I served 20 years in the Corps and had a knife on me daily. If it went into the pocket, it was a "pocket knife" If it was in a sheath, it was a "knife". I never considered myself an "Operator" or used the word "tactical" when talking about knives. Looking back, I guess if I had to put a task to being tactical it meant
"Could this thing open a fu#&%ng can of beans!"
I'm sort of glad I served most of my time before the internet & forums as it may have clouded my simple reasoning.
I was in the navy from 1985-89, and I knew six or eight marines on board the ship. (Marine Detachment.) Outside of calling their .45 pistol a "sidearm", and their M4-type rifles or Remington shotgun their "primary weapon" (IIRC), the language they used was fairly normal.
Alright, in light of the "tactic-lol" topic here, I've got to tell this story from my navy days: (This is from my journal from years ago.)
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About late 1986, there was a knife store in a mall in Virginia Beach, that sold mostly kitchen knives and a few pocket knives, but they did have the then-newly-introduced SOG Bowie. That thing was
beautiful, but
WAY out of my budget. I'd go by the store whenever I was there on the weekends and "visit"
"my" SOG. The sales guys were pretty cool guys.
Anyway, one Saturday, I ran into some young guys at the knife store, and they all had high-&-tight haircuts, army boots, green army jackets, etc. They passed themselves off as being either army or marines (I can't remember exactly) and they were about as crazy-nuts-gung-ho-loony as someone could get. Every word they said was something about how this knife was good for "eliminating sentries", that knife could "cut through "Soviet body armor", that other knife "you could do field surgery with" (6" long, overly thick blade
). They were all crowded around a counter looking at the new Cold Steel Tanto.
One guy came over and told me that the SOG Bowie I was looking at was no good, that the "plasticy" handle had a terrible reputation for being slippery when bloody, and that I needed to buy the new M9 bayonet (the store had one on display) because the "handle is specially checkered to be non-slippery in hand-to-hand combat applications" and the "blood groove creates a more traumatic wound." He went on to tell me that the "teeth" (serrations) at the top were for catching the top edge in bone when you "penetrate an adversary", so they couldn't pull the knife out after you stabbed them. (By this time, the sales guys have runny noses now from trying not to laugh.) "My only criticism is it doesn't have a 'skull-cracker' on the butt - but that's okay, the hammer part can be used to smash knuckles on prisoners while you're interrogating them to extract information." ("Hammer-part" - now there's a tactical term for you.
)
He asked what branch I was in, I told him navy, then he asked what I carried on duty (which at the time was a Victorinox ALOX Soldier), and I told him, "a Victorinox ALOX", and I told him I don't really carry it on duty. Then he says - in a very fatherly tone - "oh, you're not qualified with it yet, huh? Well, keep trying, man, you'll get there." (I didn't carry it much at sea, because I worked in aviation, and you don't carry ANY unnecessary items that can get loose and destroy a jet engine.)
He then tells me - and I'm dead serious here - that, "if I'm not qualified to carry a pistol (I was, but didn't need to) and I wasn't able to use a rifle (I could, but didn't need to) and I want to repel boarders and stop shipboard incursions by enemy personnel, I really need the M9."
**
He went on & on, and I finally looked at my watch and said my movie was about to start and left. The cool thing was that a couple hours later, about closing time, I went back in to look at the SOG again, and the sales guys let me look at it for a while, while they closed up. They were still laughing about the army guys.
We left in late December 1986 for a Med Deployment (yes, "deployment" is a real word we used) and I never did get back to see that place. They stocked a lot of overpriced, shiny junk, but they had some good stuff too, and they'd work a decent deal for you if they knew you. Some of the guys working there were ex-military, as was the owner. I miss that place.
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Hell, who needs tactical training and skills? I learned more about "combat applications", "Soviet body armor", "sentry elimination", "teeth" (serrations), "adversaries", and "interrogation" from one short conversation, and I even got a free tutorial on the equipment I needed to repel boarders. Serrations really hadn't hit the market yet (the Spyderco
Worker model wasn't that popular yet) but I'd have loved to see what these guys would have said about serrations.
~Chris
**So, when "Qaddafi's Muppets" do try to board us, I can stop them with my M9. ("Qaddafi's Muppets" - that's what we called the idiot twits in the Libyan navy who threatened to ram U.S. Navy ships with small boats if we ventured into the gulf of Sirte.) This assumes they'll get past 80 marines with shotguns and rifles, 200+ SAF (Ship's Augmentation Force - basically, fat guys with guns who back up the marines), and six helicopters with M60 door guns - not to mention all the other sh!t we'd throw at them, I can charge them with my M9 and save the day.
ps - I have a U.S. M7 bayonet that I bought for myself for my birthday, at a gun show in 2000. I think I've "de-animated" a couple of bagels on a camping trip with it.
