When I was at 2d Recon Bn, I had the opportunity to attend the French Amphibious Commando Course in Martinique. The course is only 3 weeks long, but let me tell you … it’s a ball busting 3 weeks. You train on a little bit of everything jammed into that short course – hand-to-hand, rope work, boat work, and raids and ambushes.
Just a side note, the pictures are not of our class at the course, but they’re the only ones I could find online.
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When I was at 2d Recon Bn, I had the opportunity to attend the French Amphibious Commando Course in Martinique. The course is only 3 weeks long, but let me tell you … it’s a ball busting 3 weeks. You train on a little bit of everything jammed into that short course – hand-to-hand, rope work, boat work, and raids and ambushes.
Just a side note, the pictures are not of our class at the course, but they’re the only ones I could find online.
Intertwined among the obstacle courses was some hand-to-hand training. I have to say that most of the hand to hand was pretty crazy and very different from what we were used to. The coolest thing out of their fighting skills was getting trained on the effective use of the garrote. The garrote is basically a piece of wire used to silently take out an enemy. Cool stuff that we never had been introduced to back stateside.
The final exercise of the course was the last week. We moved about 75 kilometers in less than 36 hours through city streets, rolling hills and double canopy jungle. To say the least, the movement sucked. Guys had bleeding feet, dysentery, fire ant bites and all of our cammies were shredded from the “black palm” ripping into you. It was pretty cool to patrol through peoples’ backyards and get ambushed refitting at a local version of a 7/11. Things you could never do stateside without a lot of coordination. We just kept thinking “Can you imagine if we were in the US and someone saw a fully kit’d out foreign platoon moving in a staggered column through their backyard; total and utter panic. They’d probably shoot us!” Once we finished the raid on the target, we were supposed to get airlifted to the next objective. But, they told us our air was cancelled. Truly, I think that our instructor really didn’t like us. Earlier in the movement, we had offered a local with a school bus $20 USD for a ride within a kilometer of the objective, he agreed. It’s supposed to be a commando course, adapt and overcome, but our wonderful instructor said no vehicles. So we pressed on.
After both final missions were complete, we enjoyed some of the islands finest beer, a lot of it and packed to head back to the states. The course was definitely a gut-check and I will say we all walked away with a couple of new tricks in our bag. Another valuable lesson we all learned is that the island of Martinique does not sell Copenhagen anywhere, so bring enough!
Semper Fi
Bill Janson is a former Recon Marine and is the founder of Eleven 10, a tactical gear manufacturer.
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