It never ceases to amaze me those that consider themselves authorities on military close combat that have never volunteered trained tested and qualified on a military combative course of instruction, hardly committed and no conviction to achievement advancement and expertise. Even more amazing is that many of these dubious intentioned individuals are self promoted instructors of military CQC or CQB or self proclaimed experts on the subject. Often such individuals criticize those who have trained, qualified, and work full time, or are respected, retired, qualified military combative instructors with long-term records of instructing service.

The unfortunate thing is the detractor individuals with dubious motives and alternate agendas are usually drawn together through forums and social media where they can do their utmost to put down those that have what they don’t.
Unfortunately, they will often try and gain credibility by association, by getting anyone with any amount of combative credibility involved in their smear campaigns.

They sow the seeds in an effort to get others to continue with their campaigns of innuendo and often false statements of partial information inclusions. Some operate under code names, others their own names from the safety of their arm chairs, knowing that the credible are hardly going to personally confront them across the country or globe. Including partial information and hearsay, and often without the sources name, can hardly be considered credible.

For those with the combative smarts, the modus operandi of these detractors is transparent and their objectives apparent and obvious. In order to be an authority on military close combat, surely the individual or individuals must have qualification and expertise in close combat to be taken seriously. So, a simple request for proof of military combative courses attended and passed, including instructor qualification and records of military combative instructor service, would identify credibility.

Those with credibility need to ensure they do not fall for suspect smear campaigns by dubious detractors of credible combative instructors. They to need to do some research on both sides to protect themselves from being part of such a dubious smear campaign. Most of these dubious individuals have no long-term, hands-on commitment to military combative training and do not operate recognized professional training facilities. They do not write approved and adopted military combative programs or have military combative instructor long-term service or military combative contract instructor long-term records of service.

Their dubious agendas are very apparent when the subject of their malice is completely contactable but they choose to post on public forums or social media rather than having the intestinal fortitude to contact or even better face up to the subject of their smear campaigns. They need and want the support and assistance of others to do their dirty work for them and add fuel to their no contact “attack”.

Without the Internet, these dubious subjects with obviously way to much down time on their hands would find it difficult to spread their malicious smear campaigns and get anyone to know of their pathetic existence.

So genuine combative enthusiasts, I am sure you can see through such detractors in regards to having any level of authority or expertise to support their public smear campaigns. After all, anyone who has never achieved military combative course passes, promotion, rank, and instructor service in military close combat can hardly be considered any kind of authority on the subject.

So what I do when I receive such smear campaigns is look at it from a comparison between the subject of the smear campaign and the detractor. I do what my superiors told me and that is, instead of not taking kindly to such fools, simply don’t give them the time of day. Knowledge is power and knowing those that are not credible and have no professional integrity is part of being well informed. You can then disregard them as credible and not need to waste any further valuable time on them in the future. I would never recommend giving them, once identified as low integrity keyboard no contact attackers, any reply as they do not deserve it and you do not want to lower yourself to their level of being lower than a snake’s belly. They will most likely only use your reply to fuel their smear campaign by any dubious means or slant they can conjure up.

I compare the following for my professional determination of credibility and expertise between the subject of the smear campaign and the detractor. This a simple template to use and by doing an Internet search you will usually be able to find credible information on the subject and their contact details.

• Rank and qualification in military close combat and not in non-approved or not relevant civilian fighting arts.
• Years as a military combative instructor and instructing service details.
• Development of military official adopted programs to services units and groups and the duration of programs utilization.
• Development of equipment and weapons for CQC/CQB.
• International involvement in military close combat, countries and services.
• Civilian combative operation HQ and national and international depots, system instructors, and the duration, scope, and caliber of the network.

Working in the public domain means an obligation for disclosure of information of credibility and expertise on request from interested individuals and they should expect proof of qualification expertise and instructor service. Much information can be found on professional instructors own websites and while they may not want to make all their records of service and qualification public, they certainly should want potential exponents to know they are trained and qualified in the subject matter promoted.

Be warned. Asking those without integrity and expertise questions in regards to their rank, qualifications, and instructor service records can start a smear campaign against you for asking legitimate questions. The reasoning being is that is all they can do, being so insecure and lacking in substance and expertise. Very much a case of lashing out with text from a distance because of having no credible proof of rank, qualification, expertise, and instructor service to offer.

I hope this assists those wanting to take a proper means to finding the facts on both sides the manly professional way and protect themselves from becoming a subject of a smear campaign. Unfortunately any publicity including smear campaigns can be positive for recruiting but not always attracts the wanted responsible types and who needs the support of individuals with hidden agendas and alternate motives to attract unsuitable people.