Once a Marine, always a Marine

On Friday, February 23, 2007, a

70-year-old man exemplified the motto of the

Marine Corp League, “Once a Marine, Always a

Marine. “When three thugs got on a tour bus

in the Costa Rican city of Limón armed with a gun

and knives must have thought all twelve

the old men on board were easy prey. They were

completely wrong. And I mean DEAD.

After witnessing how a 20-year-old terrorist

pistol to the head of a female passenger, Allen Clady, a

The Marine train made its move. The retiree

grabbed the bully and strangled the lot

younger thug so hard he broke his

clavicle and killed the man. This caused the

other seniors on the bus to get started

counterattacking and the other two assailants run

outside the bus.

So how could a 70 year old man assume,

and kill, a much younger armed opponent? Tea

The answer lies in your old school Marine Corp.

training.

The Marines recently introduced a new system for

hand-to-hand combat called Marine Corps

Martial Arts Program (MCMAP). This new ladybug

The system is supposedly for peacekeeping operations.

in urban areas and theoretically allows a

wide variety of situations in which a Marine needs

use non-lethal force.

Before the development of this new shit that

you will undoubtedly get more than one leather collar

sent home in a body bag, the Marines used more

lethal techniques originally developed by Major

Anthony Biddle.

His techniques standardized hand-to-hand combat

techniques for the Marines and were based on

boxing, wrestling and fencing. What’s more,

Captains WM Greene and Samuel B. Griffith

shared what they learned about martial arts from

William Fairbairn while stationed in China.

As a former Marine, Allen Clady learned the

The old (and real) corps style of melee combat that

emphasizes taking down a strong, fast opponent,

and permanently. Clady most likely

took the bully from behind with a “Japanese

strangle. “The ancestor of the sporty” rear.

naked choke “as seen today in MMA competition,

this simplistic and deadly old school choke

It was very popular with the martial trained military

artists and judo and jujutsu before WWII

practitioners.

In seconds of her arms closing around the bully

esophagus and throat, he would be a terrorist

began to choke on his own saliva and to fall

unconscious. This technique is even more

devastating if the person using the technique

is taller than your opponent, because you need

little effort to get someone off their feet,

thus making the throttling work much faster.

Another good reason to strangle the thug

butt like that was because punk was armed.

While the bully fired two shots at the

air before the gun jammed, by the time Clady had

his hands on the thug’s throat immediately had

control of the situation. When the bus driver

led to a local Red Cross clinic, the gun

brandishing maniac he was pronounced dead. Thanks to

Clady’s quick action, only the gunman was injured

and the group of tourists returned to their cruise ship.

and security.

When asked if someone would be charged on the bus

with a crime. Local Police Chief Luis Hernandez

He said: “They had the right to defend

themselves. “It is clear that the boss

understand that the police cannot be everywhere,

and that arresting a criminal is not a crime.

It takes an example like Allen Clady to remember

all of which with the proper training anyone can

to struggle. What happened on that tour bus was

clearly a life or death situation and Allen

Life of the clay thing. Those animals didn’t care who

they had to hurt to get what they wanted and Mr.

Clady attacked to prevent people from getting hurt.

This only goes to show you how quick and decisive

Action combined with a good solid workout can save

the day … regardless of age or physical condition.

While Allen Clady has not spoken publicly about

this incident at the time of this article I can

almost guarantee he wasn’t trying to be a

“hero”. He was simply protecting the people who

he needed help, and it’s a credit to both his

generation already the Marine Corp. Too many

people would have voluntarily become victims, but

He stood up and went into battle mode. He was not there

acting like a hero was acting like a man.