Dec. 7, 2013
Vol. 2 Issue 154
DAILY DIGEST
OFFICERS TRAIN IN HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT STORY AND PHOTOS BY MC3 ERIC M. BUTLER
I
t’s not unusual to see Marines on board Nimitz practicing martial arts or weapons training in the hangar bay. However, it is unusual to see Marine officers throwing down and sweating it out on the blue training mats almost every night around 8 p.m. For the past month, Marine pilots with the “Death Rat-
tlers” of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 323 have been bringing the speed and intensity in what is called the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP). Led by Sgt. Seree Chang, from Sacramento, Calif., the MCMAP course requires these officers to take time out of their busy training and flight sched-
ules, and get back into some of the basic training elements of the United States Marine Corps that have made even their newly graduated recruits into some of the world’s premier hand-tohand combatants. As the deployment schedule winds down on the ship’s way back to the U.S., the flight schedule has let up enough for Continued on page 2