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Immediately prior to their recent deployment in Iraq, the Green Berets were awarded their BJJ black belts from Grandmaster Hener Seagull.
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President Obama announced that he’s going to deploy 275 troops to Iraq, including 100 Green Berets, but many sources are reporting that there will be no boots on the ground—even though hundreds of US advisors and soldiers will be in Iraq.
How can this be?
Paul Whitefield over at the LA Times hinted at the answer when he said that the US advisors may “look like” boots on the ground in Iraq. This is absolutely true, but it’s because the US advisors were only given a 6-week crash course in BJJ (Bootless Jiu-Jitsu). The Green Beretsm however, have been secretly training it in for years.
Referred to as “going no-shoe” in some circles, BJJ was developed in Brazil due to the frequent flooding that can occur there. Traditional Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners without rainproof boots still needed to armbar and choke each other, and so a new art form was born.
So when will the rubber meet the road? Never. But expect a whole lot of this stuff called the “rubber guard.”
Rubber Guard composite, by jdcollins13 (wikipedia)
In the final weeks of their training, to avoid any possible situation where their boots may “look like” they are touching the ground, the Green Berets learned Eddie Bravo’s system of jiu-jitsu. It’s a style of combat that allows a martial artist to remain on their back while they brutally destroy* the terrorist on top of them. With names like “Electric Chair Sweep” and “Guantanamo” it sure seems these moves have been perfectly tailored to achieve the seemingly impossible militaristic goal: Kick ass without actually putting your boots on the ground.
“Prior to deployment we all replaced our boots with some sweet new sandals from OluKai,” one Green Beret told me. “So even if we wanted to put our boots on the ground—which we don’t, okay?—we wouldn’t be able to.”
*Full Disclosure: author of this article once trained with Eddie Bravo and can attest to this style’s effectiveness at brutally destroying.
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–Photo: BJJ Match, dougsparks/Flickr
The post Green Berets in Iraq: “Our boots will not touch the ground. You just watch.” appeared first on The Good Men Project.