Close combat has become an integral part of Army training in the US

BEING forced to strangle a Taliban commander during hand-to-hand combat drove one of the country's most elite warriors to change the way our special forces train for modern warfare.

Australian Commando Paul Cale, who created a world-leading close-quarter fighting course, has been poached by the US military to train its Special Forces.

Australian Commando Paul Cale, an elite soldier from 2 Commando Regiment, created a world-leading close-quarter fighting course after he was caught in a "scuffle" during a night mission while on deployment to Afghanistan in 2007.

This is the first time he has been publicly identified.

"We made entry on some compounds where Taliban leadership was," he said.

"They basically hid where there were little holes in the wall and we had to clear that, then the next minute they were on top of us so it became a hand-to-hand battle.

"I ended up strangling a Taliban as he was screaming 'Allah Akbar'. He turned out to be the 2IC of the Taliban in that region."

The 44-year-old martial artist said he also broke an enemy fighter's shoulder and inflicted other injuries "that were just automatic" given the regiment's limited hand-to-hand combat training at that time.

"Out of that event I realised that what we're teaching is north compared to south ... so I reconstructed the entire CQF (close-quarter fighting) program," he said.

"The outcome is going to be exactly what you train for so if you train to submit someone, then a submission is what you're going to do but if you've got someone fighting for their life they don't care if you break their arm.

"Their arm just breaks and they keep fighting so you have to, in your mind, train for the end state that you want whether that's killing someone or just subduing and placky-cuffing (plastic handcuffs) them."

Sgt Cale said his martial arts training had saved his life on that below -20 degree night in the restive Chora region (Diggers regard the valley as the "badlands").

"At the end of that I hated martial arts," he said.

"I sat back and thought all civilian martial arts were bullshit.

"Then I realised ... the reason I survived was the martial arts."

When the black-belt holder returned to Sydney's Holsworthy Barracks he used his civilian martial arts training to develop the Australian Commando Integrated Combat package.

"The problem (during the 2007 incident) was that my equipment set-up was suited for close quarter shooting but it wasn't suited for being engaged hand-to-hand," he said.

"So I worked out how to set the gear up so you could still fight, hand to hand, with the kit on and still be effective shooting CQB (close-quarter battle).

"They're the changes I've made. But through the process I've had people help me with different aspects of it and key people supported me with developing things so it's not like I did it completely on my own."

When Sgt Cale returned from Afghanistan in 2010, after the fierce battle of Zabat Kalay where two of his mates were wounded, and nine valuable Taliban targets killed, the SF combat operator established the Integrated Combat Centre (ICC) at Holsworthy.

"I've got a secret of how I've designed the training," he said.

"I look at how we train dogs and basically what we want to achieve with developing aggression in an animal and rather than using language and cognition, I use very simplistic motivators.

"I'm doing with people what we're doing with animals because obviously combat needs to be something that's instinctive.

"Cognitive behaviour just goes out the door when people are in that gauge because they don't rise to the occasion; they just sink to their level of training."

He said that while Commandos were already super-competitive and "committed to excellence in everything they do", his combat-sports fighting was "another tool for training a warrior ethos".

"Now our training is completely influenced by our own close combat experience over many years and we use combat sports as a part of the whole, a training aid in developing the Commandos' depth of knowledge," he said.

"The classes conducted by the club allow Commandos to develop their skills free from tactical or team considerations.

"Combat sport training is stifled when you spend all your time telling people what they should or shouldn't do in a combat situation, 'a real fight', so we just spend club time training and improving in our combat sports."

Now, after 25 years in the Australian Army and having reached the pinnacle of his combat career, Sgt Cale will semi-relocate to Nevada in May to implement his sports combat program within the Green Berets with his business partner – former Western Australian police detective and Robert Drysdale black belt - Bleddyn 'Taff' Davies.

Sgt Cale has already been to Okinawa in Japan to train their Special Forces there.

"The Navy Seals say the program is world-leading and 18 months ahead of anything they'd seen," he said.

"The US Special Forces are already using it.

"It's a completely new concept."

It's a concept his US counterparts noticed when he was working out alongside them at the multinational military base in Tarin Kowt during the most recent two of his five deployments.

"We'd beg, borrow and steal exercise mats to do some sports combat training," he said.

"We were putting mats in the weights area, then we went into an area where people read books but they'd complain and we'd get kicked out so we went back into the gym.

"After that they basically said you can go back into the book area and train.

"Now they've built a whole ICC at Tarin Kowt and it's a cultural thing now to do (the training)."

Of the 39 Diggers killed since Australia entered the Afghanistan conflict, nine have been from his unit.

The father-of-two said his program also helped returned soldiers suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"It's very calming and we find a lot of guys are coming to classes just to unwind and release the pressure valve," he said.

"I'm broken, injured and a little bit older than most. For me it's all about technique and being calm and centred.

"Our psychologists are looking into the calming effect and apparently there's been a body of work done on this issue and US veterans."

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