AETC looks at beefing up basic with combatives

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AETC looks at beefing up basic with combatives
By Erik Holmes - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Dec 9, 2008 20:54:31 EST

The Air Force is considering adding hand-to-hand combat instruction to Basic Military Training, the service’s top education and training officer said Monday.

But that change will have to wait until the dust settles on the new, expanded BMT program that started in November, said Gen. Stephen Lorenz, commander of Air Education and Training Command.

“We have not as of yet added it to the Basic Military Training, but we just set up the new 8½-week , and it will probably be put into the program sometime in the future,” Lorenz said in a phone interview.

The Air Force Combatives Program was approved in March and has been added to the officer accession sources — Officer Training School, the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and the Air Force Academy. It also will be added to the Air and Space Basic Course for new officers in 2009, Lorenz said.

But so far, the only enlisted airmen to participate in the new combatives program are Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape specialists and airmen who have been trained to teach the program, though airmen throughout the Air Force have been learning combatives skills through base-level initiatives.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/12/airforce_combatives_121008/%2e