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BEING forced to strangle a Taliban commander during hand-to-hand combat drove one of the country's most elite warriors to change the way our special forces train for modern warfare.
Australian Commando Paul Cale, an elite soldier from 2 Commando Regiment, created a world-leading close-quarter fighting course after he was caught in a "scuffle" during a night mission while on deployment to Afghanistan in 2007.
This is the first time he has been publicly identified.
"We made entry on some compounds where Taliban leadership was," he said.
"They basically hid where there were little holes in the wall and we had to clear that, then the next minute they were on top of us so it became a hand-to-hand battle.
"I ended up strangling a Taliban as he was screaming 'Allah Akbar'. He turned out to be the 2IC of the Taliban in that region."
The 44-year-old martial artist said he also broke an enemy fighter's shoulder and inflicted other injuries "that were just automatic" given the regiment's limited hand-to-hand combat training at that time.
"Out of that event I realised that what we're teaching is north compared to south ... so I reconstructed the entire CQF (close-quarter fighting) program," he said.
"The outcome is going to be exactly what you train for so if you train to submit someone, then a submission is what you're going to do but if you've got someone fighting for their life they don't care if you break their arm.
"Their arm just breaks and they keep fighting so you have to, in your mind, train for the end state that you want whether that's killing someone or just subduing and placky-cuffing (plastic handcuffs) them."
Sgt Cale said his martial arts training had saved his life on that below -20 degree night in the restive Chora region (Diggers regard the valley as the "badlands").
Cookies must be enabled | Herald Sun
Australian Commando Paul Cale, an elite soldier from 2 Commando Regiment, created a world-leading close-quarter fighting course after he was caught in a "scuffle" during a night mission while on deployment to Afghanistan in 2007.
This is the first time he has been publicly identified.
"We made entry on some compounds where Taliban leadership was," he said.
"They basically hid where there were little holes in the wall and we had to clear that, then the next minute they were on top of us so it became a hand-to-hand battle.
"I ended up strangling a Taliban as he was screaming 'Allah Akbar'. He turned out to be the 2IC of the Taliban in that region."
The 44-year-old martial artist said he also broke an enemy fighter's shoulder and inflicted other injuries "that were just automatic" given the regiment's limited hand-to-hand combat training at that time.
"Out of that event I realised that what we're teaching is north compared to south ... so I reconstructed the entire CQF (close-quarter fighting) program," he said.
"The outcome is going to be exactly what you train for so if you train to submit someone, then a submission is what you're going to do but if you've got someone fighting for their life they don't care if you break their arm.
"Their arm just breaks and they keep fighting so you have to, in your mind, train for the end state that you want whether that's killing someone or just subduing and placky-cuffing (plastic handcuffs) them."
Sgt Cale said his martial arts training had saved his life on that below -20 degree night in the restive Chora region (Diggers regard the valley as the "badlands").
Cookies must be enabled | Herald Sun
