaint on my cheeks. Those guys took one look at me and ran.
The cops arrived soon after that, got the guns on me, until they realized what had happened. Score: Three guys ran away. The one with the laid-open cheek was arrested when he showed up at the hospital to get stitched up. The guy I’d bounced back into the alley had a broken sternum, cracked ribs, and needed surgery to repair a torn peritoneum and a collapsed lung. The guy with the knee injury needed reconstructive surgery and now hobbles around jail with a brace.
The guy I went there to save, unfortunately, died from his injuries. There but for the grace of God, friends…
As Winston Churchill said: “Never, never, never, never, never give up!”
Jeff:
Can you teach someone who is always ready to give the other buy a chance to develop an aggressive killer attitude. Please email me.
thanks
Joe
read Dave Grossman
“on killing”
C 1995.1996 2009
Then Massad Ayoub
Lethal Force
Make up your mind
No perp’s life is worth that of me or mine.
In reading all the comments, it just goes to show; that it’s the mindset, and preparation. Go in with the attitude, that the perps brought a knife; to a gunfight. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!
The only way to win a violent encounter is with violence. If someone is just trying to pick a fight then run away. If someone wants to kill you, then you can only leave the fight with three conclusions: Incapacitation, Unconsciousness or Death. That is it. When you feel like you or your family are in danger, first avoid, if you can, otherwise you have to do whatever it takes to survive. It sounds from the stories above that some of you know what it takes. In my circles there are a lot of young guys that think MMA or BJJ is going to save them. To Thomas and Christopher, how do you think MMA would of done for you guys? I would venture to guess that you would not be here today if you tried to defend yourself or others with typical martial arts. Instead you guys have a survival or killer instinct that allows you to survive and to save others. Coach David
Before going into the Navy, I had trained in a typical martial arts school with the belts and all that other crap. After going into the Navy, I was involved in something called “Special Projects” where I came into contact with a lot of very bad people from all of our services, and from around the world, who very quickly disabused me of the notion that I knew how to fight or defend myself. From them I learned skills that were incredibly effective, incredibly quick to employ, and didn’t rely on the “finer” muscle movement (meaning precision movements that are totally superfluous) that I’d had to acquire while taking martial arts; this was quick, dirty, aggressive, and made sure that the opposition did NOT get back up anytime soon, if at all. Anything and EVERYTHING becomes a weapon including light and shadow.
While in the Navy, I had occasion to “spar” against someone who had learned BJJ. He was able to get me on the ground, but froze when I grabbed his…um…well, up between his legs. I told him in a very calm voice to get the Hell off because that particular body part was removable. He got off and proceeded to tell me that what I had done wasn’t fair. I just looked at him and said, “Fair? I don’t fight fair, I fight to win.” If you learn in a school, you learn how to make fighting look pretty…fighting to defend yourself is not pretty, it’s not fun, it hurts, it’s messy, and damned dangerous.
Bottom line: if your or your family’s life is in danger, you fight any way you have to to survive…kick or slap to the groin, put a thumb in their eye, crush their instep or knee, punch them in the throat, use a stick as a spear on their diaphragm , if they come at you with a weapon, what have you to to lose…you take one or two with you, give your family a chance to get away and injure the others badly enough that they can’t hurt anyone else?…that’s what constitutes winning in my book.
my father served under G. Pattorn in W.W.II.
I love the quote.
I do agree, that the mindset is crucial in CQC – in my view it is far more importent than the actuel self-defense techniques them self. The criminels I have been figthing, through my job, had no skills but a hell of a lot of intent to harm others.
You ought to research the circumstances of the death of this great warrior.
NEVER GIVE UP, in any situation.
I love that quote. A westerner battlefield mindset. Live to fight another day, whereas easterners are real quick to kill themselves.
Patton was such a softy. If I’m not mistaken he is the idol of all the linguine spined sissy girly men who are so prevalent in America today. If General Patton were alive today, America would still be feared by our enemies. They now laugh at us. That is, until my brothers in the USMC land in their immediate vicinity.
Keep up the good work!!
I totally agree with you. The problem, as I see it, is that most Americans (and 99% of the politicians) all believe in a live-and-let-live attitude which is great, as long as the other guy has the same attitude…which they definitely don’t. Even now, 10 years after 9/11, the average American “believes” that if we would just stop mucking around in the affairs of everyone else then “they” (the ubiquitous “they) would like us and stop attacking us…this completely misses the fact that THEY ATTACKED US FIRST IN OUR HOUSE (among other attacks that we responded to only obliquely)!! I talked with some people while I was overseas (ain’t gonna tell you where) but they were completely surprised by how restrained our response was after 9/11…they thought we were going to go ballistic, and we waited, then started doing precision strikes. They just shook their heads and said that THAT wasn’t how to fight these people. Now, I’m not a proponent of “spray and pray” (opening up full-auto with a weapon and HOPING it hits something) but, in dealing with these “people” (see also animals), they only know hatred, violence and death…the only response to that kind of hatred and violence IS death…ours if we don’t respond, theirs if we respond AS WE SHOULD with even greater violence(but won’t…because we’re Americans…we’re the good guys).
I’m always fascinated by the American response to the Russians, because the Russians understand the application of applied violence. Americans were sickened by the Russian response to some of their diplomats being kidnapped back in the eighties in Lebanon. The Russians sent in teams to discover through any means necessary (see also torture…and I can bet it wasn’t water boarding!) who had their people. Then they captured some of the relatives of the kidnappers, started cutting off body parts and sending them to the captors with a note saying essentially to release our people or more pieces will follow. Their diplomats were released and NO more kidnappings were reported among the Russian delegation. Meanwhile, the American embassy was losing people left and right, to culminate in the loss of 243 Marines on April 18, 1983…with the American response being a few shells lobbed into the area, and the complete pullout of all Americans from Lebanon. Meanwhile, the Soviet mission stayed.
If you look at my first paragraph, I said most Americans “believe”…my father, who was a Marine, one time whopped me up-side the head when I said that I “believed” something was true. He said, “You believe? Or you think? You believe with this!” Here he pointed at my heart. “You THINK with THIS!” Which is when he whacked me. “People who stand for nothing “believe”, they’re smarmy, they’re indecisive, and weak…it’s down to the people who THINK to do the big things in this world.” I’ve never forgotten it and I’m passing it on to my own children.