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bear either cold or hunger; knew neither how to build example, the 2019 Army Modernization Strategy
a cabin or take a deer; or kill an enemy, spoke our lan- projects spending more than $6 billion just on the
guage imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for hunters, “Soldier Lethality” modernization priority over the
warriors, nor counsellors; they were totally good for no- next five years. However, I believe that our first
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thing. We are, however, not the less oblig’d by your kind and most important step in developing “Soldiers
offer; tho’ we decline accepting it; and, to show our gra- of unmatched lethality” is to begin by training the
teful sense of it, if the Gentlemen of Virginia will send us warrior mindset. Training Circular (TC) 3-25.150,
a dozen of their sons, we will take care of their education, Combatives, states that “the defining characteris-
instruct them in all we know, and make men of them.” 1 tic of a warrior is the willingness to close with the
The tribal leaders knew that training me- enemy.” The willingness to assault through the
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thods influence training outcomes. The life skills breach, go through the door, or push through a
that their warrior culture demanded could not be close ambush defines the warrior mindset. This
instilled through academics; the young braves mindset must be trained if we are serious about
had to experience challenges, endure hardship, producing Soldiers of unmatched lethality. Field
and overcome obstacles. The old chiefs knew Marshal Bernard Montgomery once said that “of
that warriors are not built in a classroom. Today, all the factors, which make for success in batt-
that reality is unchanged. As we pursue letha- le, the spirit of the warrior is the most decisive.”
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lity and readiness as a force, we must remember Lethality begins in the mind that internalizes
that these characteristics begin with an individual the warrior mindset; this mindset is empowered
who internalizes the Warrior Ethos and commits through a well-trained physical body and then
to developing a skill set and a mindset that is magnified with weapons. If we can develop a
combat ready. weapons chassis (Soldier) that is inherently le-
The Army Vision Statement lays out an im- thal, then any tool (weapon) that the Army provi-
pressive image of a force that is modernized, inte- des becomes a force multiplier. The best training
grated, and agile; however, the phrase that most tool that leaders have to develop these attributes
caught my attention was that this effort is “cen- in their formations is the Modern Army Combati-
tered on exceptional leaders and Soldiers of un- ves Program (MACP).
matched lethality.” Lethality is improved in two
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ways: better training or better tools. Too often we MACP Purpose
gravitate towards spending money on techno- The MACP is carefully constructed to ad-
logical tools rather improving our training. As an dress two critical training objectives: skill-set
training and mindset training. Skil-
l-set training is necessary because
we have a real need to learn realistic,
combat-proven techniques that work
on the modern battlefield. Our han-
d-to-hand skills must be grounded
in the reality of the battlefield — not
sport or classic martial arts require-
ments. This means our program must
be well rounded and address all ele-
ments of the fight (striking, grappling,
clinch fighting, weapons, etc.). Secon-
dly and perhaps more importantly,

Soldiers engage in a double ankle lock during the Fort Bragg Combatives Tournament our program must develop the mind-
on 29 August 2019. set of a warrior within our Soldiers.
Photo by SGT Brian Micheliche.