More from: "My Time in Service:"
So I got sent TDY to the Infantry School at Ft. Benning for a while. Mostly for evaluating NG and Reserve Mortar units. But I got to attend several Classes and Demonstrations that the Infantry School Sponsored.
One of those lectures taught me the difference between Warriors, and Trainees.
One may have the knowledge and training...but the Warrior has...experience. Real world experience.
And those experiences can imply some frightening situations. When this happened,- in an ordinary Class Room, sitting along folks I had never met. I realized right away that some Warriors have made War...an Art.

So the Class was about disabling a threat hand to hand, and using knife techniques. The Instructor was from the Israeli Mossad...a Colonel if I remember correctly. There were about a hundred Grunts from almost every Branch and every rank sitting in on the lecture. I was a note taker. On my right was an old grizzled Marine Gunny Sergeant. On my left a guy from the Air Force Red Flag. I think I was the only guy in the room without Jump Status, or some form of Special Forces training. Elite guys all of them.
So the Colonel was telling us what to do if a bad guy is coming down the aisle of an airplane with bad intent. (and this was way before 9/11 and was considered an unlikely scenario) The Colonel said:
"Once he passes your seat, you should leap up, choke his neck with your forearm. Then take your knife, and slip it between the seventh and eighth ribs on a forty five degree angle. That way you will rupture the bottom of his heart, and he will bleed out before he can call out, fight back, or struggle."

I was stunned. That is some truly frightening detail to the technique of the knife strike.

The Gunny on my right raised his hand.
"Yes, Gunny?"
"Sir, with no disrespect, but in my experience you better make sure your knife is horizontal, and not vertical. Otherwise the tip could catch on a bone, flip out a kidney and he could still fight you."

I stared at the Gunny. My nether regions shriveling to raisins. How in the heck would he know that? Unless...

So the Colonel ...who looked like a I do now, kinda grandfatherly with a twinkle in his eye...he steps to the side of the podium, and takes his glasses off, wipes them while he thinks.
He responds to the Gunny with this opening statement...

"Well, that is true. But in all the cases I have handled..."
At that point I realized I shouldn't be in this room at all. "...all the cases I have handled." Means he has done this before. Same with the Gunny. How could you know that a knife could catch on a bone and flip out a kidney.
I looked to my left and the Air Force Red Flag guy was just nodding as if he understood both points of view.
I got chills. These people were beyond Soldier. Warriors all. Who knows what kinds of things keep them up at night. I didn't sleep well that night, and all I did was listen. Imagining how they earned those nuggets of technique was enough to put sleep out of the question.
There are some truly well trained deadly warriors on this earth. And I hope to God never to bump up against them in anger.