U. S. Army hand-to-hand combat (no knives)

Another question so I can finish the fight scene I need for the end of my W.I.P.:

What kind of hands-on combat skills would your ordinary U. S. Army draftee learn in the Vietnam War era?

My novel is set in 1983 and my hero, a Vietnam vet, is 16 years out from being discharged. Due to the events of the first story in the series, he's gone back to the gym and for the last seven months has been refreshing his hand-to-hand skills. For the purpose of the story I'm saying he's gotten pretty good at it again.

At this point in the scene, he's in a face to face standoff with a West German Red terrorist opponent. Both of them have handguns. My hero is 6'-4", 220 pounds, in good shape for his age (34 going on 35). His adversary is 5'-10" tall, about 175 pounds, and 27 years old. He's in okay shape, but hasn't been working out much.

The terrorist opponent has no compunction about firing his weapon to kill and is looking for the chance to do just that. My MMC might shoot, if things got desperate. That said, it doesn't work plotwise to have either of these men take a bullet. I just need my hero to disarm the terrorist and put him hors de combat as quickly and feasibly as possible, so he can get to the main villain. That guy's more his size and condition and is presently threatening the life of the female MC, the hero's newly-wedded wife.

Any nasty, fierce, nefarious holds you can suggest for my Army vet MMC to use on these bad guys? In everyday life he's a fine, upstanding, Christian citizen who wouldn't hurt a fly, but under the present circumstances he'll happily go all Old Testament and smite the hell out of anyone who threatens him and his.

As long as he does it with his hands. Shooting and killing would complicate the aftermath way too much. Though I don't think he'd balk at pistol-whipping or barrel-ramming.

 

Draftees in the Viet Nam era would not really be taught any formal martial arts. There would some specific techniques for certain circumstances, not not really formalized. OTOH, any soldier could study martial arts outside of his army career, but it doesn't sound like your MC would have done that. That's how Chuck Norris started, albeit before Viet Nam really kicked off.

 

I don’t have any direct or indirect knowledge of that era, but when I went through Navy officer training hand-to-hand combat was pretty basic, just some fundamentals. Certainly we weren’t turned into ninjas or anything.

 

I’ve trained with people who got interested in martial arts in the military and… well… it’s insufficient to say it mildly. They definitely receive basic hand to hand combat training, which would likely give them the upper edge against the average Joe, but even an athletic teenager with a black belt would likely embarrass them.

The military is focused on efficiency and winning. Hand to hand combat training is probably there more as physical exercise for the troops than actual fighting. For everyone but the special forces, if you’re fighting with your hands, things have gotten beyond fubar.

There’s obviously a wide range of skills, during deployment soldiers make boxing and grappling groups and some train out of pure enjoyment of it like me, so realistically you’ll have a range from absolutely lethal to no skill at all, depending on their particular journey.

even in Vietnam, close quarters combat was not very common, especially for conscripts, and it hasn’t been since WWI. Those famous Vietnam knives were much more for jungle survival than combat. They’re for cutting vines, batoning wood, and sparking fires/signals. Elbows and machetes are useless against bullets and soldiers are always within a few feet of a firearm.

 

I found these documentaries.





And here's a stock footage of the Vietnamese Special Forces trainees learning Taekwondo under the supervision of the Korean instructors in Vietnam.

 

There was no hand to hand training as a part of basic in the late 80s. It was saved for the advanced training in specific jobs.