It's easy to kid yourself into thinking that's what war is whenever we had this sort of occupation, you know, counterinsurgency war going on.

But that's not what war is. War is a test of wills where people are, you know, trying to kill each other.

Even if you have some other crazy specialty, the Army needs people who do all kind of wild stuff,

but how do we make sure that they all are warriors?

Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Modern War Institute podcast.

I'm John Ambo, editorial director at MWI, and this episode features a conversation I had with

Matt Larson, known in many corners of the Army as the father of modern combatives.

He was a key figure in the Army's effort to introduce better and more widespread training in hand-to-hand combat.

Any listeners who are in the army or who have been in the last 15 years or more

will almost certainly have taken part in the combattist training that Matt helped create.

He talks about why he thinks that sort of training is so important, but in our discussion,

he also talks a lot about this notion of a warrior ethos. What that is and why, as he argues,

it's something that needs to exist throughout the entire army, not just in infantry or other combat arms

units.

It is a great conversation, but before we get to it really quickly, just a couple things.

First, hopefully you're already subscribed to the MWI podcast.

If not, you can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcast.

And if you like what you hear, please take just a couple quick moments

and leave us a rating or give us a review.

It really is a huge help in getting the word out to new listeners.

And second, as always,

what you hear in this episode are the views of the participants

...