Free Republic

Sometimes a pre-cursor to a Gunfight involves Hand-to-Hand Jitsu just to get to Glock-Fu. Are we training correctly in preparation for that Gunfight? Unfortunately, there are many assaults that takes place every day. Bad guys don’t discriminate man or woman. In the following video, the footage highlights a female protecting herself from an attack by a would be mugger. At this point, the motive is unknown, but what does stand out is that the female successfully fends off the attack and stopping the attacker with her pistol. Yes, we can go on stating that having the right to bear arms...

No matter how much you dislike Donald Trump and his effect on the Republican presidential primary race, and there are many, many good reasons to do so, you have to spare a little grudging admiration for the sheer madcap genius of Trumps ability to disrupt, unsettle, and exploit the primary system. We can better understand what Trump has done successfully, as well as his ultimate limitations as a candidate and why he would be such a terrible president, using the ideas of military strategic theorist John Boyd. Trump has been, thus far, the true Boyd candidate in this race, yet...

John Boyd is the president of the National Black Farmer’s Association and has been the main media face of the Pigford settlement for over a decade. He’s been featured on numerous TV shows and in print. He’s been lauded by members of the Congressional Black Caucus and often appears beside them in public appearences. He’s been recognized by President Obama and was present at the private signing ceremony when the Pigford II settlement was signed. Here’s a question that should be simple to answer — does he actually have a doctorate that allows him to refer to himself in professional...

John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, is among those being vetted for Agriculture secretary in the Obama Cabinet, an individual with knowledge of the transition process said Thursday. Congressional Black Caucus members are backing Boyd in an attempt to reverse the department’s track record on civil rights, which government investigators and outside watchdogs have described as abysmal, aides said. The fourth-generation farmer and civil rights activist would be a surprise choice given the leadership pedigrees of other possible nominees, such as former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. But the pick would help fulfill President-elect Barack Obama ’s pledge...

John McCain was trained as a fighter pilot. In his selection of Sarah Palin, and in his convention and campaigning since, he has shown that he learned an important lesson from his fighter pilot days: He has gotten inside Barack Obama's OODA loop. That term was the invention of the great fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd. It's an acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. "The key to victory is operating at a faster tempo than the enemy," Boyd's biographer Robert Coram writes. "The key thing to understand about Boyd's version is not the mechanical cycle itself, but rather...

Any John Boyd fans out there have comments on round one of the presidential election (fyi Cheney studied Boyd and was instrumental in applying his ideas in Gulf War I).

I recently read and recommend Boyd: The Fighter Pilot who changed the Art of War. by Robert Coran. It is about John Boyd, the man probably most responsible in the change in American fighting from Viet Nam to Gulf II. I won’t go into detail but he emphasizes four factors: initiative, flexibility, harmony and speed. This is opposed to what he calls “Hey diddle diddle, straight down the middle (an example being Normandy).” The essential goal is to get inside the opponents thinking so as to cause confusion and ambivalence. Think of a fighter pilot who knows what his adversary...

So when and how did the U.S. military get this good? The elements of swift victory in Gulf War II have been well laid-out: the agility and flexibility of our forces, the pinpoint accuracy of the bombs, the commanders' real-time view of the battlefield, the remarkable coordination among all branches of the armed services (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) and special operations. But these elements, and this degree of success, have not been seen in previous wars, not even in the first Gulf War 12 years ago. Three major changes have taken hold within the military since then—a new war-fighting...