The Army Combatives Tournament

Fort Benning is the home of the infantry. For the millions of soldiers who have passed through its front gate, the memories of the “armpit of the earth” are usually associated with pain and life-altering images. Sand Hill, The Darby Queen, McKenna Range, the thirty-four-foot towers, Victory Drive, and Camp Rogers are just a few.

On the morning of the first day of competition, at 0800 hours, the hundreds of competitors gathered bleary-eyed and caffeinated at the gym. Among them, “the favorite,” Staff Sergeant Tim Kennedy, looked as unkempt as Shaggy, if not Scooby-Do. He was one of the “longhairs” of the Army, as members of his Special Forces unit were afforded relaxed grooming standards.

Fort Benning’s main physical fitness center, named for the only Medal of Honor recipient during combat in Iraq, Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith, is the grandest gym in the entire U.S. Army. A boxing-style ring was set up by Larsen’s men in the center of the basketball courts and was flanked by four massive yellow-and-black grappling mats. There were enough bleacher seats for about 1,500 fans.

The field of athletes was vast. I’d seen a couple of large MMA gyms that were home to many fighters, but this was on a different scale. Over 200 soldiers from twenty-nine installations around the Army were in attendance. From Guam to Germany to Korea to all points stateside, the tournament was a prestigious event for those who enjoyed competition of a combative nature, which included just about every G.I.

Matt Larsen, The Godfather of the Army’s combatives program, explained the rules of round one, most of which went in two hundred ears and out two hundred more. Since the initial round was pure grappling based on scoring, the rules were critical, but not a single light heavyweight was listening—they were too busy sizing Kennedy up. He’d won this tournament the previous two years and they wanted what he had. Sensing many were gunning for him, his nerves started to show.

“I don’t like it,” he admitted. “I like being the underdog or the unknown like when I fought in the IFL. No one knew me there, but everyone knows me here.”

Kennedy had fought twice as a replacement on the Chicago Red Bears team and had won both times. As such, he had no chance of going incognito. Beating him could put someone’s name on a small list of who’s who in military combatives, so he had a huge target on his back as well as a few cameras on his face. ESPN had passed up the chance to cover the tournament, leaving it to the ever-faithful Military Channel and Army Times as well as one writer representing Real Fighter magazine… that would be me.

Kennedy wasn’t the best in the Army by luck. He’d trained with Chuck Liddell at John Hackleman’s “Pit” in San Luis Obispo before life caught up with him. He graduated from Columbia University in New York City and enlisted in the Army after 9/11, going straight into the 18 X-Ray Special Forces program. He was one of those guys who was bound to succeed at whatever he did as long as he could keep his head out of his ass. But like all young men, it would eventually find its way up there at some point.

“I joined up because I was a stupid party head with no direction in life after college,” Kennedy said. “I had two daughters born two weeks apart by two different women and didn’t know what I was doing with myself. I knew I wanted to be in Special Forces, but it took a while for the 18 X-Ray program to get going.”

Before 9/11, any soldier wanting to be in Special Forces had to complete an initial enlistment of about four years before he could even try out. Special Forces consisted of more mature soldiers with experience in the infantry or elsewhere, and kids straight off the street were seen as unfit for the types of missions they performed. But after 9/11, the Army couldn’t afford to keep shutting candidates out because of their age and finally established the 18 X-Ray program so guys like Kennedy could enter the service and go straight into Special Forces training.

Beside Kennedy was his training partner from Fort Bragg, who made it very clear where his loyalties were. Anyone not absorbed in sizing up Kennedy was bemused by the blue sweatshirt next to him that had NAVY SEAL emblazoned across it in bright yellow letters, which stood out like Ozzy Osbourne at an AA meeting. It shouted, “Fuck you. Come get me” in no uncertain terms, so I expected the guy wearing it to be cocky.

But of course he wasn’t. Like Petit, he was quiet, humble, and even shy. He was SO1 Dale Wooden, and he was the lone Navy representative in the tournament. The rules clearly stated, “Anyone assigned to an Army unit is eligible to compete,” which Woody, as everyone called him, used to his advantage. He was assigned to the Army’s Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as a medical instructor. He took second in last year’s middleweight division; a disappointment he wished to avenge.

Kennedy and Woody stood listening to the Godfather give his rules briefing while the Screaming Eagles huddled together in the bleachers looking confident, hungry, and nauseous all at the same time. In the center of the group sat Captain Lauren Shaw like a little sister to eleven brothers, all warily watching over her. A former softball player educated at West Point, she claimed she needed the competition of MMA as a stress reliever after graduating and coming onto active duty. But there was a catch—Larsen believed in equal rights and wasn’t about to change his rules for women just because they wanted to fight. Females could compete in the tournament, but they had to fight like men. The apprehension on Shaw’s face was almost matched by the curiosity on everyone else’s at her presence at an exclusively male event.

The rules brief was over. The months of anticipation were about to end. But the Godfather had one last word of warning.

“We have troops deploying in a few days,” he said, raising his voice to wake up anyone zoning off. “Hurting someone only screws your buddy over. Don’t make a stupid mistake and damage someone on purpose.” Only here would a plea not to hurt someone during a fight be heeded.

Petit and his Screaming Eagles got their chance to make a good start with Corporal Travis Weiner in bout thirty-three. With a couple of quick takedowns, Weiner was up 8-0, but he couldn’t capitalize once he got his opponent off his feet. Moments later he found himself mounted, making the score 8-6.

“His cardio is good. He’ll be okay,” Coach Renken said to reassure himself, since no one was within earshot but me. If the first bout was symbolic of the team’s overall chances, their bid to beat Fort Bragg was already slipping away. But then “Oscar Meyer” Weiner took control and secured an armbar with twenty-three seconds left in the match. The Screaming Eagles were off to a good start. But minutes later the momentum stalled on the team’s first head-to-head meeting with Fort Bragg.

Senior Airman Josh Landsburg was one of only a few Air Force contestants in the tournament. Like Woody he was allowed to compete because he was assigned to an Army unit at Fort Campbell. Landsburg was an ETAC (Enlisted Tactical Air Controller) whose main weapon on the battlefield was a radio. His unique ability in combat was to speak the language of Close Air Support (CAS) so troops in a fight had top cover from aircraft overhead. In his first match, Landsburg had top cover of his own in the form of Renken and Esfiha screaming instructions at him, even if he refused to listen.

“Secure the position, Josh!” they implored to no avail. Josh spent ten minutes dominating his opponent but failed to score a single point because he never stabilized a position. It’s one thing to get a reverse, but another to hold on to the position for more than a second in order to show the judges it wasn’t a fluke. Josh repeatedly got taken down and scored on, but always found a way out. But instead of gaining a dominant position and holding it long enough to score, he went for fight-ending submissions and ended up getting shut out 7-0. As time expired on Josh, a soldier from Fort Bragg raised his arm in triumph on the next mat after a convincing win. It was a double-whammy of bad omens for the Screaming Eagles.

But then the wins rolled in. For nine and a half minutes Lieutenant Colonel Petit, nearly the oldest competitor in the tournament, put on a grappling clinic before getting caught in an armbar. Ahead on points, the wily veteran spent an agonizing thirty seconds withstanding the pain as his coaches and team screamed at him to hold on until time expired. If motivation had a physical form, it was this performance from the old man. Not only were the points from the win significant, but the inspiration it provided his younger soldiers was indispensable.

“I felt my fingers getting tingly,” he said as he stumbled toward the team’s encampment area in the bleachers.

Then Weiner won again, followed by Private First Class Grover Gebhardt and Specialist Fourth Class Derek Lehman. Private Eric Geyer then submitted a soldier from Fort Hood with an armbar, giving the Eagles their fifth straight win and an air of hope that provided a little pep in their step and some pride in their stride. Geyer was a model of citizenry, even if it was for a slightly selfish reason. He enlisted in the National Guard outside of Fort Campbell specifically to be on the combatives team and come to this tournament. A competition is hardly a reason to devote three years of one’s life to enlist, especially since the frequency of National Guard deployments had increased so dramatically since 9/11. I suspected Geyer had an ulterior motive to join up, but he wasn’t letting on to what it was. Left to my own devices, I surmised that Geyer had a yearning to serve in something bigger than himself and felt a true loyalty to his country that demanded sacrifice. Unfortunately, that’s not a cool thing to admit among American youth, so he used the tournament as an excuse to join up.

On mat three, drama built to a fever pitch. Captain Lauren Shaw was ahead on points against her male opponent. Suddenly the small crowd, which had been quiet all morning, took interest. She was instantly the darling of the tournament and the crowd favorite. At least a hundred fans watched her every move, and twenty amateur coaches came out of the woodwork to shout instructions over Renken’s.

When the buzzer signaled her victory, the crowd erupted. Shaw was near tears and wobbly as she picked up a slip of paper from the judges making her win official. She stumbled away from a riot of congratulations and was ushered in front of a camera for the biggest interview of her life. Unlike professional fighters who rehearsed this moment a hundred times in front of a bathroom mirror, Shaw was unsure and stumbled on her words, still lightheaded from the ordeal.

The overkill of attention was strange. She had more people behind her than anyone else, including the favorite, Tim Kennedy. Maybe it was the Cinderella factor—the denied, unprepossessing one taking the prize. A glass slipper might fit a woman’s foot easier, but she was a soldier, like everyone else competing here. Did her gender make her that much more of a beloved underdog? Or did the crowd just want to see a guy get his ass beaten by a woman for the entertainment value?

I actually thought all the attention was counterproductive because it proved that she wasn’t really considered an equal to the men. Tomboys like Shaw had fought hard for fair treatment both inside and outside the military. The crowd’s disproportionate support for her was solely because she was different, which negated all the progress women had made in male-dominated environments. If she were truly seen as equal, golf claps and occasional looks from the bleachers would have been all the attention she got.

But the fans wanted to see her win, not because they adored Lauren Shaw as a person, but because she wasn’t viewed as on a level playing field with the men. It could have been any woman against any man and the crowd would have gotten behind the woman like David taking on Goliath. Americans love an underdog, and the outpouring of support for Shaw proved she was seen as just that—an inferior. I’m sure some of the fans wanted to see her succeed because she’d worked hard and deserved a shot at victory. But I suspect that most just cheered because they wanted to see “the little train that could” climb a seemingly impossible mountain.

The Godfather watched the drama around Shaw with interest from his vantage point in the center of the mats. His fights didn’t have to bring the crowd to the edge of their seats, but a little excitement always generated interest. Interest generated popularity. Popularity generated money, and money kept the program going. There was nothing wrong with a little drama, even in the usually staid Army with its distaste for anything trendy or flashy.